Being as stubborn as my mom, on Nov. 14, 2014, I made another attempt. The same Maeda's Marseille Soap recipe, except that I hand whisked only for the first 40 minutes after the oils and lye water mixed together. 12 hours later, again, 8am in the next morning, I approached to my batch with anticipation... Yay! The mix traced! I poured the pudding like mix into another milk carton, insulted it with cotton batting leftovers, and off to work with satisfaction...
Back to the first batch, actually, it did turned into soap, and part of the mix even went through the gel stage. Don't ask me why; there must be some chemistry behind. My first batch of handmade cold process gave me a bittersweet feeling, and taught me a lesson: READ CAREFULLY.
For unmolding, I made another mistake - unmolding too early! The book explicitly states that It takes one day to harden the mix, and it's better to wait at least another day before unmolding and cutting. Well, being as impatient as my dad, I did unmolding and cutting all within one day.
On Dec. 6, I had my Professional Practice Exam. After the exam, I headed to Kitchen Stuff Plus and got a blender - I had several recipes in mind and a blender would speed up the process.