lye heavy

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  1. Tuftyloves

    So discouraged about unincorporated lye

    I’ve been making and selling soap for two years and now and all of a sudden I’m having issues with unincorporated lye. The bars as a whole feel great and normal so I know it’s not a problem with my recipe (it’s been my tried and true for over a year) but I get unincorporated lye all of a sudden...
  2. C

    Help! Is my soap Lye Heavy?

    Hello all! Im in a bit of a situation. I poured a large batch of 6 loaves yesterday and the container that I used filled up pretty much to the brim and my spatula didn't fully reach the bottom. But while blending the oils and lye, i did use the stick blender which did reach the bottom and...
  3. S

    Curious Question!

    I’ve seen many soap makers state that a zap from soap cannot be mistaken, however I am wondering… are there varying degrees of zap? Most describe it as a 9volt battery, but I am wondering if let’s say I have a veeery slightly lye heavy soap if this would give me the same zap as a 9volt or a very...
  4. S

    Lye Mess up, Help Plz

    Hello, amazing soap makers, I'm new to soap and have lye heavy soap. I put my recipe through a calculator, but id not notice that it was for liquid soap and not solid. Recipe i i followed thinking was for solid soap Lye 2.78oz, water 6.22oz. Oils= olive oil 5.4oz 40%, castor 0.68oz 5%, plam...
  5. tammy sue starks

    big mistake, I forgot the coconut oil

    This is my recipe calculated on majestic mountain sage 250 g castor oil 1000 g coconut oil (which I forgot) 1700 g olive oil 1200 g lard 1500 g tallow 774 g sodium hydroxide 1800 ml distilled water 5 tbsp colloidal oatmeal using brambleberry fragrance calculator I put in 135 g milk and honey fo...
  6. elurah

    oh no the zaps

    On what day do you usually do the zap test? Honestly, I usually do it on the day of unmolding and cutting,24 hours after pouring my soaps and I usually don't have a problem, until today. (dun dun dun) Here is the recipe: Sweet Almond Oil 17.1 oz (25%) Coconut Oil 76 15.05oz (22%) Shea Butter...
  7. HLN80

    How much lye is too much lye...

    when I made my very first batch, the recipe was wrong, it called for 9oz of lye but after getting help from a sweet lady on here, she told me it should be 7.6oz. Total oils were 54oz. Anyway, that particular soap is still sitting on a shelf and I’m wondering if it might still be usable, how do I...
  8. A

    HELP lye heavy soap

    Hi all. I have been making soap for a while now. Usually cold pressed, but some hot. I have made a batch today very very lye heavy. I was premixing 2:1 lye and added the wrong bucket to recipe. Can i save the mix? Just wondering if this batch can saponify then i divide it into new hot process...
  9. Kiajera

    Lye Crystal's in Hot process soap

    Hi guys! I'm new here, but I have been making soap for roughly 6 years and I have encountered crystals of lye in my hot processed soap, which I also put in the oven to make a compound hp/ cpop soap with an embed. I have pics here for you to see. I'm going to re-batch it with a little more...
  10. W

    lye heavy?

    Hello, I've been making a few different batches of soap, running them through a lye calculator, following the recipes religiously, and yet they seem to be harsh on my skin. I have done the zap test...nothing. But when I test them with the ph test strip from the drug store, they come out with a...
  11. M

    Lye Heavy Soap

    Hi all. Happy new year to everyone. I recently made a batch of soap that was too brittle to cut properly. When I went back over my recipe I immediately spotted that I had mis-written the amount of lye required. So not only do I have a lye heavy soap; I know exactly how lye heavy it is. My base...
  12. incognitocat2

    Zappy crystal soap tops (but the rest is fine)

    Hi Everyone, I'm trying to solve a soapy mystery, and any help/insight you could provide would be appreciated! (see photos attached for reference) Last night (~24 hrs ago at this point) I made two 5-lb loaves of soap using the same oil masterbatch. I used different fragrances and colorants...
  13. B

    My first cp soap

    Okay, so I had my first experience making cold processed soap yesterday and I have a problem, my recipe was : 10 oz canola 10 oz olive oil 10 oz lard 5 oz coconut oil(76) And I superfatted with 2oz of sesame seed oil. So my problem is that I completely forgot the canola oil. I realized...
  14. M

    Questions of a Newbie

    Hello my name is jane and I'm a newbie. I watched soap making videos and reading a lot on how to make soaps for almost a year until i have decided to make my first batch. It was moringga soap btw I made 2lbs only since this is my first time. So i already finished making and my soap was on the...
  15. M

    can the battery dying in scale effect accuracy?

    hello, two nights a go i made a facial soap with activated charcoal powder. i made 4lbs of soap and used 1 and a half tablespoons of charcoal powder. i used my handy digital kitchen scale to make sure everything was measured properly. i unmolded and cut the soap today and it seems a tad...
  16. U

    Adding clay to lye water?

    Hello! I've read about adding clay to the lye water to intensify the color. I was wondering though, would the clay absorb some of the lye, and then in turn make the clay itself lye-heavy? I'm not sure about the chemistry regarding this and am hoping someone here may know (so I don't...
  17. M

    Lye heAvy?

    Hello I made gingerbread soap two weeks and it's been curing since. It has felt much softer than the other soaps I've made so I decided to cut it in half today to see what it looked like inside. It has a much lighter brown color evenly throughout the middle and it smells kind of funky in the...
  18. M

    CP fail plz help!

    So I made cp soap and after 24 hrs the soap was still soft ,I tested it by putting my tongue to it and I burned it bad. :( Anyways I let it sit another 2 days and today I saw small crystals forming on the top and lots of liquid on the bottom and a bit on top. What happened to it? Can I...
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