Cold press 50/50 lye water ratio

[LadySarah370]

So, I have made a few batched of cp soap. This one threw me a wee bit. I had watched a very talented, very experienced soaper use a recipe I was going to try from BB or Soap Queen. She tweeked it said dhe did a 50/50 lye solution bc she added coconut milk and carrot puree. So I thought I would do this as well. Ran it through the lye calc and it said for a 42oz mold with 27 oz of olive oil and 5 oz of coconut oil to do 8.7 oz of lye and water. It seemed like it may have been too much. I figured it knew what it was doing....altho the more I thought about it, the more I thought well maybe I could have just added the same amount of water that the recipe called for the lye...I ended up with a bit extra. I am concerned now that I mucked up the soap

 

[IrishLass]

Don't lose heart! It's better to err on the side of having too much water in your batch than too much lye. The worse that'll probably happen is that it'll take a while for your bars to harden.

Can you supply us with the recipe and the total amount of liquid you ended up using?


IrishLass

 

[LadySarah370]

Don't lose heart! It's better to err on the side of having too much water in your batch than too much lye. The worse that'll probably happen is that it'll take a while for your bars to harden.

Can you supply us with the recipe and the total amount of liquid you ended up using?


IrishLass

Well the recipe said to use 4.3 oz of lye. lye calc said to use 8.7 oz of each. What did I do wrong on lye calc? Is my soap ruined or is it ok?

 

[LadySarah370]

That you for the encouragement

 

[IrishLass]

LadySarah- could you post the entire ounce or grams weights of each of the oils/fats you used in the recipe? Plus the water/lye weights you used, and the weights of any other liquid that you added? That would help greatly in helping me make sure everything is really, really okay. Thanks!


IriushLass

 

[LadySarah370]

So the Recipe from BB is:

Olive Oil – 27 oz
Coconut Oil – 5 oz
Buttermilk – 8 oz
Carrot Baby Food – 2.5 oz (make sure it says just carrots and water)
Lye – 4.3 oz

So the one that I watched on youtube:

50:50 lye solution
Olive Oil – 27 oz (from the recipe bc it's for the same mold I use)
Coconut Oil – 5 oz
Coconut milk– 8 oz
Carrot Baby Food – 2.5 oz (make sure it says just carrots and water)

it wasn't posted just what I guessed from her video.

 

[LadySarah370]

By the way I just ran it through soap calc....so not the amount of lye and soap...perhaps I misunderstood the lye calc...lesson learned though oh my goodness. I just hope I didn't completely ruin that batch though....

 

[IrishLass]

Thank you so much, LadySarah.... turns out I misunderstood your first post, but I see the complete picture now.

I just ran it through SoapCalc, and yes..... for 27 0z of olive oil and 5 oz of coconut oil @ 5% superfat, it says to use 4.3 oz of lye total.


Oh boy! So.....if you really and truly used 8.7 oz lye in a batch containing only 27 oz olive oil and 5 poz coconut oil, your gut instinct of concern after thinking more about things was spot on. You used twice as much lye as needed, giving you a very lye-heavy soap.....a negative 90.3 superfat to be exact. Ouch, ouch, ouch! Whatever you do, don't use that soap!

What should have been done was to was use 4.3 oz lye, and added it to 4.3 oz of water (a 50/50 lye concentration), and then gone on with the rest of the recipe amounts.

If it were me, I would toss that batch and start anew.


IrishLass

 

[LadySarah370]

IrishLass,

Thanks, I thought so...lesson learned..wow so will laugh about this later I am sure...

Will it be ok to wash the stuff out of the bowls??

 

[IrishLass]

Yes, but use gloves and goggles!


IrishLass

 

[LadySarah370]

IrishLass,

Thank you so much for your help! It's so awesome that this is here for everyone