Near instantaneous saponification, ricing and gel phase

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Traumabrew

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I made a batch of soap today. Ingredients: 20% CO, 20% OO, 15% cocoa butter, 15% palm oil, 10% pine resin, 10% Apricot oil, 10% castor oil. Used 1tsp hibiscus powder to color, 4 tsp sodium lactate

My essential oil blend was: amber, cedarwood, siberian fir and cypress.

I soaped at 110 degrees. As I was pouring the lye in, I started to see ricing. So I stick blended it to beat it into submission and I was seeing gel phase in the bowl in 20 seconds of adding in my lye. I added my EO blend at this point and it just stimulated it further. It was still ricing and the stainless steel bowl got so hot, I had to use oven gloves to handle it. I beat the darn thing into submission and glopped it into my mold. Gel phase was occurring faster as I was glopping it in. I shot a quick temp of the bowl as all this was going and my laser temp gun read 310 degrees! Amazingly, somehow, I did not get soap on a stick.

Never had such a rapid, violent exothermic reaction occur like this. The reaction was more vigorous than adding lye to water.
 
This is what it looked like several seconds after pouring it. The light area is what the ungelled batter should like. It has now gelled and is almost a liquid state.

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It was the pine resin, it can cause all kind of troubles and it sounds like you used a lot.

Was it a powder? I can't quite figure out why you added it to the oil total or it's it something that saponifies?
 
Pine resin is saponifiable. I have it in a fine powder. I have used it in my liquid soaps before. 10% is the max I use there and just carried it over to my CP recipe. Colophony is another name for pine gum resin. The max IFRA usage rate is 12.5%
 
I routinely use 10% castor oil. Weird, it did not volcano, but seems to have some separation going on and there is a not oily yellow liquid boiling over the top and onto the counter and also appears on the top of the soap. Wish I could upload the pictures
 
Rosin (colophony) will saponify quite fast and very hot. Also, if the rosin was hot enough to be fully melted, it would have to be around 180 F or so. That will also jump start saponification.

Next time, start the batch with all your other fats in the soap pot, but not the rosin. Add the lye solution to the fats and get everything nicely mixed. Then slowly add the melted rosin to the soap batter while stirring continuously. It will still saponify fast and hot, but you'll have more control.
 
This was the soap right after pouring.

The soap had set up within 12 hours and I unmolded with no problems. There was a wetness (not a lot) to the soap and small pockets of ? unsaponified pine resin or oil, but it did not really feel oily. I cut it and set out on wax paper to initially dry like I always do and when I came home the oily sheen had 99% disappeared. I zap tested it and it was fine. I took a small piece of my tester bar and it created a really good lather for a soap less than 24 hours old.

The small pockets were all located at the top of the soap.

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Here are some pictures of the soap today and of the lather I got from a wee sample.

Is this soap OK to use? I know it is not lye heavy. If it cures and does not have the wetness/oiliness can I sell this? Or is this batch garbage bound?

Any input or thoughts would be appreciated.

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Is this soap OK to use? I know it is not lye heavy. If it cures and does not have the wetness/oiliness can I sell this? Or is this batch garbage bound?
It's too soon to tell, so a little patience is in order -- but it's definitely not garbage bound.

I don't know if this will help or not, but when using rosin (aka pine resin aka colophony), I first melt it with some coconut oil: 1 oz rosin to 2 oz. coconut oil. I make 3-oz pucks in a 6-cavity silicone mold and freeze them for an hour, pop them out and put in a ZipLoc in the freezer until I need one. It saves time and I don't have to deal with all the sticky bits on the bottom when melting rosin alone.

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