Ha Ha Ha....

 

Well now, I didn't exactly get black soap. I got dark gray. 

I was worried all night that I had used too much activated charcoal. 1 tsp per pound of oil is recommended and that's what I used but that batter looked awfully dark. Too much charcoal and your lather will be gray as well as your washcloth or sponge. I'll have to wait until it's cured to see if that happens. 

What I did learn from further research was that I should have gelled the loaf. That means to keep it hot during the saponification (hardening) process. I used to sit it on a heating pad in a cooler but I killed the heating pad last week with my back issues so I just had the cooler for insulation and it wasn't enough. Gelling would have made the loaf darker. You can see by the ring in the center of the first bar that it tried to gell but didn't get too far.  My fault. 

Someone asked me about the fragrance. I went digging through my stash and found some leftover Love Spell which I thought matched the theme I was going for. I only used a tiny bit but I still regretted it. I got carried away and forgot that this soap was just for me and I don't like fragrances in my soap. I only use my unscented bars. I still like to play with fragrances for other people though. The three bottles on the right are the new fragrances that just showed up for my next soap making adventure which will happen once we are through the next two weeks of babysitting. One was open and leaked so all the labels are coming off. What a mess that was. 

What I wanted for this batch was a fragrance that smelled like this. I've looked high and low for herbal fragrance oils that were just that....herbal. I've got several on the way so I'm hopeful.