Need help Orange spot on seeds *Picture*

Hi
I am new and have been making soaps for the last 3 months. I recently discover the soap making forum and soapcalc. I did a lot of reading here and started to created my own recipes.I have to admit I failed miserably my 3 last creations all failed.
I am not sure what is happening in soapcalc all the data are within range but I get all kind of weird reactions.

So I went back to my old recipe (given by my teacher at the soap class) that I did over 7 times with great success. I wanted a harder (longer lasting bar) and more bubbles.I read on the forum that salt and sugar would make the soap harder with more bubbles. So I added 1.3 tbsp of sugar and 1tsp of salt to my fail proof recipe and got weird results.

All the blueberry seed I added for exfoliation turned orange just like one of my custom recipe made with soapcalc that did not contain salt nor sugar.
Can adding Sugar and salt to a good recipe can destroy a batch ?
I am starting to thing I must be doing something wrong
The Soap (with salt and sugar) is also on the soft side 24h later when normally it is hard and easy to remove from molds.

I need help to figure this out
Thanks

Hello and welcome to the forum. The first thing you will need to do is post the recipe you are using as well as your process. That way we can help you troubleshoot what may be going on.

Here's the recipe :

700 gr olive oil
250 gr coconot oil
250 gr palm butter
120 gr shea butter
501 gr water
181 gr NaOH
1,3 tbsp sugar
0,6 tsp salt

2 tsp of white clay
2 tsp of blueberry seeds

20 gr essential oil (tea tree, eucalyptus and peppermint).

This is a cold process soap recipe.

At what point did you add the sugar and the salt?

It would be really helpful to those of us who are math-challenged to add percentages (of oils and lye:water). Or just a cut and paste of the result of whatever calculator you are using. I don't usually opine on these threads b/c not experienced enough, but I don't think the math-challenged part will change even when I am far enough along, and do think it makes it a bit easier for some who would and are able to provide advice. Good luck!

Soaps_r_us said:

...and I started creating my own recipes...

Click to expand...

If you don't mind, could you post a few of them? The experts here might be able to help you figure out what went wrong.

Soaps_r_us said:

So I added 1.3 tbsp of sugar and 1tsp of salt to my fail proof recipe and got weird results.

Click to expand...

How big was this batch? The general rules are 1 tsp - 1 TBSP sugar PPO (per pound of oil) (I use 1 TBSP ppo) and 0.5 tsp - 1.5 tsp PPO salt (I use 1 tsp PPO).

Soaps_r_us said:

All the blueberry seed I added for exfoliation turned orange just like one of my custom recipe made with soapcalc that did not contain salt nor sugar.

Click to expand...

I think this may simply be discoloration caused by the high pH and/or active lye in the soap, but I wouldn't know for certain as I've never used blueberry seeds.

Soaps_r_us said:

The Soap (with salt and sugar) is also on the soft side 24h later when normally it is hard and easy to remove from molds.

Click to expand...

Just relax and don't over think it. You're doing great and will get the hang of it!

Is the soft soap the same recipe? Is it the same size batch? Is there any chance you could have miss measured something?

Yes, it is always MUCH easier to "read" a recipe when the amounts are in percentages, as you get from a lye calculator. Otherwise I have to open up the soap calc page, add up the total of the oils, calculate the lye and water, enter all the weights of the oils with no mistakes.. By that time I'm usually in the kitchen making a martini

Also, most botanicals will turn brown when exposed to the high pH of lye.

Hi Soaps_r_us,

Provided that I typed everything into Soapcalc correctly, here's what I come up with (recipe in %):

53.03% Olive oil
18.94% Coconut oil
18.94% Palm oil (I assume you meant oil instead of butter, correct?)
9.09% Shea butter
Lye: 181g (SoapCalc shows a superfat 5.4% for this amount of lye)
Water: 501g (Soapcalc shows a lye concentration of 26.54%, or 37.97% water as % of oils for this amount of water)

Seeing as how you made this soap via the CP method, the biggest 'problematic' thing that stands out to me is the largeness of your water amount. If you ask me, you have way too much water in your batch. The amount you used is even more than what is considered to be a 'full water' amount. While that much water would be perfectly fine for a soap made via the HP method, it's too much over the top for CP, especially with the 53% amount of olive oil in there. The high water amount in conjunction with the olive oil amount alone would explain to me why your soap is still on the soft side 24 hours later. Not that that's anything to fret over, mind you, for it'll eventually harden up just fine with a good cure.

As for the blueberry seeds, I've personally never used them, but generally, botanical additives tend to discolor or cause discoloration in lye-based soap because of the higher pH.

Your sugar and salt amounts look fine to me, so I don't think they are a part of the problem.

I'm pretty sure the water amount is the cause of the softness, and also- if your soap did not go through the gel stage, that would also contribute to the softness.

The cure for softness is very simple, though- just give it a really good cure.

If it were me, I would use less water for this formula- somewhere around the neighborhood of 367g instead of 501g (a 33% lye concentration).


IrishLass

I actually appreciate the fact that they put actual weights here. Let's you immediately know what was in there, rather than the percentages. Helps to actually know the lye amount is correct rather than a guess.

OP- that recipe should be fine. I am guessing the seeds are just discoloring in the presence of NaOH, which is very common.

All things considered, I think it is indeed just a bit of discolouration from the botanicals. I've had this often when I use too much water.

http://www.theefficaciousgentleman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/first-fail-good-photo.jpg

You can see it starting, but it got much much worse

Here's a thread that explains the reasoning behind Irish Lass' comments about too much water for this recipe: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=53642

Seawolfe said:

At what point did you add the sugar and the salt?

Click to expand...

I add it in the water and then the NaOH

hmlove1218 said:

If you don't mind, could you post a few of them? The experts here might be able to help you figure out what went wrong.



How big was this batch? The general rules are 1 tsp - 1 TBSP sugar PPO (per pound of oil) (I use 1 TBSP ppo) and 0.5 tsp - 1.5 tsp PPO salt (I use 1 tsp PPO).

For the receipe, I have 1320 gr. of oil, 5% super Fat, water 38% of oil and I calculate 1 tbsp/PPO for the sugar and 1 tsp/PPO for the salt.


I think this may simply be discoloration caused by the high pH and/or active lye in the soap, but I wouldn't know for certain as I've never used blueberry seeds.

I did the same recipe with water 20% (of oils), and there's was no discoloration of the seeds....


Just relax and don't over think it. You're doing great and will get the hang of it!

THANKS

Is the soft soap the same recipe? Is it the same size batch? Is there any chance you could have miss measured something?

Click to expand...

I double the batch and add more water (whent from 20% to 38%). I add the sugar and the salt.... Those are the changes I did...

IrishLass said:

Hi Soaps_r_us,

Provided that I typed everything into Soapcalc correctly, here's what I come up with (recipe in %):

53.03% Olive oil
18.94% Coconut oil
18.94% Palm oil (I assume you meant oil instead of butter, correct?)
9.09% Shea butter
Lye: 181g (SoapCalc shows a superfat 5.4% for this amount of lye)
Water: 501g (Soapcalc shows a lye concentration of 26.54%, or 37.97% water as % of oils for this amount of water)

Seeing as how you made this soap via the CP method, the biggest 'problematic' thing that stands out to me is the largeness of your water amount. If you ask me, you have way too much water in your batch. The amount you used is even more than what is considered to be a 'full water' amount. While that much water would be perfectly fine for a soap made via the HP method, it's too much over the top for CP, especially with the 53% amount of olive oil in there. The high water amount in conjunction with the olive oil amount alone would explain to me why your soap is still on the soft side 24 hours later. Not that that's anything to fret over, mind you, for it'll eventually harden up just fine with a good cure.

As for the blueberry seeds, I've personally never used them, but generally, botanical additives tend to discolor or cause discoloration in lye-based soap because of the higher pH.

Your sugar and salt amounts look fine to me, so I don't think they are a part of the problem.

I'm pretty sure the water amount is the cause of the softness, and also- if your soap did not go through the gel stage, that would also contribute to the softness.

The cure for softness is very simple, though- just give it a really good cure.

If it were me, I would use less water for this formula- somewhere around the neighborhood of 367g instead of 501g (a 33% lye concentration).


IrishLass

Click to expand...

Thank you so much. My original recipe was with Water 20% of oils.... and everything was fine.... So if I understand, with cold process, the amount of water is around 33% ?

Soaps_r_us said:

I double the batch and add more water (whent from 20% to 38%). I add the sugar and the salt.... Those are the changes I did...

Click to expand...

Soaps_r_us said:

Thank you so much. My original recipe was with Water 20% of oils.... and everything was fine.... So if I understand, with cold process, the amount of water is around 33% ?

Click to expand...

Hi Soaps_r_us!

So...just to make sure I understand you correctly, the original recipe which came out perfectly fine for you was the same recipe as the one you posted on Page 1 of this thread, but was instead 1/2 the size? And you used a water amount of 20% water as % of the oils in the original, smaller batch?

If so, that explains everything (at least to me). To explain- if that is indeed what you did- your original (smaller) batch used a 20% water as per oils amount, but you changed that amount to 38% water as per oils when you doubled the batch? If so, there's the troublemaking culprit right there. You didn't need to do that. If you would have kept the 20% water as per oils amount as it was, the calculator would have automatically adjusted your gram water amount for your new doubled size to match the 20% ratio of water to oils, and all would have been fine.

So, if all of the above if true, what I would have done is to have kept the same exact 'water as % of oils' ratio that gave you success for your smaller batch of this formula (20%), changed only the weight amount of your oils to however big or small you wanted your batch to be, and then I would have sat back and let the calculator do it's job of adjusting the gram amount of your water for your larger-sized batch to match the 20% ratio of water to oils that gave you success in your smaller batch. Does that make sense?

At the risk of causing confusion, there are 2 different ways to calculate water on SoapCalc: either the 'water as % of oils' box, or the 'lye concentration' box (which is 'water as per lye' amount). I personally like to use the 'lye concentration box' to figure my water amount. The link that DeeAnna supplied earlier in this thread will explain why I think it's a beauty way to go.

Anyway, for what its worth in terms of 'lye concentration', your smaller, successful batch with the 20% water as per oils had a lye concentration of 40.678%, which is considered to be a fairly good size water discount (your newer batch went in the complete opposite direction). The second I saw that, it told me everything I needed to know as to why your smaller batch hardened faster than the larger batch in question: you had a much less of a water ratio in operation.

If you had kept to the same 20% water as per oils ratio in your larger batch that you had in your smaller batch, you would have only needed to use 264g water instead of 501g, and things would have hardened up much quicker for you.

All in all, though, there's nothing to worry about. Your soap will turn out fine with the extra water, nevertheless. It just means that it has more water to evaporate out of it during cure.

I hope that helps! Please don't hesitate to ask if you need further clarification!


IrishLass

Wow, thank you so much for your help and your time. It helped and it makes sens. Thanks

IrishLass said:

Hi Soaps_r_us,

Provided that I typed everything into Soapcalc correctly, here's what I come up with (recipe in %):

53.03% Olive oil
18.94% Coconut oil
18.94% Palm oil (I assume you meant oil instead of butter, correct?)
9.09% Shea butter
Lye: 181g (SoapCalc shows a superfat 5.4% for this amount of lye)
Water: 501g (Soapcalc shows a lye concentration of 26.54%, or 37.97% water as % of oils for this amount of water)

Seeing as how you made this soap via the CP method, the biggest 'problematic' thing that stands out to me is the largeness of your water amount. If you ask me, you have way too much water in your batch. The amount you used is even more than what is considered to be a 'full water' amount. While that much water would be perfectly fine for a soap made via the HP method, it's too much over the top for CP, especially with the 53% amount of olive oil in there. The high water amount in conjunction with the olive oil amount alone would explain to me why your soap is still on the soft side 24 hours later. Not that that's anything to fret over, mind you, for it'll eventually harden up just fine with a good cure.

As for the blueberry seeds, I've personally never used them, but generally, botanical additives tend to discolor or cause discoloration in lye-based soap because of the higher pH.

Your sugar and salt amounts look fine to me, so I don't think they are a part of the problem.

I'm pretty sure the water amount is the cause of the softness, and also- if your soap did not go through the gel stage, that would also contribute to the softness.

The cure for softness is very simple, though- just give it a really good cure.

If it were me, I would use less water for this formula- somewhere around the neighborhood of 367g instead of 501g (a 33% lye concentration).


IrishLass

Click to expand...

Thank you !!!!

IrishLass said:

Hi Soaps_r_us,

Provided that I typed everything into Soapcalc correctly, here's what I come up with (recipe in %):

53.03% Olive oil
18.94% Coconut oil
18.94% Palm oil (I assume you meant oil instead of butter, correct?)
9.09% Shea butter
Lye: 181g (SoapCalc shows a superfat 5.4% for this amount of lye)
Water: 501g (Soapcalc shows a lye concentration of 26.54%, or 37.97% water as % of oils for this amount of water)

Seeing as how you made this soap via the CP method, the biggest 'problematic' thing that stands out to me is the largeness of your water amount. If you ask me, you have way too much water in your batch. The amount you used is even more than what is considered to be a 'full water' amount. While that much water would be perfectly fine for a soap made via the HP method, it's too much over the top for CP, especially with the 53% amount of olive oil in there. The high water amount in conjunction with the olive oil amount alone would explain to me why your soap is still on the soft side 24 hours later. Not that that's anything to fret over, mind you, for it'll eventually harden up just fine with a good cure.

As for the blueberry seeds, I've personally never used them, but generally, botanical additives tend to discolor or cause discoloration in lye-based soap because of the higher pH.

Your sugar and salt amounts look fine to me, so I don't think they are a part of the problem.

I'm pretty sure the water amount is the cause of the softness, and also- if your soap did not go through the gel stage, that would also contribute to the softness.

The cure for softness is very simple, though- just give it a really good cure.

If it were me, I would use less water for this formula- somewhere around the neighborhood of 367g instead of 501g (a 33% lye concentration).


IrishLass

Click to expand...

Thank you so much for your time and the picture !!!!

Soaps_r_us said:

I add it in the water and then the NaOH

Click to expand...

I read that salt was helping with the hardness but was affecting the bubbly (less bubble). And sugar increace the bubbly. This is why I add both