Bacon Soap

Yep, bacon soap!

I don't usually eat bacon. I tend to stay away from red meat and pork. Occasionally, I'll eat poultry or seafood. But I remember bacon. And it was good, especially when crisp. Soggy, fatty bacon is disappointing. And gross. But then, life is full of disappointing, gross things. But I digress.

So, anyway, this former bacon-eater was cruising around the Nature's Garden website one day and noticed that they had a bacon fragrance oil. Now, I probably shouldn't be buying fragrance oils because I already have so many that I still need to use. But I couldn't pass up bacon FO. And if I bought 10 one-ounce bottles, I could get 50 cents off each one.

You know where this is headed. I bought a bunch of fragrance oils. But I limited myself to ten and told myself that I had done a very good thing.

Out-of-the-bottle, the bacon FO smells just like frying bacon - smoky and meaty. It kinda reminds me of beef jerky. The scent holds up fantastically in soap, and it is very strong. The soap is sitting on my curing shelf now, and I can smell it from a room away.

I wondered, though, would anyone really want to use bacon-scented soap? Is it a novelty thing?

So, I asked my husband, Ken, "Would you use a soap that smells like bacon?"

"Sure," he said. "I'd use it."

"What if the neighborhood dogs start following you around?"

"That's okay. I like dogs."

Hopefully, we won't be attracting dogs. Especially since I don't need any help attracting dogs - they already love me and they will follow me to the edge of the world. If I charm any more dogs, I'll look like I'm leading a big, slobbering canine parade. They'll follow me home in droves and it will look like Dr. Dolittle up in here.

And how to best convey bacon through soap? I decided to use the tiger stripe technique, figuring that it would give me those wavy lines that you see on bacon strips. To do the tiger stripe, you split your batch into two or more colors and then pour lines of soap down the center of the mold, one on top of the other while alternating colors. For my soap, I lightly colored one portion with brick red oxide and left the other portion uncolored.

I used a recipe that would allow for a nice, slow trace: 45% olive oil, 29% coconut oil, 17% palm oil, 6% avocado oil, and 3% castor oil. The fragrance oil behaved beautifully - no ricing or acceleration, and I had plenty of time to work.

Here is a video of me making the Bacon soap:


I'm very pleased with how it turned out! I tried to use the brick red oxide a little sparingly, and it mellowed into a lovely reddish-pink color. And the fragrance oil discolored the uncolored soap to a perfect bacon-colored light beige.

And the scent is spot-on and sticks very well.

This seems like a guy soap, and I'll bet my dad and brother will get a kick out of it when I take some home soon. I just hope that my brother's dog doesn't eat the soap. Or him.

So whaddaya think? Pretty cool, huh? Have you or would you use bacon soap? Who do you think it would most appeal to?