Tall & Skinny Shimmy Challenge - A TRUE CHALLENGE!

This a bit later than I planned on posting this, but that's due to the incredible amount of setbacks I experienced during this challenge.

It started when, about 4 weeks ago I learned what the new, November Soap Challenge would be and decided I wanted to participate. I went and bought everything I should need and waited for registration to open. The morning of October 26, right before registration opened, my husband texted me telling me he was on his way home, he'd been laid off. The oil & gas service industry is really rough right now, and my husband, a geophysicist, just couldn't be kept on due to major budget cuts.

I seriously considered not doing the challenge, I mean, $6 was still money and it's a meal if we ended up needing it. Then, the supplies showed up on my doorstep. I paid the registration and watched the tutorial a dozen times. I needed to do this, I needed to make soap to make me feel better and I thought if I had a chance at winning, then the prize would surely help me continue making soap while we crunch the numbers on affording to live in the meantime. Besides, did I mention making the soap just kind of makes me feel better?

Anyway, I got to work making soap right away. My first batch was beautiful but NOT good enough! The trace came too quick and it didn't *shimmy* enough. This is the tall & skinny shimmy! I couldn't just ignore a necessary adjective! I immediately ordered more fragrance for as cheap as I could find and got to planning the next batch.

The second attempt when awful. I decided to avoid stick blending it and just stirred it to emulsion. Or rather, not emulsion. It was poured beautifully and looked gorgeous, but it wasn't mixed well enough and, well, you can watch my youtube fail video here.

The third attempt was unscented, I felt weird about making a pretty, colorful soap, with no scent. But I decided I needed to keep trying and wasn't going to let being out of fragrance get in my way. I stickblended a *little* bit and poured, hoping for the best.

Please view this video to see the process!
(My iPad hasn't been very friendly with uploads lately, so this is in two parts.)

Part 1:


Part 2:


Alas, I have achieved a beautiful tall & skinny shimmy. But then here's where more trouble began brewing in my mind. It was beautiful to me, but as my 9th soap ever, I just assumed it couldn't possibly be good enough. I went into the soap making forums I am in on Facebook just to prove to myself that my soap is good enough. I saw several other T&SS participant's soaps. They're gorgeous! Self doubt began to creep in. I shut off the computer for a whole day. I decided to enter the soap anyway. You can't win if you don't play. <3

I hope you all enjoy this soap!