Creative Fixes and Ideas - Day 1

Okay, so I have made some doozy mistakes when making lotions, scrubs and soaps. While mistakes can be rather disheartening, the good news it that many are fixable. This week we will be covering a number of mistakes that can happen and how you can fix them! Come join us. This is one week you don’t want to miss!

So let me start at the beginning. When I make a mistake in my math, it tends to leave spectacular results. Anyone remember my conversion catastrophe? That was a mathematical disaster!

Anyway, as we have has a few days of cooler weather recently I started thinking about making soaps for fall. After all, one does need to make sure the bathrooms and showers are fully stocked with good soap. As I perused the fragrance collection, I decided on using Honey Almond.

I love the smell of Honey Almond. It reminds me of a fresh baked Almond Loaf or of a decadent Bee Sting. Both pasties are absolutely divine. These items always remind me of the days where the nights suggest impending fall yet the days still feel like summer.

I sat down and planned out my soap. I planned on making a 3 lb batch. I calculated my lye and my fragrance. I decided on a strong scent. For a 3 lb batch, our fragrance calculator recommends 2.25% fragrance. Or 1.08 oz of fragrance. I neglected to ensure I had enough Shea Butter to make my soap. (Some of you may be able to see what it coming.)

So I went to the kitchen and started to weigh my materials. I actually weighed my fragrance out first. Then I moved onto my fixed oils. I started with my Shea Butter and discovered I only had enough to make a 1 lb batch of soap. Just as I was finished redoing my calculations, the doorbell rang.

After coming back from answering the door, I got back to my soapmaking. Except I forgot to adjust my amount of fragrance oil! After all, it was already measured out.

I proceeded to make my soap. I remember picking up my container of fragrance and thinking “Gosh, that seems like a lot.” After I added my fragrance to my soap I was assaulted with an eye-watering cloud of Honey Almond Fragrance Oil. As I stirred my soap, I thought “I wonder why this is so intense. I don’t remember it being this strong.” I poured my soap into my mold and left it for the next day.

Fast forward to when I unmold my soap. The fragrance was still overpowering! So I went to check my notes and found I had not adjusted my amount of fragrance oil. (Notes are so critical!) Whoops! Now what do I do with this overly scented soap? This is way too strong to be elevator friendly, let alone bathroom friendly. So how do we fix this?!

Well, we can either shred the soap and make a confetti soap or we can cut it into chunks and make a mosaic style soap. I personally tend to prefer the confetti style soaps because I can quickly shred my soap and move onto my other projects. Choose whichever you prefer. Because I used almost 7% fragrance, I will need to make 2 lbs of unscented soap. (It is what I had planned originally. Sort of.)

I shredded my soap and place my shreds into my mold. I then poured my unscented soap over those shreds. Whew! A near disaster averted. Now just to wait to cut the soap. What do you think? Pretty cool for a soap.