Happy!

Oh, I am happy! The soaps I made on the weekend are all out of their molds, cut, and curing. I can't, for obvious reasons, show you the bars for the Soapmaking Forum monthly challenge but I can share the other bars.

I'm VERY happy with the Honey Oat soap. It was nice and hard right out of the mold and, though I left it for a few hours before cutting, I could easily have cut it right away.

It looks almost like maple fudge, doesn't it? And the scent? Oh my... good enough to eat!! Maple fudge is a pretty close approximation of the scent. There are no added scents, just the honey, which caramelizes in the heat of the saponification process. It really does smell good enough to eat. I love just holding it and sniffing it. The best part? It's non-fattening! 

Now, I just have to wait to see how it lathers up and feels after its curing time. If the look and the feel of it at this point is any indication, this recipe is a definite keeper. I'm happy!! 

This picture shows a few of the bars I made using the leftovers from the challenge soap. In the front bar,  you can see the four colours I used, although the mica doesn't show up as shiny once it's used as a colorant. There's the brown of the cocoa powder, the bronze and the copper mica, and the uncoloured batter at the bottom of the bar. 

Like the Honey Oat soap, the bars are nice and hard already; I already consider the soap a success. It just remains to be seen how it lathers once it has cured. There's no scent in this batch but I think this is a recipe that I can definitely play with.

Yup, I'm happy. I love it when things work the way they should!