The Soap Looked Better in My Head

Cold process soap has absolutely no respect for your plans.

There is a very specific kind of confidence you have right before making a batch of soap.

You’ve got a vision.

The colors are going to be perfect. The swirl is going to be magnificent. The fragrance is going to behave. The little embed is going to sit exactly where you put it.

You can already see the finished bars lined up for pictures.

This batch is going to be fucking beautiful.

And then you add the fragrance oil.

Welcome to soapmaking.

It Started With a Vision

In my head, this soap had delicate, wispy swirls flowing gracefully through the bar.

In reality?

I had approximately 14 seconds before my beautifully fluid soap batter turned into scented mashed potatoes.

Suddenly, we're no longer pouring soap.

We're spackling that bitch into the mold.

The elegant swirl technique has been abandoned.

The new technique is called:

GET IN THERE, YOU BASTARD.

And somehow, despite beating the mold against the counter like it owes us money, there will still be an air pocket.

There is always an air pocket.

Then There Are the Colors

Soap colors are sneaky little assholes.

You mix the prettiest shade you've ever seen.

Perfect.

Absolutely perfect.

You pour it into the mold and spend the next 24 hours imagining your glorious creation.

Then you unmold it.

And apparently the gorgeous dusty rose you created yesterday has decided it identifies as raw chicken.

Cool.

Fantastic.

Exactly what we were going for.

Sometimes the color disappears.

Sometimes it morphs into something completely different.

Sometimes two colors that looked amazing separately combine to create a shade best described as municipal wastewater.

And sometimes—just to keep you emotionally unstable—it turns out even prettier than you planned.

Which is why we keep doing this shit.

Fragrance Oils Are Unsupervised Children

Every fragrance oil comes with its own personality.

Some are lovely.

They cooperate. They smell beautiful. They give you plenty of time to work.

We appreciate those fragrances.

Then there are the others.

You add one tiny splash and your soap batter immediately says:

WE RIDE AT DAWN.

Acceleration.

Ricing.

Separation.

Discoloration.

Entire batches turning brown because apparently vanilla woke up and chose violence.

You can read every review.

You can check the usage rates.

You can formulate carefully.

And occasionally that fragrance oil is still going to look you directly in the eye and ruin your afternoon.

The Great Embed Delusion

Embeds are adorable.

That's how they get you.

You make the little bastard.

You carefully place it.

You calculate exactly where it needs to sit so that every single cut reveals the perfect little design.

Then you cut the loaf.

First bar:

Perfect.

Second bar:

Perfect.

Third bar:

WHERE THE FUCK DID IT GO?

Apparently sometime during the night your embed packed its belongings and migrated six millimeters to the left.

Six millimeters doesn't sound like much until you're staring at a soap bar containing half a ghost.

Now it isn't a cute Halloween soap.

It's a crime scene.

And Yet…

Here's the ridiculous part.

Sometimes the soap you were convinced was an absolute disaster turns out incredible.

You cut into that ugly little loaf the next morning expecting disappointment…

…and there it is.

A gorgeous swirl you couldn't recreate if somebody offered you $10,000.

That weird color combination suddenly works.

The embed landed perfectly.

The scent is amazing.

And you stand there staring at it like:

I knew exactly what I was doing.

No you didn't.

But nobody else needs to know that.

That's Kind of the Point

Handmade soap isn't supposed to look like it rolled off an assembly line.

Every batch has a personality.

Every swirl is a little different.

Every bar gets its own weird little quirks.

And around here, we're pretty fond of things that are a little imperfect, unpredictable, and occasionally inappropriate.

That's basically how Wayward Soap Co. happened in the first place.

We make the plan.

We pick the colors.

We choose the fragrance.

We lovingly prepare everything.

And then the soap does whatever the fuck it wants.

Honestly?

We respect that.

Stay Wayward. 😈🧼