Ohmgosh! Lemme tell you about what happened today! I've been waiting all week to feel better so I could make a beautiful batch of Lilac tallow soap for my spring line. This is actually the first time I have had a "spring line" and I'm a little excited.
So I spent several hours melting luxury oils and measuring and deciding on colors and fragrances. I made my recipe in soapcalc - which is an online recipe software for soaping. It was to be a 5 lb batch, which, when you're making it, is more like 7 lbs. I probably had $50 or more tied up in this batch. It was to be ready by Mother's Day, which is when I was planning to begin advertising.
I decided to put coconut milk in the recipe at the last minute because I'd seen someone on YouTube who had done that and said it made a fabulous creamy soap. I want my customers to have fabulous creamy soap.
Everything looked good as I was making it. I carefully poured two colors into my silicone molds because I wanted a beautiful white swirl in the lavender soap when it was done.
I was exhausted after working on it for several hours as I've had a bad bug all week and haven't been on my feet all that much. Then it happened. To my horror, when I came back into my soaping room to get my dishes to wash, and checked my molds, I saw a soaper's nightmare. The soap in the largest mold (a silicone tube) was leaching out of the bottom (I'd sealed it but the seal didn't hold) and the towels I had placed around them were soaked with my beautiful soap. I lifted the towels and was able to salvage some of the mess and scoop it into a different mold - but it's not very pretty and I can't sell that. The smaller mold was intact but the ingredients had separated and I had a mold full of oil. What a mess.
You have no idea how sad this girl is. I hand render my beef tallow 4 times before I use it. There's so much work involved in that - and that's before I even start to make products.
Anyway, I'll quit whining. it's life. Stuff happens. I've been to college and I just think of stuff like this as earning a credit inlife. A credit in soapmaking. I think I'll title this credit, "Don't Change The Recipe At The Last Minute"
