I met Stacie a few months back at Cupcake Camp. One of the things I learned about her that evening was that she LOVES bacon. She even has a bacon WATCH. Yep, Stacie is into bacon. So, I decided to see if I could make some Bacon Soap. I wasn’t sure anyone would want to actually smell like bacon after they showered, so I focused on making it look as authentic as possible. This was a fun project. I even cooked up 2 pounds of bacon and used the cleaned drippings from it to make the soap. Devon is loving that ’cause now we have a big zip-lock bag of cooked bacon in the fridge for snacks!

I added coconut, sunflower and castor oils to give the soap some nicer qualities like a bubbly, creamy lather. 100% lard or bacon fat would be great for laundry and dish soaps, but I wanted it to be more luxurious and soft on the skin for bathing. I’ve been researching scent blends, and Stacie said she liked mint, so I went with Lemongrass, spearmint and peppermint. It’s a winner!

I was worried about how to get the colour right, and ended up deciding on a mixture of iron oxide and mica. It looked so great in the pan after I poured it, just like a slab of fatty bacon! Lucky guess on the colours. You never know how it’s going to come out in the final soap, so I was really happy.

I had to wait overnight to find out if the colours survived and whether it would look right cut into bars. Here’s what happened:

I couldn’t resist the frying pan shot. Here’s a normal shot showing a bit more of the cut edges:

So, now it has to cure for at least 4 weeks to get the final, mild soap. I keep picking them up and smelling them. I want to try them…NOW! I sure hope I can duplicate this, because I think it’s going to be a great seller at the craft fairs in November and December. I will probably use lard or palm oil due to the lower cost but I don’t think it will alter the final results much. I have to find a scent that men will like because this would be a perfect guy gift, doncha think?  Thanks for looking!