Note to Self: Do NOT Add Lye to Hot Liquids...

I did something pretty careless the other day. I decided that I wanted to make  Black Tea scented soap using actual Earl Grey Black Tea for the liquid portion of the recipe.  That wasn't the careless part. First I boiled the water and steeped the tea bag until it turned nice and dark.  That's still not the careless part.  I decided that there really was no need to wait for the tea to cool before adding the lye since it's going to heat back up anyway, right? WRONG!! I measured out the correct amount of lye and began to slowly pour it into the tea. Big, Big, BIG mistake. The water started to literally boil in the pitcher and then began to rise up like it was going to boil over!

After shrieking for assistance, my hubby came to the rescue and helped me  quickly dumped all of the ice from the freezer bin into the sink.  We filled  that with water and placed the boiling pitcher in to cool down.  Afterwards I was able to safely add the remaining lye.  To be honest, I'm being very generous with myself by calling my actions careless. It was actually quite stupid.  I should have known better.  I'm so impatient and just wasn't thinking. What can I can I say? I won't make that mistake again though. Fortunately the soap turned out fine. At first it was this really nasty shade of brown. I added a black swirl anyway and by the next morning it had lightened to almost white and now has a pretty cool contrast.