I knew I had become too smug. I've been soaping for a year. Every CP batch has been a success...and I had just been wondering if I'd become so proficient that...I might have sailed past the newbie-stupid-mistake-stage. And then I looked down and realized that my feet were made of clay.
Onto my trouble: I made a huge, 11-pound batch of lavender CP. (I know...I couldn't have screwed up on a 3-pound batch???). I made some alkanet-infused olive oil for my natural colorant, and set it aside. And when the time came, I confidently poured it into my tracing soap, in the soap pot ( I was trying for a feathery, swirled look). It swirled beautifully; it looked great. I topped the mold, put it to bed in a blanket, and swaggered back into the living room (that smug look was plastered across my face again.) My husband looked at me and said, "I don't understand why you didn't mix your colored olive oil with a small amount of soap before adding it at trace. Isn't that what you usually do?" My smug look shattered into pitiful pieces on the floor. He was right. I had poured untreated oil (4 oz.) into my beautiful, saponified soap. I swirled it fairly well, but did not mix it.
And so, my question is, will there be unsaponified pockets of oil in my beautiful soap? Or, will the lye work it's way into the straight olive oil I swirled into it??? * Big Sigh.*
Serves me right I suppose. I have officially sworn off the temption to be a Know-It-All..for the rest of the year...anyway.
I could really use some advice.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Soaptwit.
(Fitting name, huh?)