Trouble Shooting

Well, this was a little frustrating. Something that I've made with great success back in Cape Town (see above picture) turned out to be a challenge here in the U.S. There could only be a short list of things wrong with these salt pebbles, so trouble shooting was going to (hopefully) be taken care of quickly, but this highlighted to me again that you can't take your recipe for granted.

• The humidity might have changed, either due to the seasons changing, or due to moving half way across the world.
• A key raw material might not be the same standard that you're used to.
• You might be using a fragrance that doesn't require as much as you normally use due to its concentration, thus changing the liquid volume previously used.
• You may get an idea to add in a new product which you've not tested before.
• You might now be working with a gas appliance instead of electrical.

Whatever the smallest change might be, be patient and always be ready to trouble shoot.

With this flop, I was possibly dealing with every single thing that I've just listed above. It was too late to remove the new product that was introduced, but hopefully it helped to offset the lack of liquid from the more concentrated fragrance oil. Additionally, I added in a few sprays of water, too, to see if they help. If nothing else, I hope it helped with the lack of humidity that I suspect is a contributing factor to why this recipe flopped.

I couldn't be 100% sure about the lack of humidity since the powdered honey that I used here was a sugar/honey blend, which, I'm sorry, but if you're going to be selling something as powdered honey, then the only product in that bag had better be powdered honey! Grrr! Anyways, honey naturally attracts moisture from the air, but since it wasn't attracting anything, I wasn't sure if it was a humidity problem or the unwanted sugar.

These look like they're right, but when I tried to lift them out, the bottom half stayed behind on the very few that had actually stuck somewhat together. So, everything went into a bowl and more water was added, stirred through to distribute the moisture evenly, and then packed back into the mold, but the second time I packed it a little less tightly. The fact that some of the flopped ones were fine on the top half, but fell apart on the bottom half (you could tell that zero moisture had reached the bottom half) basically told me that whatever was going on in the top half wasn't reaching through to the bottom half deeper in the mold.

So, I put it into the oven for 2-3 times longer than my recipe previously stated. Maybe a gas oven doesn't work the same as an electrical oven? Who knows?! My original oven was just a mini tabletop one, not a full sized one, so maybe all that extra space isn't concentrating the heat the way it should be either? Thank goodness the flashpoint of my fragrance is over 200F!! That is normally something that I neglect to check when I decide to include the oven in my processes.

Finally I was able to remove these from the molds in one piece! I tried so many fixes that I don't know what was finally the right thing that fixed it, but I'll believe that it was a little of everything and just happily enjoy the fragrance as I start to wrap and seal these against further environmental potential mishaps (maybe it will rain this coming weekend and that would change the humidity in the air again!).

Patience and a positive attitude pays off.