And here we go again,

another rebatch, sigh. It is so frustrating, you sniff your way through your cupboard, pick a fragrance which you think is ideal for the soap you had in mind, and your notes say that this FO is meant to behave well and discolour to brown. Great! Layered soap, with brown main part and cream top layer with pink cubes, should be a doddle.

I used my normal recipe, prepared for the two different batches, added the FO to the main batch and gently stirred. And it started ricing. And clumping. Terrific, this is behaving well??? So I stickblended it like mad to beat it into submission and ended up with something almost resembling fairly normal soap batter. Scooped it into the mould and went to get the small batch for the top layer ready. Ok, the bottom layer had set, no changes that I could see, it looked ok-ish, if not totally smooth. Poured on the top layer, added the pretty pink cubes, and put it to sleep.

The next morning I was greeted with............ a soap loaf sitting in a huge puddle of fragrance oil, which of course went everywhere as soon as I had undone the mould. I had to spend ages cleaning up, mopping up ££ of FO and throwing it away. And of course the soap was holy, and lumpy, and ugly. Nothing for it but to try and rescue that lot by rebatching it. And sooner rather than later.

Fortunately, the soap was still quite soft, so chopping it up was easy. Into the cooking pot it went with a little bit of water, and it melted down quite easily with some rigorous and continuous stirring -


The cubes, which were from an older soap specifically made for cubing and shredding didn't melt, which was a bonus, and perhaps there was a glimmer of hope that the rebatch wouldn't turn out totally butt ugly. Well, that was two days ago, the rebatch has been cut, and is sitting on the drying rack, and is still looking very creamy. No sign of any brownness creeping in yet. Wonder why that is, I would have expected it to discolour at least a little bit by now. Ah well, I'd be quite happy if it stayed this pretty creamy toffee colour with pink cubes. All in all, I think it was a successful rebatch, could have been worse.