I set out yesterday to make soap, but what I made was a mess. Because this might help someone else, I’ll share my experience here.
My version of Soap On A Stick thanks to a measurement error I made.
The recipe I used was just fine, and I ran it through our Lye Calculator to determine how much water and lye needed to be added. I chose Rainbow Beach fragrance oil, which did not misbehave in our test batches.
Oils melted – check. Lye solution made – check. Both cooled to about 95ºF. When I mixed up the soap, I quickly ended up with soap on a stick. WHAT?!
I texted our technical support team to tell them what had happened with the fragrance. As I was looking at my notes and texting all the details of the batch, I realized I’d misread the water recommendation and inadvertently used a very steep water discount. That’s why I got soap on a stick.
Well crumb! Back to the drawing board with the soap. I’ll be working on that later today, but I wanted to let you all in on the experience I had.
What could have been done differently? One thing is I needed to be paying closer attention to the notes I’d written so I would not use an incorrect amount of something. It basically boils down to paying attention to what I’m doing rather than letting my mind wander.
I’m thankful to know I’m in good company, as it seems all of us have at one time or other made an error or forgot an ingredient that caused a batch of soap to fail. What have you learned from making mistakes?
