I'm with Hazel on this- if you want a critical appraisal on how your soap looks, you need to ask.
To many if not most of us here, soap is a creative outlet- a medium in which we can let our artistic expressions have free reign. In other words, there's no such thing as a 'right way' that a soap should look.....well.... other than the fact that it shouldn't be oozing lye, etc., that is. :wink:
Apart from technical/scientific formulation problems like oozing lye, though (which are easy to critique because there's a scientific foundation to base an honest crtitique upon), there is really no solid scientific foundation to base a critique upon when it comes to someone's chosen 'look' for their soap, other than pure personal opinion, which is going to differ from person to person, for after all, beauty truly
is in the eye of the the beholder. Who wants to risk hurting someone's feelings or diss someone's artistic expression over something as nebulous as a personal opinion? I certainly don't.
If you ask, though- well, that's a different story. But like Cuckoo Bananas said, you need to be specific about what kind of crtique you're looking for.
Like Carebear, I'm not sure why, but I don't look too often in the picture gallery either. I'm happiest when discussing and offering advice on the actual process of soapmaking such as proper formulation (i.e., making sure a recipe will not turn out lye-heavy or DOS prone), or disspelling popular but untrue soaping myths, etc...., or making sure to use the proper safety procedures, or troubleshooting what caused a soap batch to go wrong, etc...
When it comes to how a soap looks....well...I consider that to be in the realm of artistic expression where there is no 'right' or 'wrong' answer.
IrishLass