What soapy mistake have you made today?

I made a soap volcano today and it wasn't even close to salvageable :cry:

Complexions said:

I made a soap volcano today and it wasn't even close to salvageable :cry:

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Ooooh.....I hope you're okay. :cry:

Complexions said:

I made a soap volcano today and it wasn't even close to salvageable :cry:

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I don't want to hit like on this post. I hope you are ok and that you managed to clean up the mess. Did you work out what went wrong? If so - don't do that again!! fingerwagging :mrgreen:

Unfortunately, with soap making, this is not the easiest advice to follow...

I was a moron and completely forgot to put on rubber gloves to clean my soaping dishes (I clean them day of, then dishwasher in my soap shop) I now have very minor irritation beneath my fingernails. Not horrible but enough to remind me not to do it again!!

Shampoo bar gone bad

I wanted to use Neem Oil and also an egg for my experimental batch of Shampoo Bar. Luckily, I only made 18 oz worth of oil versus a 32 oz. Not sure what went wrong with the recipe, but it was super soft on some spots. The in the pot swirl design looked odd, white polka dottish and transparent spots on some. I wanted a yellow gold/white swirls, but it was not what I envisioned. I used
5% Castor
10%Cocoa butter
10% coconut Oil
2% Jojoba
5% Neem
26% Olive
10% Palm Kernel Oil
20% Sunflower HO
2% Stearic Acid
10% SheA Butter
colorants Annato, TD, EO Tea Tree, Sweet ORange, and Rosemary
Vitamin E 4 drops

Perhaps it was the sulfur from the eggs, or I checked out my Coconut Oil and it was yellow (gone rancid?) It was Nutiva brand that I got at costco.

So if anyone here can suggest what to do next, I would greatly appreciate any suggestions.

thanks all!

ilovebathing said:

I wanted to use Neem Oil and also an egg for my experimental batch of Shampoo Bar.

So if anyone here can suggest what to do next, I would greatly appreciate any suggestions.

thanks all!

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I'd start a new thread for this as not everyone looks in this thread but lost of people use neem.

But I wouldn't use coconut oil unless it was pure white and smelt good. Once it starts to go boy does it go fast and stink!

Thanks Penelope Jane! I will repost it somewhere, not sure where but I will so I can get a better idea what went wrong. There was no smell, it was just the weirdest CO I have ever purchased.

ilovebathing said:

Thanks Penelope Jane! I will repost it somewhere, not sure where but I will so I can get a better idea what went wrong. There was no smell, it was just the weirdest CO I have ever purchased.

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Post in the lye based soap forum section.
Include water amount and NaOH too.

I tried my hand at soap cupcakes today. Going simple, pink cakes with purple frosting. I used my basic recipe which is OO 30%, Co 30%, PO 30%, castor oil 5%, shea butter 5%. Used a fragrance I never used before, baked cookie.

Everything went well. I added the FO to the whole batch after light trace then whisked in. I noticed the oil got a dark yellow color with a orange hue after adding the FO. I split the batch and added my pink mica then stick blended to thicken it up which is when I noted the batter accelerate and didnt need the stick blender.

I poured into my cupcake mold, then went to the remaining batter for the icing and it was at thick trace before adding the color. I added the color and mixed it in and then I noticed my purple turned to a dark brownish purple. I added a lot more purple mica and it really didnt help.

I then spooned the batter into my piping bag and tried to pipe the soap batter icing (Ive never done that before) and ended up squirting the batter out the back end making a mess. Then I figured it out and tried to pipe the soap and making a nice spiral is really hard.

In the end, my cupcakes look like they have a pile of a certain brown popular emoji on top but not as pretty as said emoji.

I told my daughters they will have these soaps to use. LOL

Aiaiaii, Traumabrew! I have a tendency not to make poop soap but rancid, yellowing fat soap or old band-aid soap. Certain FO's turn uncolored layers an unhealthy yellow, and if I calculate red colorant wrong it turns the opaque whitish soap the color of a scab or the bandage covering it.

Anyway, I made an ombre soap, very carefully pouring layers and calculating trace, while wondering why I didn't seem to have enough batter. Forgot to add the coconut oil. So it's 100% lard, lye-heavy, unusable and very pretty. Wasting materials gives me the pip. I'm frugal.

jewels621 said:

Ooooh.....I hope you're okay. :cry:

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No permanent damage!

penelopejane said:

I don't want to hit like on this post. I hope you are ok and that you managed to clean up the mess. Did you work out what went wrong? If so - don't do that again!! fingerwagging :mrgreen:

Unfortunately, with soap making, this is not the easiest advice to follow...

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I forgot to turn the crock pot to low, so it was a hot mess....literally! :headbanging: I was more upset about the wasted oils than anything else!

Reading some of these posts made me feel a little better about the disaster I just created. First, I used 1 tablespoon of sea salt ppo in my lye water when I think I should've used 1 teaspoon. I also used 2% sodium lactate ppo. My batter accelerated. By the time I got my color mixed in the first half of the batter, the second half had begun to solidify so I have natural batter colored bits in that part. I'm ok with that. I think it may make a pretty design. Mistake #2 was trying to force the super thick batter into a pvc pipe that I had shaped into an oval & lined with a thin plastic cutting board for a yin yang design. Mistake #3 was not trying to smash the disaster into a silicone loaf mold sooner lol. I smashed, squished and pounded the heck out of it before wrapping it & putting it to bed for the night. I can't​ wait to unmold it in the morning. I used natural colorants for the first time (green clay & spirulina) and I'd like to see how successful I was in eliminating any air pockets.

Complexions said:

I forgot to turn the crock pot to low, so it was a hot mess....literally! :headbanging: I was more upset about the wasted oils than anything else!

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Oh gosh! At least that's easily fixed for next time. :silent:

Decided to make a charcoal brine bar and used my loaf mold. 6 hours later I thought "Hmmm... This loaf feels awfully hard already... Oh crap!"

Well the first two cuts with my kitchen knife just shattered the bars. Luckily I had a crappy wire cutter (one meant for cakes) lying around and managed to cut the rest of the loaf into wobbly - but intact - bars. Not my prettiest soap ever but at least I remembered to cut before going to bed! That definitely would've been a disaster.

Update: I kind of like the way my soapy disaster turned out. I wish the color variation between the French green clay & spirulina was still as noticable. I think the shiny green in the picture is the clay batter. I also think that the uncolored bits add a nice touch and I'm happy there weren't nearly as many air pockets as I thought there'd be.

SoapAddict415 said:

Reading some of these posts made me feel a little better about the disaster I just created. First, I used 1 tablespoon of sea salt ppo in my lye water when I think I should've used 1 teaspoon. I also used 2% sodium lactate ppo. My batter accelerated.

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Do you need salt AND SL?
I use about 1tsp ppo of salt.

penelopejane said:

Do you need salt AND SL?
I use about 1tsp ppo of salt.

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Not really. My recipe was going to make a soft bar according to soapcalc and I'm impatient so I was trying to make sure it'd be hard enough to unmold within 24 hours.

I caught the edge of the mold on the oven rack as I was putting it in.... Good thing we are looking at new ovens.

In my 5 years of soaping, I had few disasters, but I've never encountered lye pockets.
So, today I've learnt that if it looks like a lye pocket IT IS a lye pocket, no need to zap test.
My poor tongue, 1h later and it's still tingly...

And, if the soap batter is on a yellowish side, IT IS false trace... lye water probably was too cold, my guess, it's quite cold here in southern Australia.
Now I'm trying to fix this disaster, it's cooking away in a slow cooker...