This batch of soap surprised me. It could have gone wrong in sooo many different ways, and I honestly thought it did, a couple of times. I learned some things from this batch that I haven't learned from others.
1. Remember art class from so many years ago, it can come in handy.
2. When in doubt, cure and cut anyway.
3. You never know what your going to get.
Ah, art class, not just time to screw around but to learn the color wheel, complimentary colors, and that your cly sculpture can explod in the kiln. To me I thought it was just fun and never thought I would retian some of that information. I also never realized that the complimentary color thing would help me in soap making.
Most of my soaps are made with a lot of olive oil, which has a yellow greeen hue to it, and I use palm oil (sustainable and Orangutan safe, of course) which also has a lovely yellow hue. So when I was mixing the lye into the oils it did not occur to me that the cocoa powder I used would turn the mixture green, instead of the brown I was so longing for. The complimentary colors of the color wheel popped into my head and I added the slightest bit of red oxide. And would you know it?!?!?! Brown. Deep beautiful chocolatey brown.
The whole batch got layered with a coffee strip, I used real coffee grounds for the stripe and for a gentle exfoliating factor but I did not realize that it would smell funny. Like a slightly foul conatiner of left over noodles stuck in the back of the fridge foul. Ewww! I thought I had killed the whole batch, it was setting up and there really was no other alternative. So, it was wrapped and left to cure, smelly or not. I forgot about it, for like a week. When I finally got around to cutting it, it smelled...good. Like chocolate vanilla coffee with a little musk added in. Kind of weird but better than I had thought it was going to. I cut the loaf into bars anyway. Now that it is pretty much cured, it smells fabulous and I find myself sneaking a sniff whenever I get the chance.
Like a chocolate bar with a hint of coffee. Vanilla Mocha Oh, Yeah!
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