Adding water speeding up trace?

[szaza]

Normally the rule is, the more water the slower the trace, but I had the weirdest thing happen.
I wanted to add frozen pandan at trace, so I started with a 50% lye solution and SB to emulsion. Then I split the batch, added the pandan to the green portion and distilled water to the rest. It went from emulsion to medium trace in no time!! Only to stay at medium trace until everything was in the mold.
It was clear the added water gave trace a burst with this otherwise slow recipe. I'd have thought it would be otherwise. I expected it to emulsify and get to light trace really quickly to then slow down once the water was added.
Anyone have any ideas? I thought maybe there's a tilting point where a higher concentration makes trace slower because it's harder for the NaOH to move around and react or something? But that's just a guess, it would be cool if someone would actually know what happened.

 

[jcandleattic]

It probably had more to do with the the frozen pandan? than any other reason.

 

[szaza]

The room temp distilled water in the other part of the batter also accelerated.. otherwise it would indeed have been the pandan, but I now suspect it was the water.

 

[DeeAnna]

There is a "tilting point" as you put it. I'm no expert on this idea, but I've seen it happen with my own soap a time or two.

I believe it was LionPrincess here on SMF who was familiar with how trace can be slowed by using a very high lye concentration. Maybe do a search on her name? I want to say the discussion I remember about this was in a Challenge thread a few years ago. She may have been the host.

 

[dibbles]

It was newbie's high water/low water challenge. I remember because I refer to this when I am looking for sure non-accelerating fragrance oils or EOs.
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/smf-december-challenge-high-and-low-water-batch.57559/
But you are right @DeeAnna that LionPrincess contributed a lot to that discussion.

 

[szaza]

Thanks @DeeAnna and @dibbles , that's a very long and informative thread! I'll look her up some more