Beer Shampoo Gone Wrong

Sometimes you do everything right. Measure exactly, melt to the right temperature, cool the lye, and still things can go wrong. I'm down to my last single bar of Beer Shampoo and I really needed another batch.

Two days ago I started working on re-stocking the store. Beer shampoo was the top of my priority list. I melted the oils, followed the same recipe and then tried to decide on the scent. Vanilla seemed like a good choice to compliment the residual beer smell. For some reason the vanilla had gone missing. I had a bottle of Arabian Spice that smells wonderful and settled on that as a back up. Not thinking, I mixed it with the oils before I added it to the lye/water. I mixed with a spoon a couple turns. Whirred my stick blender once and by then it had begun hardening. Panicked, I stirred with the spoon a few more times and it had started to go lumpy. Not sure what else to do and hoping for the best, I plopped and scooped it into the mold and popped it in the oven.

The next day I pulled it out and looked at it. Something was just not right. It didn't look right and there were these funny spots in it. I didn't have the nerve to tongue test it so I let it set thinking it might improve in appearance and I wouldn't be so apprehensive about this batch. On top of that, the Arabian spice, which was the cause of all the chaos, had pretty much vanished.

So now 2 days later and the appearance has gotten somewhat worse. In the end I decided to chunk it all up and toss it in the crock pot to rebatch. I guess it happens to the best of us. I had never experienced the dreaded "seize" until now. I'd heard about it on message boards and read the tales of trying to chisel the hardened soap out of the pot. Now I can say I've seen it in person and have my own tale to tell.

On the positive side, it smells wonderful. On the negative, it's just not as pretty as regular cold process. But having had so much success with hot process before, hopefully the end result will be great.