Crystals growing from my soap.

[Noladude]

Greetings
I have been making soap on and off for a while now.
Usually as gifts but now I manage a kitchen and have access to all the used fry oil I want. Teehehe...
My oil is used mostly to fry chicken wings and mozzarella logs. My soap recipe (YouTube) is 1 liter oil, 7oz lye and 400ml water. After a week or maybe two my soap looks like this.
I have not touched it because it looks cool and I want to see if it tries to take over the world.
Anyway if it does not, anybody know what it is?
Thanks I'm sure I am not the first to grow alien soap.

 

[IrishLass]

Welcome, Noladude! No- you're not the first to grow alien soap, lol I had a batch that grew crystals like that a few years back, and fellow forum member MGM posted sometime this past month about one of her recent batches doing the same thing. I'm not sure of the cause of such stalactites, but hopefully someone who does know, or at least has an idea of what might be the cause will chime in soon!

What kind of oil did you use for your batch?


IrishLass

 

[newlee]

Sorry that looks scary

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Following... I wanna know what that is too! Nevah evah seen the likes of that. (Cue Twilight Zone music...)

 

[earlene]

Reminds me of some of the photos in the lye-heavy Andalusian Castile thread. https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/deanna-i-have-a-question.42922/

 

[IrishLass]

Thanks for posting that link, Earlene! I scrolled through and was able to find these pics of Newbie's soaps with the crystal fuzz/stalactites growing on the surface, just like the pic that Noladude posted (and just the ones I had growing on one of my own batches):

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/deanna-i-have-a-question.42922/page-22#post-411171

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/deanna-i-have-a-question.42922/page-27#post-416173

And here's DeeAnna's post in that thread in response to Newbie as to what could be causing all that weird crystaline fuzz:

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/deanna-i-have-a-question.42922/page-27#post-416357


IrishLass