Saponification Sunday...Badlands Soap

Do you know Wall Drug? If you've ever been on that long dull highway that drags endlessly across South Dakota (I-90) then you know of what I speak. It is a sad Oasis on the edge of the Badlands, a place to pull over, buy a few overpriced Jackalopes, hit the toilet with four crabby kids, grab a few donuts and some thick black coffee and then get back on the road to Rapid.

Prior to THAT road trip there was another. In this version instead of being a young mother I was an even younger woman making my way cross country with a backpack and an extended thumb. I was picked up by a seemingly nice trucker fellow who turned bitter halfway through the same Badlands area. "Disappointed " over my unwillingness to make his day, he tossed me and my backpack out of the cab of his semi as it continued to move forward like.

Fortunately, my backpack hit the ground first and I landed on the backpack. No harm done...except to my feet. After walking several miles through those Badlands in the middle of a very hot summer, my blistered heels and I were  finally given another ride by an elderly couple who had none of the ulterior motives the young trucker did. Lesson was learned. It was the last time I ever hitchhiked.

This soap I made last week brought it all back.



Introducing,Badlands , the soap

I did not plan the look or the colors really , mixing Indigo Powder with Clove powder and a little Titanium Dioxide. I ended up with the colors of a common Badlands Sunset and I love it. Scented with the masculine Amyris Essential Oil, I was even happier to see the crackly effect of the TD making the bar look quasi desert-like.


Badlands,South Dakota, the place

My rather dangerous teen years expressed as a bar of soap once again demonstrating how much I've cleaned up my act.