My Turn for a Seizure

Took all of 30 seconds to go from oils, lye solution, and EOs to soap on a stick. All of my colorants are still on the counter -- never got that far.

Rather than HP it, I'm going to try cmzaha's method of letting it gel in the pot and then dump it in the mold. If I tried pushing it now, I'd have giant air pockets even if I could get it to go in.

The one thing that concerns me is that it is sitting at 0% superfat right now. I was planning to superfat via color-infused oils after I got to emulsion or a light trace. Blew right through that one!

Carolyn, if you're reading, do you think when this thing hits gel I'll be able to mix more oil in? I won't try the infused oils, I'll just use plain oil.

I guess if it doesn't look like it will work I'll stick it in the oven to see if I can melt it. Aye yi yi, you little bugger!

Ok, we're cool. It came to a smooth full gel in about an hour, inside the soaping pot, placed covered in the oven. No zap. So all panic disappeared and I decided to go for color after all. But just one -- alkanet -- to match the lavender-mint scent that I had already put in my oils before adding the lye and getting the seize. Put the alkanet right in the superfat, dumped it in the gelling soap and mixed it up. The soap is green now instead of purple, so it must be a little higher alkalinity than my tongue led me to believe. Plus it's not as smooth as it was before I stirred it.

I'm going to let it stay in the pot a little longer to see if it will smooth out again and turn purple. Gave it a shot of heat in the oven (just a preheat to 170), for better or for worse. I won't let it stay in there too long though, as I don't want it to dry out or start hardening!

Carolyn, I like the gel-the-seized-soap-in-the-pot method, glad I remembered you saying it!

Well, glad it's not a rebatch! Wonder why it seized in the first place though, you are using EO not FO right? I MUST remember to use that method next time I have a soap seize, I know I've read about it before but it's a mater of remembering it in the heat of the moment. Hope your color turns purple again. I use alkanet powder, like one would use an oxide, and it comes out purple-ish but I haven't tried an infusion yet.

Leave it to me to get a seize with EOs. I'm not really sure what happened. I have it narrowed down to three possibilities:

1. My pre-batched lye (supposed to be 50/50).

2. Too much temperature difference between the lye solution and the oils (~100 vs. ~80, respectively). The pre-batched lye was room temp to start but I added some sugar water to bring it to 2.5 water:1 lye, which heated the solution up considerably. I cooled it down in an ice bath but maybe not enough.

3. The lavendin EO (the major component of my blend). I don't know why I think this. Just looking for something to blame!

As for purple, I don't think I'm going to get it. When I re-computed how much alkanet I should have for my full sized batch (rather than just the portion I originally intended to color), I erred in my math and didn't add nearly enough. So I expect I'll have gray :thumbdown:

My original intent for this soap was white/TD background with hanger swirls of green (parsley infused OO) and purple (alkanet directly in OO, no infusion, just like you do Julz). I was going to do all of my colorants in superfat because the parsley was already infused so it seemed easier just to make the same assumptions for all parts of the soap (i.e., start with 0% superfat, then adjust like described here: http://www.lovinsoap.com/2011/07/color-soap-naturally-advanced-multi-colored-design-with-infusions/). Dang, I really screwed it up!

Even if it didn't turn out the colors or pattern that you wanted I'm sure you still made wonderful soapy soap! And as for why it seized...the world may never know...

I vote soap gremlin for the seizure b/c none of the possible reasons you described really seem like it would make soap seize.... glad you remembered how to fix it without HP'ing it. hope the colour comes out not as drab as you expect.

and btw - when you said seizure, I thought non-soapy type of seizure. how silly of me!

CaraBou-I use heat transfer method to melt my solid oils all the time. I don't think it was the temperature difference.

I have no idea why it happened, either. Have you used that particular bottle of lavendin before? Generally, I don't have issues with lavender, but ylang-ylang accelerates like crazy.

I have a wonderful smelling Bulgarian lavender that always seizes. Glad you were at least able to get it in the mold and I have never managed to get purple with Alkanet. Have you used this particular Lavender before? I find when I have a seizure like that and let it sit, even though it goes through a gel it will still zap like a cp soap, set up very quickly which is why I mentioned pour quickly

I used lavendin, lavender, and peppermint, all of which I've used before. I suspected the lavendin because it was dominant at 72% of the blend and 4.7% of the weight of the oils. I've never used that much before. I wasn't planning that amount but the bottle was nearly empty so I finished it off.

Another thing I did differently was add the EO blend to the base oils before adding the lye. I know many people do this so it didn't worry me. But the EOs had about an hour head start in the pot compared to the lye. I wonder if they might have bonded in some way with the base oils, causing the lye to react abnormally. AKJulz is probably right, the world may never know what happened, but a girl can wonder. I spent a lot of time prepping for that soap!

As for the alkanet... I was right, I didn't use enough and got a weird gray. That, combined with the slight rebatch look and the hint of mint, reminds me of the edge of a glacier. Maybe I can trick my friends and family into thinking it was a purposeful design


Drum roll please for Glacial Ice:

it's purple! looks great for a seized soap!

Wonderful, that is quite a save! And if you don't tell them what you intended, they will be none the wiser! That's one of the things I love about crafting...yes I meant to do that isn't it creative and inspired. *head nods*.

Whew! When I read "seizure" in the thread title, I thought that YOU had a seizure. I'm so glad it was just seized soap!

Yeah, that pic looks more purple than it really is. Funny how the camera plays those tricks. There's a little color to it but overall it is gray. I'll take it over brown though, since I'm sure to get that one again..and again...and again lol

But you saved it!! Not really bad looking at all