Big Bar of Soap

I needed some swag to give out to promote my soon-to-be-released first book, NOT QUITE DARCY.  I hit upon the idea of making little Victorian style soaps, in bright pink to match the cover.

Somehow, 25 pounds of soap is much bigger and heavier than it seemed to be on the website! Banana for scale.

Naturally, my son began to claim it as his project and found a saw...

Once it was in reasonably-sized chunks, I got to play Walter White and get all measurey.

Then I carefully parsed the color block dye with a very precise scientific instrument cheese grater.

After I had the right amount of soap and dye, I melted that stuff up.

Then added the raspberry scent

And poured it into the molds.

Authentic plastic!  Just like Victorians used to use!

Pop them out of the molds to see sweet, little Victorian style hearts.

All ready to give out for book release!  I only wish there'd been enough room to include jokes about naked Queen Victoria - dammit.