Sad, crumbly soap
Autumn has arrived in my little corner of the world and I was so excited that I flung open the windows, cleaned the house, and started to make my first batch of autumn soap!
In my excitement, that day I had ordered some new fall fragrance oils, but then I just couldn’t wait the two days for them to arrive in the mail, so I bought some extracts from the grocery store and began my new soap endeavor. This one was going to be a warm yet zesty blend of vanilla and lemon for a lemon soufflé soap.
In my autumn-eyed haze, somehow I managed to make one dire mistake in my soap making adventure: I added one ounce too much lye. And if there’s one soap mishap that cannot (or at least SHOULD NOT) be rebatched, it’s lye heavy soap.
My lemon soufflé soap bars became a sad, crumbly mess, and one that I would not repair.
Some use lye heavy soap as laundry detergent, however I would not recommend this because lye heavy soap can not only damage your skin, but can break down the fibers in your clothes.
I didn’t realize what I had done until I placed my soap loaf into my wonderful Bramble Berry soap cutter, pulled down, and the soap was a bit crumbly on the exterior but incredibly hard to cut once past the crumbles.
I certainly didn’t want to break any of the strings on my beloved cutter, so I removed it and used my manual soap cutter to pierce through it. And yep, it was hard, it was crumbly, it was lye heavy.
My super amazing Bramble Berry wire soap cutter that I cherish like I cherish my musical instruments, and whose strings I did not wish to break, mainly because I’m really bad at repairing stuff like that.
As much as I hated doing so, I had to toss the whole thing out. One may not think that an ounce in a whole loaf would make much of a difference, but oh my, it does. Oh well, my new scents should arrive tomorrow and I can get a fresh start…