Batch 5 Disaster?

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Martinez, Georgia
Hi all, first post here and I am super new at making soap. My first 4 batches of cold process tried different recipe variations and I like how they all turned out. The jury is still out on batch 4 though as it is a castille and has a ways to go before I can try it out.

Batch five is questionable though. I used 25% coconut oil, 25% olive oil, 25% palm oil, and 25% shea butter. I used soapcalc to give me the quantities for the ingredients, water, lye, and fragrance. I also added 4 tablespoons of colloidal oatmeal. The oil temp was 110F and the lye was 117F.

It was at a light trace when I poured it into the mold, and promptly wrapped in towels. Pretty much the same process I used in the other batches. I unmolded at 24 hours, the soap was firm but not as hard as the previous batches, and seemed to have oil on the outside of the brick in different places. I let it sit another 24 hours before cutting, it still has a little oil here and there, but not as much. The bars still seem to be slightly oily on the outside.

Any thoughts? Do I just need to let it cure and hope the oily feeling does away or?

Thanks for your comments in advance!
 
Last edited:
Welcome, kurbennett64. Congratulations on your successful batches.

For batch #5.
I would let it sit for a couple of weeks and watch it. The oil will probably reabsorb. What was your SF (superfat)? Did you use a fragrance (FO or EO)? (FO=fragrance oil; EO=essential oil) Either could also impact soap this way (not always, but sometimes).

I have had this happen and it usually re-absorbs.
 
Thanks for the quick reply. I used the default 5% listed in Soapcalc. I don't have my notes with me but I think I used 1 oz of fragrance oil. Just weird because the only change in the process was adding the shea butter and a different fragrance.
 
I have had this happen too and it was reabsorbed within a week or two. I never quite figured out the reason but it might have been the FO.
 
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