Wednesday 11 August 2010

Ugly Soap

Here is so far, the ugliest soap I have ever made! Wow! Smells DEVINE, reminiscent of those lovely candies - Humbugs - but UGLY. I probably shouldn’t be posting ugly soap photos... but if it helps us learn I am willing to share.



This was going to be a Honey Coconut-Milk Shampoo bar, but 2 little things went wrong and I got this!

1) I miscalculated the honey and put in almost double what I should have...
2) I was trying The Soap Pixie’s advice on adding honey to water so that it is liquid when adding at trace... However I didn’t let the honey-water mix cool down enough so after all of my work getting the coconut milk and oils to the same brilliant temperature of 32º before mixing, then mixing and bringing it to trace nicely, when I added the honey-water mix it set so quickly that it almost froze and went bright orange! I had to scoop, pat, push, coerce the mix into the moulds... then thumped the moulds a little hoping the mix would settle but NO. I pushed & poked some more...

So, if this one cures nicely, I will have a bunch of UGLY but deliciously smelling Shampoo Bars LOADED with honey. ALL for my own personal consumption!!

I will make another attempt and maybe post pix so you can see the difference a little temperature can make!

PS. I have since cut this soap into bars and it crumbled at the bottom... can all this really be down to temperature & over doing the honey?

13 comments:

Larissa said...

The honey shouldn't hurt it, except to make it dark - we did a batch with too much honey once (granted, it was hot process) - but overheating can really mess with soap. We've had some... *interesting*... results from overheating.

To me, though, it looks like caramel! So rather than thinking "ugly" when I see it, I'm thinking "hungry."

Maggie said...

It looks like caramel! Now you just need nuts in them to turn them into some tasty snacks. ;)

Dörte said...

ja, ja, ja, ich bin nicht allein mit den mi?ratenen und viele andere haben sicher auch Erfahrung mit den Unschönen, lach.
Das macht doch gar nichts, sie sieht sehr lecker nach Karamell-Bonbon aus.

liebe Grüße Dörte

The Soap Sister said...

I think it looks like caramel, too! Yummy! I could get a loose rown just looking at it! LOL
Please let us know how it works as a shampoo. ~Becky

Atenea said...

En vez de llamarlo Jabón feo, llamalo Jabón de Caramelo. Yo hoy he hecho un jabón de miel y no se como quedará, pero suelen quedarse oscuros. No hay que poner mucha miel porque coge mucha temperatura y no hay que abrigarlo despues. A mi me gusta mucho el jabón con miel. Seguro que aunque sea feo como tu dices, será un excelente jabón. Besicos.

Wendy.B said...

Define ugly.. but wow what an awesome colour though. It looks like a piece of toffee. Wish I could get my honey and cinnamon soap that colour.

SierraSnowSoaps said...

I think it looks good enough to eat!
Michelle in NV

karen lee said...

I just love that you share this with us! Many would not even take a photo. Wonderful how you love to experiment and then make it public how you went - good or not so good - I couldn't call this bad 'cause it actually looks interesting (yes, very much like caramel blocks) and could well into something beautiful!
I'm sure everyone has some 'not so pretty soaps' they've made - just not as honest as you!
Keep up the great work!

Cocobong Soaps said...

Jen, I agree with Larissa..the amount of honey will do something to the heat but shouldn't harm the outcome if you work at cool temps. I warm up honey in a small makeshift double boiler, then add it at trace. Never had a problem.
Also, there is no such thing as ugly soap ;)

Jennifer Young said...

Thank you so much for all the comments! Yes it does look a little like caramel or Toffee... wow how wonderfully able you all are to see the positive side of things. Cocobong says there is no such thing as ugly soap? Okay. This is "Unique" Soap - Caramelly shampoo... I have made honey shampoo soaps before with no problems. I am rather stumped with this one, as it has happened twice since. I will be changing the recipe and trying again. xoxo Jen

Ambra said...

OMG, pretty it ain't :D
But if it were toffee I'd eat it. You should rebatch this. I'm sure it will look great when you do. The colour is really nice. But about honey, I always put it into the lye water before I pour it into the oils. I don't know if that makes a difference.

Amy W said...

Any time my soap is crumbly on the bottom, it's usually because the lye didn't get stirred in well enough. I've had trouble with this doing my castile soap, as well as my lye soap with 0% superfat. I've since learned to stir both of these as long as I can. The fact that your soap set up quickly makes me think this might be the case for yours too. It does look like a lovely caramel soap though!

Natural Aroma Handmade Soaps said...

Very unique Jen:) the colour is beautiful and it sure does look good enough to eat. You should tell people that is just what you wanted it to look like, a nice big bar of toffee or even fudge, yum!