Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Soap Saftey and Girls-Are-Meaner Soap Cut


Here is my Girls-Are-Meaner Wine Soap that I made last night. I had to do something different with this batch. With my first Girl-Are-Meaner Wine soap we decided it needed a little more spice. So on the second batch we added some Bay rum Fragrance which must have had some vanilla in it, because the soap turned a ugly tan. So on this batch here I countered the browning by using the room temperature process (as I call it). This is where I let the lye solution and the oils get down under a hundred degrees. Its kind of like making whipped soap, but not whipping it that much. This creates a light soap, so that even when you add color its more of a pastel color than anything else. This process is very time consuming because you have to use a mixer to continuously whip the product so that the heat doesn't brown the soap. I was afraid that this batch would not harden so I added a little salt. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out although I think that I didn't need to add the salt. I finished this batch last night at 9:00 pm and removed it from the mold by 4:30 am. That is pretty quick and I am going to contribute it to the salt.

Last night while I was mixing the soap (Using the mixer, not the stick blender) I noticed little flecks of raw soap would every once in awhile fly out of the pot. Well that should have been my clue to stop and put on my safety gog
gles. I didn't and a small bit of soap got into my eye. I have to say that I hesitated because I didn't want to leave the soap but the pain started and so I immediately began flushing my eye. My eye feels a little uncomfortable but is fine, thank goodness. The moral of the story is that I became careless and did not put on my normal safety gear. I was feeling inspired and wanted to dive right in. Well I learned a valuable lesson, no matter how experienced you are (or inspired) with your craft, Safety should come first.

It would have taken me less than 5 min to put on my long sleeve shirt, gloves and goggles and i did not do it. It could have been worse. Saving those 5 min. could have cost me a urgent care visit or worse an eye. I pledge to now to take my 5 min and don my safety gear.

HOW ABOUT YOU?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I just love homemade soaps! I looked at your store and the Lavender and Rosemary sounds incredible! I may have to splurge soon and try it out.

Keep those googles on! You're soap won't be near is good if you're making it one-eyed. lol!

Lomond Soap said...

Lovely soap! Those pesky discolouring FO's!!
Happy to hear your eye is ok, I'm also a bit lapse in the safety dept at times, it's just not worth it though :(

Susan said...

After 12 years of soapmaking I had a lye volcano the other day....you'd think I would have known better...I WON'T do that again!!