Wishy Washy Wednesday

Yes, I am so aware this is Thursday. However, I decided last week I would post pics about soap on Wednesdays and I took the pictures yesterday on Wednesday so it counts.

Yes, I'm a little testy. I just learned I am not an "artisan soaper." No, no one was brave enough to tell me this to my face. I figured it out myself. I am a member of MENSA for dummies you know. We go by the nickname of Mummies.

I have been soaping for almost 8 months. I have finally decided on a very good hard bar which is not too drying and just the right amount of moisturizing. I have also decided on essential oils rather than fragrance oils. I have committed myself to all natural colors. You know brown from bats wings and green from cow tank algae. My problem is putting it all together into one beautiful bar.

I read all the other soap blogs I can. I spy on all the FlickR soap pics. I drool over the really big soap folk like Cocobong. So much so that I start to thinking I AM COCOBONG. For example she posted this awesome bar this week . Isn't it gorgeous ?

I knew I could do it. After all what does she have that I don't have beside talent and about 20 more years soap experience than I do. (She started soaping at age 8). Come on,  how hard can an inlay be ?
So I gave it my best shot.

Hard to tell the two apart is it not ? Besides the moon in the upper right hand corner I even inlaid a CELTIC circle. Two inlays for the price of one. (Like anyone would buy this piece of baby-puke-yellow-with-poor-excuses-for-art-piece-of-ear-wax-crap-disguised-as-soap). I did not have the same colors as Cocobong but I thought I would do a purple soap with white inlays. My brilliant idea for natural purple was pureed beets. As you can see not all the beet pieces were liquefied and the gel process made my white moon turn a lovely inside of a rotten banana brown.

BUT, after two days the bar is nice and hard and smells so pretty. Not enough to save it from the basement though. All my bad soaps go down there to the husbands shower. As long as it lathers he's keen on it . Good thing'cause this lovely wife of his has been lathering at the mouth ever since she unmolded this bar of soap that even maximum security prisoners would think too ugly to use.

I even tried photographing it with our lovely evening sunset in the background

Made a world of difference did it not ?  It did not.

So you don't lose complete trust in mys soaping skills, I also made some Lavender soap. No coloring and just a few lavender pieces in the top layer...

Which of course turned brown with the gel process. Will I ever learn ? It seems unlikely.

I did save the day with a different farm product of ours. Keith and U of I grad student Sasha harvested honey and bottled 27 pints. My photos of this were easier on the eye.

I used that white foam board trick. Sweet huh ?