Humble Pie

Serve it up and I shall eat it all. My botched batch from last night delivered, showing me yet again to not underestimate what soap can do and to not give up if things go awry.

As I was about to pour in my lye water, I realized I had made a serious miscalculation by putting my extra water into the colors instead of into the oils. I was using some NG's Fresh Cut Roses in my FO blend and while FCR's is well-known for behaving, that's not in a huge water discount, which was what my oils and lye water were going to be, since my liquids sat in cups on my counter. If it started tracing, adding the water from the cups was just going to worsen everything but all my colors were mixed and I didn't want to add an excess of water. I poured and stirred.

"Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease..." and as soon as it hit emulsion I started pouring but it was about 10 steps ahead of me. By the time I poured into my third or fourth color, it was thickening but I went ahead and poured, all 7 colors and 9 cups. Some of them I could stir still but the color was difficult to incorporate. Not wanting to have my soap bring me to my knees, I stolidly continued on as if I could still make this work. I was not winning the race, so I started stirring each cup up with my (gloved) fingers, scooping it out by hand and quite literally throwing it into the mold. Some of the colors I had to squish between my fingers to get it partially mixed and than WHAP, into the mold it went. After slamming the mold down like a dominatrix, but without the confidence, I manhandled my swirl tool (this now seems to be going in the wrong direction with the innuendo) through the batter, which was more like parting the Red Sea because where ever I shoved the batter, it stayed, leaving a wide gap in its wake. I slammed that mold down over and over and then used my hand to push the batter down and close any air gaps and "smooth out" the top.  Smooth is an exaggeration of large proportions and the top looked a horror from blended colors. I covered it with a blanket to hide my shame and to let it gel.

Well well well, my ugly duckling soap needed only to shake off (okay, cut off) its top layer to show me its beauty. No, its not for everyone, but I absolutely love it.