The Price of Experimentation

Batches of soap do not always turn out like you expect.  Sometimes, even if you think the recipe is exactly the same, something turns out just a little off and throws every off.  The heat could be too high, the mixture could become stiff, or it cooks too fast or too slow.  Or, sometimes, the soap maker adds things to the batch without prior research.  Because soap making is nothing more than a chemical reaction, any new additive will change the make up of the batch.  Well, this happened to me this weekend.

On.  A.  LARGE. Batch.

Yikes! 

10 pounds of soap, approximately about $100 worth of soap down the drain.  Literally, trashed.

 Because of peppermint starlight candies!

I made a very nice small batch of peppermint soap for Christmas and added a coloring that turned it pink.  I really wanted a red batch so when I retried the same recipe in a larger batch (much larger), and added some starlight mints. 

A few things happened.

1.  The batch was much larger than expected.  I put in 5 pounds in the soap calculator and it read it as 5 pounds pre-soap, which made about 10 pounds of soap.  It should have been 5 pounds post soap, not mixture.

2.  The larger amount called for a higher amount of lye which heated up the already hot mixture too much.  So, when I added the candies,

3.  The overly heated mixture melted the candies and burned the sugar, resulting in large, sticky black streaks throughout my entire mixture.  Therefore,

4.  It never completely mixed up and so it was too chunky and fell apart. 

5.  And lastly, the melted, burnt sugar leaked out all over the mold and into the cabinet and it was one huge, sticky mess.

Sadly, I had to trash 10 whole pounds of soap.  Disappointing, but lesson learned.  Stick with a good thing and don't try to do anything fancy without first researching.