Sunday Soap: Seeing Spots

Right before I made all that pretty vanilla soap last week I made this Tuscan Olive soap. It was full of beautiful olive butter and olive oil pomace. It was a very rich batter and I was terribly excited about it. After cutting it I noticed little orange spots in the green. That was worrisome as I didn't add anything orange.

 Then using the same ingredients, I made this Oakmoss Sandalwood soap which I thought was lovely until.....

....yep. Spots. All over it. I went crazy trying to figure out what made the spots on my two green soaps. I went over everything and found the only connection was the green. It was one of the brand new micas that my soap supplier had recently started carrying. When I looked at online reviews it seems that I wasn't the only one getting the orange spots in the green. Weird and disappointing. That's four pounds down the drain so to speak. I certainly can't gift any of this nasty stuff. Grrrrr.....

 Just to make absolutely sure, I made some Redwood Saffron once again using all of the same materials except the green mica.

You guessed it. Perfect. Not a spot in sight.

 I went and threw away all the new micas from my soap supplier and went back to my usual colorant supplier, Nurture Soap, and ordered replacements. They do tons of testing and reviewing of their products and I'm done taking chances. I'm going with a sure thing from now on.

 Along with the colors they sent a sample of one of their fragrance oils. My orange just expired and got tossed so it was good timing.

 I also ordered a few samples myself since I am not familiar with their scents. Breath of God is very nice in an earthy sort of way. Afternoon Tea smells just like its name if you are drinking Earl Gray.

 Even though my shelves are full of nasty, spotty soap I had to give it one more go just to make myself feel better. Meet Breath of God that is full of clays from different parts of the world along with a healthy dose of lovely hemp butter. It's heavenly. Thank goodness.