Seriously, Is Summer Here Yet?!

I kept on making Spring and Summer related soaps but there's no sign of the harsh cold winter leaving!!!  The brief couple days of temperature hike is such a tease.  Anyway, my birthday is coming up and I gave myself a present of traveling to exotic country for a short vacation.  I will have no internet or phone available, which is great, so work won't be able to catch up with me.  All hell will have to be dealt with afterward!  This will be my last post before I go MIA (missing in action) for 2 weeks.  This batch is to respond to Great Cakes Soapworks milk soap challenge, I challenged myself to make 100% soy milk soap because I don't make much soap with 100% milk, my favorite milk soap method is 1/2 water to dissolve lye then 1/2 milk added at emulsified stage.

Half half method is great, it gives me more time to play with color and style.  Full milk method is more time consuming and typically gives you no time for fancy design.  After carefully thought through my game plan, I decided to use well behaved fragrance and prepared for simplified design.  With no surprise to me, the frozen soy milk still turned a little orange after melting it with lye.  Just to be on the safe side I also kept the milk lye low temperature by sitting it in an ice bath.  All that precaution paid off, the soap batter did not accelerate a bit.  But that's the problem, I over compensated, ^0^.  With no water discount, way well behaved fragrance oil,  and cool (almost cold) lye milk, soap batter stayed thin when I'm ready to pour into my mold.  I was going for the layering style and ended up with some kind of swirl... oh gosh I just have to laugh about it.  Let me tell you, the chance of going to plan B in my soaping world is 99%!  LOL  I should just have no plan A ever, waste of my time!  Anyhoo, I scented this batch with Bamboo Sugar Cane, it's a fresh summery blend of lemongrass, lime, musk and vanilla.  To stay with the theme, I sprinkled mica colored sugar grains on the top.  I can almost imagine myself sitting on a field with warm breeze brushing over my face and sipping a tall glass full of fresh sugar cane juice!