A few common soap problems w/pics and info

[dopersoaper]

Hi everyone!
I’m not sure if this has been done before, but I just want to contribute to the forum a bit by showing some pics of my soaps…and these soaps endured some of the most common problems a lot of us soap makers will go through at one time or another. Here are some pics and a little informative information about these problems. If anyone wants to add to it, by all means, please do so.

But for me…every problem that I’ve had has been a lesson learned

Enjoy

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Partial Gel – My soap started to gel (the more opaque at the bottom) but as soon as it started to gel toward the top middle (notice the semi circle), the soap cooled down, thus gel was halted. You can make sure your soap is insulated really well to get full gel.



Speckles of color when using oxides – (for those of you who have a problem with the speckled look) This is just a result of not mixing my colors well. Powdered colorants tend to clump up. A good suggestion is to mix your color in your lye water or a small portion of your pre-measured oils ahead of time or liquid glyerine. ***Check to see if your colorants are water or oil dispersible first*** I’m not sure if you will totally eliminate the speckles, but either way, try your best at mixing thoroughly.


DOS” (dreaded orange spots) – literally orange spots that eventually show up on your sop in random spots. This sometimes is caused by over superfatting your soap, which allows for a certain amount of oil to NOT react with the lye. This “free” oil usually goes rancid and oxidizes. I’ve also heard that certain oils cause DOS (I can’t attest to that one so you might have to do your research on this) as well as the humidity. However, DOS also does not cause harm


Soda Ash - a white “powdery” looking film on the top of soap. This is usually caused by the soap being exposed to air for too long after it’s poured in the mold. Keeping the top of your soap well covered, usually, but not always helps with the problem. But getting soda ash is not harmful, but sometimes, it can be very unattractive

 

[whisks]

thanks for posting the photos - a picture is worth a thousand words.
i hope others add to this post as well.

 

[artisan soaps]

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[whisks]

i think sweating might be what's happening to my soaps. what causes it, what can be done to prevent it and does it cause ash?
also, is the sweat lye?

clare - your dos actually looks decorative on that piece of soap.

 

[ChrissyB]

Dopersoaper interesting pics, but I think youve got the first pic with the partial gel around the wrong way. Gel actually starts from the middle and migrates to the outer edges of your loaf. So the opaque part down the bottom of your soap is the ungelled part, and the darker ring in the middle is the gelled soap.

 

[Deb]

Awesome idea. As soon as I get a digital camera I can add some oddity pictures!

 

[artisan soaps]

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[whisks]

since i've had mixed results gelling, i don't go out of my way to gel my soaps. however, i did stick a batch in the sun with a black towel around it. the whole soap didn't gel, but there were bits that did, mostly around embedding. it was partial gel, which i have read is something that is undesirable, but i didn't mind in this case because it just added to the look. that said, can anyone tell me why it only gelled around the embedded bits?

 

[artisan soaps]

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[dagmar88]

Very good idea Dopersoaper; especially for the new soapers amongst us!

Here's some huuuugely overheated soap:

 

[Vintageliving]

Very interesting and helpful. Thanks much for posting all these!

 

[CookieChan]

Awesome post!

 

[TessC]

Cracked top due to minor overheating:

Same crack after the soap cooled down, quite a bit less noticeable:

 

[whisks]

tess, are the spots due to overheating as well, or are they just part of the soap?
thanks

 

[TessC]

They're raspberry seeds I sprinkled on top after the texturing was done. Lovely pinky-red shade to start out, but they went bug turd brown over time. :?

 

[Psalm 23]

Thanks for posting all the pics. Those are really helpfull to me!

 

[whisks]

that's a pity - the soap looked lovely.