One Beautiful Botched Batch of Soap

Isn't this a beautiful soap!  This soap is actually a mishap that couldn't have been planned.  The soap has a Rose fragrance and was supposed to be pink/rose colored.  However, the soap seized in the pot and it turned out orange.  The result.....a beautiful mistake.  This soap now sports the name of an orange colored rose, Tuscan Sun and the seizing of the soap has resulted in a very interesting texture in the soap.  This is proof that even when our best plans don't turn out exactly as we would like, the results can still be stunning.

Soap making is certainly creative and always an adventure!

Thanks Shelly for sharing your beautiful photo and good work in creating unique handcrafted soap!

Disappointment Turns to Profit

I thought I'd post a picture of a soap I created that I initially believed turned out disappointingly. This soap is a seasonal soap I make for Christmas. It uses the Sweetcakes fragrance oil called Christmas Spice. Not reading the description very well I didn't notice it had vanilla in the fragrance. Vanilla will always turn your soap brown. SO what I had envisioned:

a creamy white soap with a green and red swirl (beautiful for Christmas!)

What I got:

brown soap with a green and red swirl.

Well, I took the soap to market anyway and sold out. In fact it sold so fast that I have never changed the way I make this soap. The green and red are made from pigments that I had originally bought from the pigment lady on-line. She is no longer in business, but I do recommend getting pigments from Brambleberry now. I'm not sure they have the crimson pigment or the jade pigment I used for this soap, but if they get enough requests perhaps they will carry it. Also they may have colors that will get similar results.

To make this soap I took a couple of cups of soap out of the main pot at light trace and mixed the pigment into them (each color needs its own little container to mix in). Then I poured the main soap into the mold. After pouring the soap into the mold I then poured each green and red into the soap and swirled a little with a stainless steel knife. I emphasize a little because if you swirl too much the color gets blended in and I really wanted a more chunky swirl (which is why I didn't pour the color into the pot before pouring into the mold).

This soap sells well in the fall where I live. I live in the north where Christmas time is coooold and people do lots of holiday baking and this soap is reminiscent of delicious baked goods.

Gingerbread Hand Soap

It's never too early to begin planning for your next years' soap specials. One soap that I am planning to make is Gingerbread Hand Soap. I plan to make a goat milk soap (which will naturally turn a lovely shade of brown). Then I will take a small gingerbread man cookie cutter and cut out a gingerbread man from the bars while they are still soft. Make sure you do this right away when you cut your bars, or the soap will get to hard too slice through with a cookie cutter. You can actually slice your soap a little thinner for this soap. You'll get more bars of soap to sell and they will be easier to cut.

I haven't really determined if and how I am going to attach some decoration to the soap (like a smiling face and some rick rack on his hands and feet). Any ideas? A good fragrance would be Christmas Spice from Sweetcakes. There may be a better gingerbread FO, but I have never used this fragrance before. I really try to stay to fragrances I know will sell so I'm not sure if I will venture to try something new. If anyone out there has experience with a gingerbread fragrance, let me know in the comments.

Well, I guess I will dream "visions of sugar plums" tonight and perhaps I'll be inspired to think of a few other "cookie cutter soaps." I guess that will be another post!

Also, I have never done this kind of soap before because itinvolves "waste" in your soap. I have never been fond of rebatching, so if there are any ideas on what to do with the scraps -- I'm all ears.

Please visit my website at How to Make Soap.

How to Make Confetti Soap

One year I wanted learn...
How to Make Confetti Soap

While I was visiting a friend -- fellow soap maker -- I noticed a pretty soap that she had curing. She told me how she made hers and I went home with the intension of creating something that looked like hers. That is not what happened however. It is funny how many things go into making soap and how, if just one part of the process isn't right, it can change the entire batch!

This is how I made confetti soap.


I took my most basic non-milk soap recipe and made a single batch. Prior to making it, I took melt and pour glycering soap and colored small amounts with candle colorants. I had several colors, like red, blue, green, yellow, purple, pink, etc. I cut the small colored glycerine soap into tiny chunks, like diced potatoes, and had them ready. When I was ready to pour my cold process soap into a large wooden loaf mold, I poured it in and immediately poured the glycerine chunks in. I stirred them with my spoon to incorporate well and let it saponify. You have to be careful not to overflow your mold or have a second mold ready if you think you may need two molds instead of one (because the volume of your soap INCREASES when you add the glycerine chunks).

I expected to get a beautiful white soap with chunks of color in it. But this is what happened. I put a holiday fragrance in the soap, not knowing that there was some vanilla in the fragrance oil. The soap turned TAN!!! with colorful chunks. Now I have to admit that I was disappointed, but the soap really did look beautiful. It was just different than what I was expecting. It sold very well, but I never made it that way again.

Some of my best selling soaps looked different than what I was anticipating, but when I changed them to what I actually WANTED, they didn't sell as well, so I went back to the "mistake" that originally occurred.

A note for those of you who may want to learn how to make a confetti soap. If the soap doesn't get used within the first 6 - 9 months, the colorants begin to bleed into the rest of the soap. So don't make this soap unless you can sell it right after it cures. Also, tell your customers not to display it too long before using.

I think this confetti soap is beautiful! It makes a great Christmas Soap!

If you would like to see how to make soap you can check out my new DVD Basic Soap Making at How to Make Confetti Soap