Life's Lessons Learned or 'Triple L'

Yeah, just when you think you have something down pat and things have been going well, karma reaches up and raises it's little head.  What am I talking about?  Soap making, that's what.

So I subscribe to this YouTube channel called "Soaping 101" and it has various instructional videos on how to different soap techniques.  I had watched 2 that really interested me.

One was how to swirl soap.

And the other was making loofah soap.

How hard could it be?  Enter karma, stage left.....

I made sure to gather all my ingredients, I had my colors for my swirls, I got a tube container (Pringles can), my loofah and the extra containers to separate my soap for the different colors I wanted to use.

I knew I had to be careful with the fragrance because once it is added to the liquid soap mixture, the soap would start to solidify at a faster rate.  I added it last.

So, the loofah soap appeared to be OK, since that was the one I started with first.  Poured into the tube just fine and life was good! 

What I didn't realized was the fast solidification is like TIGER FAST.  What compounded this process was the fact that I didn't realize it was setting up so fast until I grabbed my container of colored soap to pour into the mold and the soap had the consistency of jello instead of thick gravy.  I checked my other colors and the same thing happened.  I knew my time was limited and I HAD to get the soap in the mold.

At this point I was thinking, to hell with pretty, move your ass and get this done!

The pictures you see below are a result of this 'learning' process.

Here are both soaps (above).  The rectangular log on the left looks like it has some kind of disease.  Not very eye appealing.  The round thing there is the loofah soap.  Yeah, you can see part all of the loofah here.

My soap log.  I had 3 colors, white, brown & purple.  The soap went into the mold in chunks since it was setting up so fast and the colors didn't fully mesh together.  This is why it looks like there are hole in it.  

Oh, and something else I realized when I took the soap out of the mold, the side nearest the camera (above) is way higher than the side farthest away. Not only did it come out looking ugly, but I couldn't even make the top close to even. Yep, I'm on a roll now!

I tried to put some kind of pattern on the top, that failed miserably too.  I told a friend at work it reminded me of cottage cheese in milk, but now that I think about it, cottage cheese would look better than this.

A side view

When I took the loofah soap out of the mold, it was a big surprise.  I don't know if I will every trust soap again after it played this little trick on me.  Do you see the right side of the soap where it has that ring of unblemished white?  That was the top of the can and it appeared to me that the soap had soaked into the entire loofah.  Just below that ring is part of the loofah with NO SOAP.  How did that happen?  Good question, I have no idea.  What I do know is that when I try this again, I'm using a PVC tube that is definitely bigger than a loofah.

A Close up.

Another view, now that I look at this more it reminds me of a beer with a foamy head.  Or maybe I'm just thirsty.

Let me just say that I have volunteers from work (Susan & Ingrid) who said they would make the ultimate sacrifice and try this soap out.  So I think I'll take them up on it.

I am going to let these beauties cure for a week before I start slicing and dicing.  I know the soap is good, it's just ugly.  Hey! Maybe that's a marketing technique I can use.  The Genie Bar Ugly Soap line.  I'll have to think about that.

Please note that this has not deterred me from making more, I see this as a learning experience.  How else will I get better, right?