Broken layer, broken heart ...

My layered Fresh Snow soap was going to be so beautiful. I was going to sandwich layers of crisp blue and light blue between pure-driven white. Glitter suspended in the blue portion would look like snowflakes drifting to the ice-covered ground below.

Wowza, look at that!

It was going to be gorgeous, I tells ya.

And it was ...

Until it fell apart.

Sigh. Such is the soaping life. Sometimes, no matter how careful you are or how much rubbing alcohol you spritz, you mess things up. And, ooh, how do I hate to mess things up. I live in constant fear of messing things up. Which usually just makes me more nervous and therefore more likely to mess up.

And me getting "more nervous" is very serious business. I am already nervous as it is. I haven't had fingernails since 1989. My spirit animal would probably be the squirrel, either running or freezing at every threat (and threats are around every corner). Make me "more nervous" and I'm like a paranoid schizophrenic squirrel on crack. It's not good, and it's not very conducive to crafting (or anything else, really). And we're just talking about soap here - it's not like I'm performing brain surgery or piloting a commercial jumbo-jet.

Bummer.

Anyway, I kinda thought this might happen. When I poured the first white layer (the layer that popped off), it took forever to set up. It has been really hot here in Florida lately, so maybe my house was too warm, I don't know. But it just would not set up. And as you soapers know, timing and temperature are crucial when layering. You have to pour as soon as the previous layer is ready, and that layer still needs to be warm. Time was ticking away and the skin on the soap still wasn't thick enough. Eternal optimist that I am, I was thinking, "This will never work. This is taking way too long."

I plowed ahead, though, and finished up the soap in the hopes that maybe everything would work out and be okay somehow (always a bad strategy). Interestingly, the blue layers set up very fast - almost too fast - and this had me worried, too. Those layers stayed together, though.

I rarely have layers pop apart on me. I hate having a layered loaf fall apart on me for many reasons. First of all, it seriously shakes my confidence, which, as I explained earlier, is not good for squirrel-like people. Second, I feel like I wasted a day making something ineffective. Third, I have to spend another day salvaging the soap and fixing the problem. And fourth, I then have to hope that my fix worked, or else I'll be looking at three wasted days.

Fortunately, melt-and-pour soap is as forgiving as a favorite pair of sweatpants. If you screw up, just cut it up, melt it down, and try again.

That's what I did. Instead of trying to dissect all of the layers and repour them, I thought maybe a solid light blue bar might be nice. Simple, sophisticated, no chance of falling apart.

So, I poured it all into my loaf mold again. (I had to use two 4-cup measuring glasses because it wouldn't all fit in one and 4-cup is the largest capacity measuring glass I have. Maybe it's time to get an 8-cup glass.)

Here's the result. Pretty blue with a dusting of irridescent glitter on the tops. I like the way it turned out, and I hope others will, too.

Ah, melt-and-pour, thank you for your flexibility. You are never truly wasted, although some projects just can't feasibly be brought back to square one again. But even if the effect fails, the soap doesn't.

I Want Some Patience and I Want It RIGHT NOW!

Remember the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza's father goes around screaming, "Serenity now!" at the top of his lungs? That's how I felt after slaving over a batch of layered soap bars a couple of days ago.

I was making my triple-layered Black Rose soaps. The first layer was soft pink, the second layer black, and the third layer was more soft pink.  I was working on a batch of six bars; four turned out great. Two were goners.

This is what the Black Rose soaps are supposed to look like. Here are two of the successful bars.

What happened?

Well, anyone who has done layered melt-and-pour projects before knows that temperature and timing are crucial. If you pour too soon, your soap may be too hot and could melt the layer beneath. Pour too late, and the layers might not adhere. Get caught between these two, and you might have a problem.

I got caught between the two.

The first two layers of each bar went fine. It was on the third layer where I got tripped up. See, I had allowed 5 ounces for each bar, making a total of 30 ounces. That's 10 ounces per layer: 20 ounces of pink, 10 ounces of black.

Ten ounces of pink was great for the first layer. Ten ounces of black worked great for the second layer. Ten ounces of pink for the third proved problematic.

Here's a photo for comparison. See how the nice soap on the top has a clean, straight line of black? And how the two soaps on the bottom have uneven melty black layers with tendrils of black running through the bottom pink layer? Blech.

The third layer of pink for bars 1-4 poured just fine. But by bars 5 and 6, the soap was starting to cool too much and it was getting tacky and gloppy. So I heated what was left in my measuring cup for a few seconds in the microwave.

I took its temperature. I usually pour my layers around 110-115 degrees so I don't melt the layer below it. But it's kinda difficult to get an accurate temperature read on so little soap in a big measuring glass. I dipped my spoon into the base and dripped some of the melted base on my finger. Warm, but not hot.

I wondered if it needed a little more time to cool. But when I stirred it, it felt like it was getting tacky again and a skin was forming on it.

And it was time to pour. The second layer had hardened up and really needed its third layer NOW.

I figured, "It's probably cool enough. It's getting thick and I need to pour."

So I poured it, slowly and gently.

And?

Yep, you guessed it ... I melted the black layer beneath on both bars.

Pools of black floated to the surface of the pink, and little wispy melt lines reached their dreadful tendril-y fingers upward.

Awesome.

What did I learn? Well, I think next time I will start out with more soap base than I need. I had figured that I needed 20 ounces of pink. If I could have a mulligan and do it over again, I would start with 24 ounces instead so maybe I'd still have enough liquidy soap to at least finish all of my pours even if an ounce or two of the soap gets tacky and sticks to the sides of the glass. It is always better to have too much soap prepared than to not have enough.

And I will be more patient. It's a bit heartbreaking to work on a batch and then ruin some of them (especially on the last pour) because you pressured yourself to pour RIGHT NOW.

Ah, well, four out of six ain't bad. And the four that did turn out were a great success, and I am very happy with them. Heck, I can always make more.

Psst ... you can get one of these Black Rose soaps at my Etsy shop. Don't worry - I'll send you one of the pretty ones!

And, hey, Mother's Day is tomorrow. I can give my mom the prettiest one of the reject bars as a gift. And she has to say it's beautiful because I made it and she's my mom, right?

Right?

(Have soaping tragedy stories of your own? Share them with us! Wally the Wonder Turtle and I would love to hear them!)