you can't win 'em all

I consider myself artistic and my soaps are my current medium in which I express my creativity. I try to keep in mind that soaps have a mind of their own though...Sometimes what I envision in my mind comes to fruition like when I created this batch of Lemongrass. Pretty right?

Sometimes things don't always go as I plan them to when I start soaping. Sometimes I make the silly mistake of thinking I can whip up a batch during my children's rest times. But no... the second this mama's busy the kids sense that. In which case, ends up with me creating a batch while being quite distracted. But often I'm surprised with the end result of the soap! I expect to unmold the soap and have it be quite awful but instead I often get my best soaps this way... like when I unmolded and cut Patchouli Tangerine: 

And then there are the times when the house is quiet, creativity is alive and I feel great! That's the time I kind of have this expectation that my soap should come out looking as I want them to. And usually that's the case but every now and then the soap gremlins come out. As was the case with my latest batch of Rose Garden. I had this idea to have a two toned soap...white on the bottom and dusty pink on the top with a piped finish. And I did get a few like that out of the batch but it unfortunately seized on me as I was mixing it so I could only pipe about a 1/3 of the soap. And then when I was cutting the slab into two loaves, I wasn't paying attention and I cut them horribly uneven. So this is what I ended up with:

  These ones turned out okay, not perfect but still pretty!

not too bad....

 oh, wait... 

I got about 10 or so good ones but then the rest look like the front and back in the above photo. :( Some are too too wide and the tops aren't great and others are too narrow. I cut them so they all weigh roughly the same but man.... this batch was frustrating!