LMAO / Turn it All Around!

 So, they say when life gives you lemons you're to make lemonade, right? Well, how about this, how about when you make the biggest soap mess possible, you turn it around and make another (reformed) recipe and turn the gloppy hard solid "mashed potatoes" into bourbon honey ginger milk soap! Yeah, that's what you do! You take the bad and you think fast. You think about all the ways you screwed up because you don't ever want to sweep that under the rug. No, you want to remember what you did, and remember what you'll never do again.  Take the bad, think, and reform. That's the ticket! Let me explain.

    Yesterday my daughter and I were making another batch of soap to give as Christmas gifts. This soap making thing is new to us, and we're just literally at the very start of it. We had poured about 3 different batters without really any problems. We followed the recipes, we watched the videos, and we were ready! Let me tell you - - we did such a great job. Then Laura left me unattended. That can be a disaster all by itself folks, that can be...well, yeah.  I learn a lot when I'm left unattended. 

    I set the lye water just perfectly fine, no issues there. I set the lye water to the side, let it cool a bit, and I began mixing and melting the coconut oil, the palm oil, the mango butter, before pouring the liquid into the measured olive, castor, almond, and avocado oils. There are so many various oils to use and they all bring unique textures and properties to the soap. For instance, did you know the castor oil is the product that creates the suds in the soaps? Did you know that? I did not know that.  I was standing there at the stove with my cooled oils with a temperature reading of about 120 degrees. My lye water was close to that, so now it's time to add the sodium lactate to the water, did that.  Next you pour the water into the oils, and you burst stir it with the stick blender, alternating the burst for manual stirring -- after you do it a few times you get the hang of it. You wait for the "trace" to form just a bit on the top of the mix and that's when you add the color and the scents. I started with the scents.  I chose a really cool oily mix called "Lick Me All Over", which yeah, I know, it's sort of sexy, sort of fun, right?  OMG....LOOK OUT!

    I poured in the oily mix scent and within seconds, I mean SECONDS, my batter was hard, it was solidifying and it was clumping around my blender like thick mashed potatoes. Same color as mashed taters too, because I didn't have time to put the pink colorant in before I had one big fat ugly mess on my hands and at 120-125 degrees I couldn't just grab it with my hands and start packing it into the silicone molds in order to try and make something valuable from it, but yep, that's what I was doing. Hands digging in, slapping that mix into the silicone molds and frantically pushing, packing, trying to get every tiny crack filled up (filled in) with soap so that it wouldn't set up and crumble. NO DICE. I suck! Truth. I suck. It was about that time that I took a minute and read the scent oil bottle's little written label that clearly stated it was suitable for LIQUID soap - - not poured soap - - and yes, there is a big difference folks.

    I let the soap set for a few hours, popped it out of the mold and then cut it up into squares with the slicer because I'm not going to lie, the cutting of the soap is really so very satisfying. It's like watching paint drip into a pan or something. You just love doing it. Cutting soap could be my newest hobby. I could do it for hours and never complain.  I cut the soap, I let it sit up on a little towel overnight and tried to think of a way to save it.  I knew (know) that if I let it cure 3 weeks and try to use it as regular bars of soap it will end up breaking apart probably after one or two uses. Not good. What do you do? What do you do to save the batch, the money you spent on oils and scent? Each batch can cost about $7.00-10.00 and you don't want to just throw it out do you? No, there must be a way to save it. I knew there had to be, so I looked it up. I was right -- many many people have faced the same problems. You can also collect old bits of soap that most people just throw away. You can reform it (melt) by using heat and either milk, water, goat's milk, etc. I chose lactose free 2% because that's what I had. It worked.

    JUST because I can, just because I thought it would be cool, and possibly make a difference, I decided to add a few tablespoons of ginger powder and honey. Why? Oh, I don't know, I saw a lady who had a batch of ginger, tumeric, and honey soap and thought maybe I can do that. Well, it started to really melt up pretty good, but then bubbles began to form on the top and you don't want that to happen. It looks funny and I don't want it to interfere with the solid bars either. What do you do? Well, you can use 90% alcohol and spray or spritz it on top, or you can do what I did, and that was to pour the old Kentucky Bourbon I had in the cabinet into a spray bottle, and you can spray the top of the heated mix with a few dozen spritzes until the bubbles disappear.  It worked. It also turned the gingery brown liquid into a little watery looking which only added to the character; really cool.

    I don't drink, so the 1/3 bottle of Bourbon I had in the cabinet was probably over a few years old. Does Bourbon go bad? It worked. and now I have a new idea for the old, the broken, the ruined, or just a new and exciting recipe that could end up being a multi-million dollar sales product for me. LOL That would make me laugh.  So, Lick Me All Over, or LMAO for short turns out as Honey Ginger Bourbon...it's all good.  Good in the hood.  

    My dogs watch me dance and giggle while I'm left alone in the kitchen. They know they will be entertained. They don't even beg for treats at that point, they're just too interested and engaged with the spectacle before them. By the way, there was no artificial colorants used for the Honey Ginger Bourbon soaps, and they turned out so gloriously golden brown. I do love it. Let me tell you...I love this soap making folks. Just love it.  A batch can cost about $7 and you can sell each bar (10 in the loaf + 1 or 12 bars in the molds) for $4.00 each, or $44/48.  Not a bad thing. You can see why no one wants to let the mashed potatoes hit the trash bin. Nope. Not when I can reform, remelt, reinvent, restore, or just plain find a way!  MAKE IT HAPPEN PEOPLE.

Photo Credit:  Me!