Colour difference

Hi Guys,

This is the 1st time I am posting a thread so please forgive me if I have missed anything or my thread is messy.

I made my soap from 50% Palm Olein and 50% Crude Palm Kernel Oil.

I molded them and after i cut them, there is a difference in colour from the top and bottom part (as attached)

I have covered the soap with towel while molding. What do I have to do in order for them to have the same colour?

Also is there an expiry date for a homemade soap?

Thank you guys in advance

Is there a difference in texture as well?

To me, this can be many factors:

*With palm oil, you can have white spots in the soap that are due to the stearic acid (one of the fatty acid components of palm oil) not mixing well with the rest of the batter. Maybe in this case, those white spots all became the top portion of the soap?

*Soap can separate in the mold due to overheating or a false trace. This can leave an oily layer and a lye heavy layer.

*You may have blended a lot of air into the soap with a stick blender and have a foamy top portion of the soap and a dense lower portion.

I would recommend zap testing. There may have been some degree of separation occurring here. In that case, you may have a lye heavy layer and a layer with an excess of oil. If one bar zaps and the other does not, I would simply rebatch it. :smile:

Hope this helps!

ETA:
I just looked up palm olein and it should not contain stearic acid so... Just disregard that part! I didn't realize that palm olein is fractionated palm with a high oleic acid content.

Aslo, 50% PKO is a pretty high percent. You may find this bar very drying to the skin.

As for an expiration date, well made soap lasts many years! All soaps should be cured at lease 4 weeks before use.

Thanks for your response Galaxy,

There are no difference in texture. I molded the soap into a plastic cup and only the top layer or the soap is white in colour. The rest of them have all the same colours and texture.

The whiteness is like really thin layer of snow. I scraped it off and the part underneath is exactly the same colour as the others.

I juz did a zap test on the white and bottom part. No zapping on my tounge lol.

What do you think of 80% Palm Olein and 20% PKO?

Thanks in advance

The white was on top? And can be sacraped off? Then it's just ash, which is only cosmetic and can be washed off. It's very common on handmade soap.

I can't give any advice about Palm olein or PKO, sorry

Edit to add: and welcome excellent post, pictures always help!

If it's a real thin layer of of whiteness, it sounds like it could be soda ash. It's not uncommon and it's harmless to the soap if there's no zap. Just looks a little funky. Here's a link that explains what soda ash is and how to prevent it.

http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/tips-and-tricks/explaining-and-preventing-soda-ash/

Thanks guys, lots of helps

Oh good! I'm glad its just ash. I thought it was in two large separate layers! I should have asked how big the layers were. I couldn't tell in the pictures.

ETA:
According to soapcalc, 80% palmolein and 20% PKO would look like it makes a decent bar of soap. The fatty acid profile of palmolein contains mostly palmatic and oleic acids. It falls in between the fatty acid profile of regular palm oil and olive oil (palm has more palmatic, less oleic, and olive has less palmatic, more oleic.)

I'm not sure if that helps.

Sure it helps alot. Thanks Galaxy

galaxyMLP said:

I just looked up palm olein and it should not contain stearic acid so... Just disregard that part! I didn't realize that palm olein is fractionated palm with a high oleic acid content.

Click to expand...

There's not much difference between palm olein from a single fractionation and whole palm oil. You probably could use either one in your recipes and it would be fine. The IV of palm oil is 50-53 and that of the olein from one fractionation is typically 56.

People frequently refer to the theory that stearic acid in palm oil causes white spots, but palm oil fractionated or not doesn't contain much stearic. If the theory is true, I think the intended meaning might be stearin. Stearin refers to the solid portion of fats, regardless of the fatty acid composition.

Welcome Jayrian!

topofmurrayhill said:

There's not much difference between palm olein from a single fractionation and whole palm oil. You probably could use either one in your recipes and it would be fine. The IV of palm oil is 50-53 and that of the olein from one fractionation is typically 56.

People frequently refer to the theory that stearic acid in palm oil causes white spots, but palm oil fractionated or not doesn't contain much stearic. If the theory is true, I think the intended meaning might be stearin. Stearin refers to the solid portion of fats, regardless of the fatty acid composition.

Click to expand...

Ive just heard that being referred to as the cause of the spots but that does make sense. I wonder if there would be a way to devise an experiment to parse it out.