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Adi

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As I said in my introduction I've been making CP GM soap for years. I have been the luckiest Soapifer in the world, I think, because I've only had one batch, in all that time, that turned out ICKY. It was dry and chalky.

Ok not all of them turned out in the moulds perfectly, some had air pockets, or stuck in places so they weren't pretty enough to sell. Those become "friend's benefits" or our own soaps to use.

Last night, after reading some posts and recipes on wine soap, I thought, I'll make a batch of that.

Using my good old basic recipe, I blended the oils. Cooked the wine down, and made the lye solution with the wine...and for some reason, after all these years of doing my GM soaps...ok I was outta my comfort zone so I double checked everything 5 times and re-read some posts and I poured the lye mixture into my oils . Never in all my years of making soap have I done that, I always pour my oils into the lye/GM mixture...but I could have sworn I read somewhere to do it the opposite of what I normally did. So, I did.

OMG!! What happened?? It seized immediately!! I did manage to get some FO mixed through it, somehow.

Trust me, I don't know how to make a "small" batch. So I have this 16 cup stainless steel bowl that just turned into an unwilling mould!

I manically scoped it out and using a stainless steel spatula to press in down into the moulds (ovals). That process took longer than most of the dinners I prepare!

This morning it smelled good. But it looked like, well...it looked bad. Way bad. And ugly brown colour, lots of air pockets and nasty looking tops.

Ok help me out here. I'm sure it's the wine, due to the acidic content. Or maybe it's the process of pour the lye mixture into the oils. Or maybe both. Now for the real confession, I didn't have any drinking wine I was willing to part with on this experiment, so I just red cooking wine.

Mercy, it was scary! So what did I do wrong??

Adi
 
** You should always pour your lye/liquid mixture into your oils.

So it seized before you added your fragrance oil? Or after?
 
Oh it was in a dead seize before I put the FO in but I managed to get it in just in the nick of time to get it mixed up.
 
I have never ever added my oils to the lye - I'd think THAT would seize.
I've only added the lye solution to my oils!
 
However, I've never had red wine soap look anything other than icky brownish color - tho others say they get red wine color - go figure.
 
carebear – I’ve always poured my oils into my lye/gm solutions I’ve always monitored my temps and mixed when my lye/gm solution temps were between 95 and 105° F Never had a problem with seizing like this! I’ve always had problems with leather FO seizing my batch but not nearly this fast.

At least I don’t feel alone in the ugly brown wine soap world, now.


Adi
:D
 
agriffin said:
** You should always pour your lye/liquid mixture into your oils.


Wow so here are 2 very knowledgeable people who say you should always pour your lye into the oil and I've always done it the other way around and have never had problems with seizing except with certain FO's. Never had any kind of problems like not setting up, or not curing out, or being too soft, too hard, etc.

The only bad batch I've had was when I was experimenting and used dried cranberries and oatmeal in a batch and it turned out chalky. Now my bf uses it all the time and it cleans. But in the finished produce, besides being chalky, they are ugly and the color seeped out around the cranberries pieces and it looks moldy to me because of that. I never repeated the experiment because they looked so ugly, I didn't even think about rebatching it.

So even though I haven’t had problems with seizing except with the leather FO, my next leather batch I’ll do it the other way and see if it seizes less!

Adi
 
Adi said:
Wow so here are 2 very knowledgeable people who say you should always pour your lye into the oil

Well, actually I didn't say you should always do it, just that *I* always do that.

If there's one thing that I've learned over the years is that there are almost no rules to soaping

exceptions:
you MUST add lye to water, not the other way around
you MUST NOT make lye solution in pyrex or any other glass container
you MUST wear eye protection at various points during soaping
 
You are so right carebear. Nothing in soaping to predictable. I always have a "we'll see" attitude with every batch. It's a good thing I'm not a perfectionist :}
 
carebear said:
Adi said:
Wow so here are 2 very knowledgeable people who say you should always pour your lye into the oil

Well, actually I didn't say you should always do it, just that *I* always do that.

If there's one thing that I've learned over the years is that there are almost no rules to soaping

exceptions:
you MUST add lye to water, not the other way around
you MUST NOT make lye solution in pyrex or any other glass container
you MUST wear eye protection at various points during soaping

This. Safety first. Always.
 
It's a good thing my bf is a safety nut. He reminds me all the time, take off the contacts and put on your glasses! For some reason I am good about making sure I have vinegar on hand and keep a bottle of it on the counter in case I need to get to it.
 
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