I read on a sign on Pinterest today that 40 is the new 20 and something about not caring what other people think. I think it is true that as we age we realize that some things that we thought were important are not so important anymore. Especially when it comes to what other people think. In my 20's I was a widow with a brand new baby so it was more about trying to keep my life from spinning out of control, which translated into perfectionism. Trying to make things perfect is exhausting so in my 30's having 3 kids of my own and 2 full time step kids knocked the perfection right out of me. Exhaustion is only the tip of the iceberg in that situation. I simply didn't have the energy for perfection. Now that I am in my 40's I say embrace the imperfection! Live in it, love it, and search for the beauty in it. I have learned that you have to search for beauty in less than perfect situations, it is the key to happiness. Look for the small, quiet joys in life and relish their simple beauty. This may seem odd but I thought of this while I was packaging soap. I often get lost in my thoughts when doing tedious tasks. Not too long ago I was re-evaluating how my soap bars look. I have been selling soap for 6 years now and in all that time I have been trying to get my bars to look as perfect as possible. Measuring their beauty against store bought soap and against other soap makers who seem to be able to accomplish this easily. I over filled my molds and then cut the tops off so that they would be perfectly smooth. I hand beveled the edges of each bar so they had a nice finished look. I carefully brushed any crumbs off before I packaged them. Now, don't get me wrong, I still want my products to look nice, I just realized that looking nice doesn't necessarily mean perfection. Beauty is in the imperfection. These are the bars I was packaging when I had this epiphany.
The beauty is in the imperfection. These are scented with Coconut Passion fragrance. They are not colored, the fragrance turns them this color of brown. I am really not a fan of dark brown soap in general, at least I didn't used to be. When I poured this soap I decided in the spur of the moment to texture the top like you do with cake frosting. I don't know why I did it but I love it. I decided that I am done beveling edges and that I like the look of a rugged square edged bar. It's less polished looking, more hand made looking, more real life looking. After all, don't we find the best things in life in and around the rough edges? The adventure of life is often found in the peaks and valleys of life. All of the time I spent perfecting was wasted, all of the soap I cut off was wasted and I highly doubt that anyone would have stopped buying my soap simply because it did not look perfect; because the fact of the matter is that I make a darned fine bar of soap and once you try it you most likely won't go back to whatever you used before.
