Had to happen sooner or later

Sigh, I had a bit of a soaping disaster yesterday. All my own fault, I should have known better. You see, I have this love/hate relationship with FOs, and in particular this one, I adore the scent but its a bitch to soap. I had used it once before and it was instant soap on a stick. It did hold its fragrance through the rebatching, so all was not lost. But, it went to the back of the cupboard as a soaping no-no.

Yesterday I thought I would try and reduce my stash of FOs, and picked this one, the fragrance was just too irresistible. I remembered that it didn't discolour too badly, only to a sort of cream/light tan. I thought that perhaps by soaping at room temperature and with full water, it might behave itself a bit better. No such luck, sigh, even though I only stirred the fragrance in by hand, not with a stick blender. As I poured, it started to rice, and by the time the last bit of soap was in the mould, it had set rock hard. So much for doing a pretty swirl on top along the middle. It was heating up as I was still trying to get some sort of pattern onto the top, and just a few mins after putting it to bed, it was gelling like crazy. And thats when the trouble really started. It started splitting and cracking all over the place, and oozing the fragrance oil. I just left it in disgust and resigned myself to the fact that a rebatch was pretty imminent.

My soaping room smelled so good this morning, and I was so hoping that overnight the FO might have been reabsorbed into the soap................. NOPE, it was still sitting on top in little puddles. Well, I decided to cut it anyway, it would have to be chopped up for rebatching or for shredding/cubing, anyway, so it didn't really matter what I did to it. Surprisingly, the soap is actually quite smooth inside, the two halves are holding together very nicely, and the cracks seem to have mostly closed up. What a real bummer about the puddles though, eh? I have decided to wait another day before I take drastic action, I am forever hopeful, the FO might still get absorbed back in the soap, lol.

This is it, just after pouring it, you can see the ricing, cracking and splitting quite well -



And this is it just cut, you can see the FO still puddling on top, in what was supposed to be a graceful, delicate little white swirl, hahahaha -


The offending FO has been put back into the cupboard with a firm note attached to it, only to use it for scrubs and bath melts and such like. No more soap, ever, humph.