Soapmaking Adventure

So today I decided to make some luxury soap and created a de-lovely recipe. I put in about 50% olive oil for conditioning, 40% coconut oil for a fluffy lather and a hard bar, and 10% palm oil for moisturizing and a stable lather. I decided to add mango butter at the very end, so it acts as a moisturizer, mango fragrance and some paprika for a pretty orange speckled look. One thing I didn't add into the equation was that I have made exactly the same recipe for hundreds of test batches of soap, and this is nothing like that simple, basic coconut oil and Crisco recipe.

I stirred and stirred, but it looks different in the process than my usual test recipe ... panic sets in "Did I screw up the when I weighed the ingredients??"

As I approached the end, I thought, oh, okay the olive oil is making it look different, I didn't screw up. I added my paprika and fragrance and the grand finale was the mango butter. My soap was at the point where it must go in the mould NOW and I realized "Yikes ... I forgot to melt the mango butter!!". I quickly popped it in the microwave for 30 seconds, trying not to let the batch go past the point of no return ... 30 second wasn't enough!! Another 60 seconds .... Finally I got it into the waiting soap pot and stirred it in. My beautiful soap had gone from a lovely yoghurt texture to thick mashed potatoes. Instead of pouring it into the moulds, I scooped it in.

It looked yucky and I couldn't get the top to a smoothe flat surface. So, got lemons, make lemonade, I swirled the heck out of the top surface and I guess I'll call it Mango Souffle Soap. The top is all poofy looking.

It should be a really pretty bar of soap when all is done.