Cocoa Butter "Bloom" - Any wisdom please.

[penelopejane]

I can only suggest soaping was mer at 110*F. This doesn’t mean the oil and lye mixtures have to be exactly 110*s just that they mix at 110*.’
The two layered soap would have been different temps when you poured.

The by putting them into the fridge you stopped saponification.

Try CPOPing don’t heat the oven too high. Preheat to 110* wait for it to come down to the right temp. Put your mold in a cardboard box. Wrap you soap and leave it untouched (don’t open the oven) for 12 hrs. Make it last thing st night and it won’t disrupt your dinner.

Just try it and see if it helps. Can’t work out why it’s suddenly gone wrong for you unless it’s the weather?

 

[penelopejane]

I’ve been thinking that Cocoa butter requires a certain temp to melt. Maybe in summer the ambient temperature is enough to get it to hold in suspension long enough to fully saponify without causing the bloom.

Maybe as the ambient temperature cools in the soap doesn’t get time to saponify before you put it in the fridge and really accentuates the bloom like chocolate when you put it in the fridge.

Pouring 2 colours means one section is cooler than the other. Also the edges of individual molds are more susceptible to temperature changes than loaf molds.

If you have air conditioning this is all wrong. But could the ambient temperature be playing a part in the successful vs unsuccessful batches?

 

[lifeofrileyfarm]

Attempt at uploading pics. God they look awful!

View attachment 29436

On the left is a two layer sandalwood and bentonite clay soap. The white was poured first then cocoa powder added and poured again to get two simple layers. The soda ash seems to be formed along where the layers joined. It is not on top at all, but you can see the slightly "nibbled" look to the edges that were in the bottom of the mould and the whitish corners. The left is a top and bottom view of the lemongrass and poppy seed. All of these soaps looked absolutely pristine and perfect when first unmoulded. This developed over about two days following unmoulding.

This has happened to some degree on the lemongrass and poppy seed, the sandalwood and clay, the lavender and tussah silk, the mint and tea tree, the orange and patchouli and the cinnamon honey and oatmeal. Though they all look slightly different, some are worse than others, not all have the nibbled look to the edges. The plain soap (base recipe, no additives or EOs), the rosemary and sea salt and the coffee, pumice and sea salt soaps are all absolutely fine. They were all made using the same technique, but there have been differences as I came to the end of one batch of oils for example or started a new bottle of sodium hydroxide. But of the three "perfect" soaps, one was made first the other two made last. So one would have been made with the same oils and lye as the first few soaps and the others with the same as the last few. The one with the least amount of additives and the two with most amount of additives are the ones that are not affected. There simply does not appear to be a single factor that I can isolate between the successful and unsuccessful varieties. I have made three complete batches for sale so far. The first time all were fine except for the lemongrass and poppy seed variety, the second time all were fine except the tea tree and mint. This time most of the varieties are affected. I have used the same technique and the same mould across all these batches, and when I was developing the recipe, when I no problems at all! I have only recently started to use deionised water but that began on batch two so doesn't explain the first occurrence either.

GRRRRRRR!!!!!

CPOPing here I come. But as I only have one oven I'll have to eat salad while I am making soap!

I has this same issue using Lemongrass EO. I made a Lavender Lemongrass flower in individual molds and the Lemongrass portion did the ugly white thing while the Lavender was perfectly fine and purple. I also thought my trace was a bit too thin, but maybe it's just Lemongrass! I'm a few years late to. This string, but thought I'd add a comment.

 

[JuliaNegusuk]

Hi Lifeofriley,
I still keep an eye on the forum though I am not soaping much at the moment. In my experience, lemongrass EO was the worst offender for this soda ash, which I now think that it was, but several of the other EOs also were affected, including lavender. Eventually the solution was simply to use a 1.5:1 ratio of water to sodium hydroxide instead of 2:1. This equates to a change from 33% to 40 % lye concentration (I think!)
This reduction in water completely solved the problem, even when I reverted to my old practice of refrigerating my soap. It still doesn't answer why some EOs seem to behave differently, or why I never used to have problems until the very moment I started selling!
So I recommend everyone with this problem gives the water reduction a try. Particularly if, like me, you don't want to muck up your natural colourants by cpoping. It is possible that this will speed up trace for the those of you who swirl etc, but I can't comment as I have never done it.
Good luck.