I have a confession to make. Sometimes, I make really ugly soap. I don’t do it intentionally, believe me. I have an idea in my head and it seems like a good idea until I start to pour the soap.
Check out my latest failure:
I want to look away but I can’t.
I was going for a spring inspired honeysuckle scented confetti soap with cute flowers on the top. My original plan was to use a white, shea butter base as a background, which would have really made the colors pop.
At the last minute, I diverted from the plan when a pretty light blue mica caught my eye. I thought that mica would look great in clear glycerin. Not only did it not look at all like I thought it would, I had a big problem with air bubbles and the pink flowers all but disappeared.
It looked so much better in my head.
Feeling dejected, I set this soap aside for a few weeks while I focused on other creations. But, the failed batch didn’t leave my mind; I needed to salvage it somehow. The loaf was four pounds of melt and pour soap and I didn’t want it to go to waste.
So, when I had a little time in my schedule, I broke out the ugly soap and formed a plan. I decided to chop it into tiny pieces and embed those pieces into a new loaf, this time using the white shea butter base I had originally planned to use.
I filled the bottom of my loaf mold with the cut up pieces and filled the loaf half way up with the shea butter base.
After that layer formed a thick skin, I poured the other half of the white base and added a tiny bit of left over pink glycerin soap to give the top a slight blush. I used a spoon to move the top layer around as the soap cooled to get the texture. I’m pretty happy with the new design and the soaps smell lovely.
The soap looks great now! Good job on saving it 🙂
I hate it when the result is far from the plan when making soap.
Thanks, Marte! It’s all a part of the learning process, right? I love that melt and pour is so easy to salvage. I haven’t figured out how to salvage my cold process mess ups but I’m working on that.
Absolutely! So far I haven’t tried making cold process soap, so I have no idea myself. In my experience, all soaps can be cut to be cute, for an example using a wavy cutter 🙂
Reblogged this on Haven of Inspiration.
I am laughing so hard right now at many comments within your post because I KNOW the feeling! Your ‘after’ version came out truly lovely! Well done.
Thanks for stopping by, Tina! I’m glad you enjoyed the post.