My first blogging FAIL. ::headdesk, facepalm, and all that jazz::

Friday was a crazy hectic day full of pain and body wash experimentation. I didn't catalog my activity on Friday mainly due to the small fibro flare up I unwittingly caused in my attempt to increase my activity stamina. In the chance that you are just now learning about me, I have fibromyalgia. It runs in my family and developed due to a scoliosis that has weakened my discs at the L-5 to S-1 (my tailbone, which is more like a tail than anyone else I've ever met :~/). I had a disc herniation and was laid up two weeks before my 30th birthday. I've been home bound since, and am only now learning how to live with the constant muscle tension and pain I experience. The fibro is one of the reasons I wanted to start this blog.... I've been on the couch for too long. I'm not going to let the pain rule my life, but I am willing to give it a healthy respect and learn the parameters of my "new body".

Friday, I decided to try the homemade body wash recipe I found on "One Good Thing" by Jillee (I love most of her recipe's by the way!!!). Although, instead of using Dove as a base, I decided to use Ivory. 0.0 What an adventure! I had already tried and made the body wash by grating a Dove bar and nearly killed my upper back with the grating, so I thought I'd try Jillee's no-grate recipe with the Ivory. ::facepalm::

I had a lot of fun microwaving the Ivory! I had to stop it every few seconds and "deflate" the soap as it started to bloom in the glass measuring cup. But it was a fun process to watch (just not one fun enough to repeat with Ivory). This first step is where things started going wonky.... Check this pic out to see what I mean.Despite the awkwardness, I decided to soldier on!

The next step was boiling the Ivory in 2 cups of hot water. Btw, since I was testing this recipe, I only used 1 bar of soap and 2 cups of water (although I think I'm ultimately going to go back to the dove recipe). So, after a period of boiling I realized that a decent amount of the water had evaporated! So, in a bit of a panic I added more water, which cooled the temp of the soap down and solidified it a bit more. :~/ Blarg!

The Ivory eventually dissolved, and a few hours later I found myself with semi-cloudy soap jelly in a jar. (I didn't get any pictures). Since I realized that this attempt was a marginal failure, I stopped taking pictures of my process and just started playing. But before I started playing I did a bit of internet research and learned that the Ivory wasn't acting like the Dove due to the fact that Ivory is *just soap* and needs fat added to get a creamy texture. 

I put the set up jelly stuff into my ninja food processor and added some vitamin E cream (that I picked up at a dollar store) and some olive oil. I think I added probably about a cup of the vitamin E cream, and about 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil.... It started to look like a mousse, so I decided to stop the process there and check on it in the morning. Saturday morning, I woke up to the most disgusting sour cream I had ever seen!

See? Wonky melted Ivory soap.

It seemed to be a fluffy jelly consistency. It wasn't too bad, until I attempted to get the "body wash" out of the jar! The images are rather dark, but I'll post them anyway. I ended up adding about 1 c. of hot water to the schtuff and mixed it in. I have yet to test it, but that is one of the objectives I have for today! Right along with "massaging" two soap recipes and mixing up a dishwasher detergent dry mix.

Wonky Ivory soap after the microwave.

It finally started to dissolve!

Most disgusting sour cream EVAH!!!

It kinda sorta kept its shape... Ewwww!

This is a more different view of the creamy soap jelly I ended up with Saturday morning (I had to use a spatula to get it out!).... Creamy soap jelly is disturbing.