Crystals on outside of cp soap???

[leahjo534]

Last night I stayed up till 2 making soap Christmas soap. I used cinnamon, lemongrass, and ginger EO. While measuring out the EOs to use, I noticed the ginger EO was extremely overwhelmed and decidedly hated the smell and it made me wanna vomit. I decided to press onward tho. First bad sign was I didn't have enough cinnamon EO but I decided to be strong. Then as I waited for the oils and lye water to cool, I browsed Pinterest. An article popped up that said something about what to do with mistake soap. Aaaa!!! I mixed the oils and lye water together at about 100°. As I was blending, the oils started clumping together under the head of the blender in a opaque manner. When I poured the soap into the mold, it decided the color was too redish and didn't want it to gell so I put it in the freezer overnight. I got it out this morning to warm to room temperature. It sweated crazily. Then after I got off work(6 pm), I went to cut it annndddd it has crystals all on the outside. Is it still usable and what happened???

 

[Relle]

Please put up your full recipe so members can help. As it's only 3 weeks until Christmas, I doubt it will be cured enough in time to give.

 

[leahjo534]

https://pin.it/tZ12ViHAnd then I resized it to the blue number on the right side

 

[ResolvableOwl]

The white crystals look like soda ash. Possibly made worse by sweating. If it's non-zappy, then the soap is safe to use. Good news: the lye discount is on a reasonable level (5% SF).
However, there might be a reason for the weird behaviour of your batter. You should have scaled all ingredients by the same factor, not some random eyeballing. Otherwise you are making a different soap than the original recipe, and you're on your own when it comes to weird side-effects.
When the recipe calls for 500 g oils, and you want to make soap from 800 g oils, scale everything by 800/500 = 1.6. That means 200 g water (changing the lye concentration can make a huge difference!), 240 g coconut oil, 112 shea butter and so on. Why have you nearly doubled castor oil from 5% to 9.4%? This is risky, do this only when you know that you will like the final soap. And even more importantly, beeswax. Why seven times as much of it? 7% can be enough to bring you into serious false trace troubles – probably the “clumping” you have observed. And then it is hard to ensure that the lye is evenly dispersed throughout the whole batter – in the more harmless case it leaks/sweats out of the sides and combines with airborne CO₂ to soda ash, but it might also cause lye-heavy patches within the soap, that are attacking skin.

 

[leahjo534]

The white crystals look like soda ash. Possibly made worse by sweating. If it's non-zappy, then the soap is safe to use. Good news: the lye discount is on a reasonable level (5% SF).
However, there might be a reason for the weird behaviour of your batter. You should have scaled all ingredients by the same factor, not some random eyeballing. Otherwise you are making a different soap than the original recipe, and you're on your own when it comes to weird side-effects.
When the recipe calls for 500 g oils, and you want to make soap from 800 g oils, scale everything by 800/500 = 1.6. That means 200 g water (changing the lye concentration can make a huge difference!), 240 g coconut oil, 112 shea butter and so on. Why have you nearly doubled castor oil from 5% to 9.4%? This is risky, do this only when you know that you will like the final soap. And even more importantly, beeswax. Why seven times as much of it? 7% can be enough to bring you into serious false trace troubles – probably the “clumping” you have observed. And then it is hard to ensure that the lye is evenly dispersed throughout the whole batter – in the more harmless case it leaks/sweats out of the sides and combines with airborne CO₂ to soda ash, but it might also cause lye-heavy patches within the soap, that are attacking skin.

Interesting... I wanted to resize but I didn't know how so I just decided to add the same amount extra to each ingredient until it all equalled to 800g. I'm a newbie. Obviously...learning from my mistakes. But still, I'm not sure how to go about resizing.

 

[dibbles]

I don't have time to help figure it out right now, but I think your usage rate of the cinnamon bark eo is too high.

 

[artemis]

Interesting... I wanted to resize but I didn't know how... But still, I'm not sure how to go about resizing.

Have you tried working with a soap calculator yet? It will do the resizing for you.

 

[leahjo534]

I don't have time to help figure it out right now, but I think your usage rate of the cinnamon bark eo is too high.

Ya i didnt add all of it

Have you tried working with a soap calculator yet? It will do the resizing for you.

Okay that is really helpful so thanks! Is there an other calculator besides this
one?

I tried using it one time but it was intimateing so i gave up is there an easier one to use perhaps?

 

[ResolvableOwl]

SoapCalc.net is a veteran calculator, it has its merits and unique use cases, but is cumbersome to use.

For your case, I'd recommend Soapmaking Recipe Builder & Lye Calculator . You can switch mode from the default “Percentages” to “Grams” (or another weight unit), enter the numbers of any recipe, and then switch back to “Percentages” to rescale it to any size.

 

[artemis]

Is there an other calculator besides this
one?

I like Soapmaking Friend

And Soapee

I tried using it one time but it was intimidating so i gave up is there an easier one to use perhaps?

Any calculator you use is going to have a learning curve. Give one a fair try before throwing your hands up. Unless you are going to learn how to do all the calculations yourself (some do) you'll need a calculator to check recipes, resize them, and eventually create your own.

 

[leahjo534]

Thank y'all sooo much for all that!

Also the cinnamon soap isn't zappy but it does have little white spots in it. Is it still safe to use?

 

[SavonP]

Thank y'all sooo much for all that!

Also the cinnamon soap isn't zappy but it does have little white spots in it. Is it still safe to use?

I think they mean the amount ofcinnamon essential oil. Each oil has a recommended safe amount to be used. The zap test is about amount of lye. Perhaps not a good idea as gifts if that’s what you intended until you learned and understood the processses a bit better.