First Public Holiday Fair

Nervous and stressed out was all I felt for the past couple weeks before my show.  I only got 2 hours of sleep the night before the big day.  There were just so much to do!  Now I can finally say, Thank God it's OVER!  I slept for 12 hours straight that night!

Can you tell I looked tired?!  ...don't look too close!

Luxury Cocoa butter Dead Sea bath salt

Emu cream and body butter

Cute M&P finch bird display

Close up on my CP soap bar display

Naked Soap

I have a confession, I've never done a batch of naked soap (no scent & no color added) ever!  Well, at least before Monday night disaster that statement is true.  Why you asked?   It's like water, I find it boring and why on earth would I drink water if I can drink, let's say, iced tea?!  Ok, fine, then you asked, why now then?!  I will reveal that next week.  :P

So, if you read my previous blog post It's always a good idea to have plan B you would know that Monday night I attempted double batch.  Where did the 2nd loaf go?!  Teh dah!  Here it is!  The naked 100% coconut milk soap that smells naturally milky.

It's always a good idea to have plan B

Monday night I don't know what got into me, I attempted to make 100% coconut milk cold process soap without using any water.  In the past I had bad record of success in making cold process milk soap using 100% milk and no water.  I would say 50% of the times I tried I failed.  I've learned to leave 100% milk soap alone and just soap with half water half milk.  100% milk soap and me, we simply don't get alone... sigh.  Like I said, I have no idea what got into me last night!  LOL

I guess I didn't put the wine out for the soap gremlins, they decided to come visit me that night just to mess around.  This is the time where I would say having a plan B would be helpful!  And guess what?  I didn't have any!  It was 11:30 pm and my pot of soap was obviously not working.  Oh forgot to mention this is also my first time attempting one big batch to split into 2.  Yes, I don't do big batch, I love how I can pay all my attention into detailing small batches.

Anyway, since it was so late at night and I had to go to work the next morning, the only thing I can think of is to hot process it instead.  I can't bring myself to waste all that oil and butter and lye.  But hot process takes a long time to do.  I need to clean up my mess and go to bed.  All of a sudden a light bulb popped in my head.  Didn't Pam (one of my soap buddy) just showed me how to HP using conviction oven?  So I poured my "failed" batch into 2 loaf molds and send them right into my oven on 175 F and set auto cook time for 2 hours.  Then I proceeded to clean my mess up in the kitchen thinking these are all going to be the so called "naked" soap, no scent and no color, not my style but at least there will be soap.  Only 40 minutes passed the start time I took a final look before going to bed, and I found the loafs all puffed up bubbling.  Oh boy, they are already done, faster than I expected.  Since I'm not in bed yet why not just mix in the Honey Almond EO blend and oatmeal colloidal + dark cocoa powder like I originally planned?

 This morning I had to try it under running water and sure it's soap!

 PS. they aren't my hands!  I got free hand model so I can take photos!