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| One of the best bits of this craft is that you can almost always recycle your failures so my worst disasters, like the ones that fell apart or the swirls that didn't, are buried in new soaps. Provided you didn't overheat the soap or let it dry out too much you should be able to melt it again and no-one will be any the wiser. | |
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| This is how I learned that lavender buds turn brown and turn the
rest of the soap brown too given enough time.
And it looked so pretty when it was newly made... |
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I bought some kelp (seaweed) powder from the health food shop but the base was a bit too warm when I poured it and it all sank to the bottom (ie the top), so now it looks as though it is covered in a grey ash ... |
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| At first sight this doesn't look like a disaster, until you know it started off with three very distinctive layers of yellow, orange and green and scented with lemon, orange and lime. I created the colours by mixing FD&C Green#3, D&C Red#30 Lake, D&C Yellow #10 and FD&C Yellow #5. They've faded, migrated, bled into each other and a week later the layers are hardly visible. | 
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Buy seeds of the pot marigold (calendula officinalis), sow in seed trays, prick out into pots, tend lovingly until the frosts are past, plant out in the garden, harvest the flowers, dry the beautiful yellow petals, add to your base - and discover that they bleed into the surrounding soap. |
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| If you want to go for the jackpot, do the above with calendula but have the base a little too warm and you can get sinking and bleeding at the same time. This is the reverse of the soap above when unmoulded. Believe me, this photograph has been sharpened. | 
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He promised to bring me a basket of posies A garland of lilies, a bunch of red roses A little straw hat to show off the blue ribbons That tie up my bonnie brown hair.
Oh dear! What can the matter be?
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| Old English Folk Song |