First Soap unmolded and cut

[SoapDaddy70]

Hey everyone. Just unmolded my first soap. It was from Jan Berrys book Simple and Natural Soapmaking. Creamy Shea Butter Bastille Soap. Here is the recipe.

75% Olive Oil - 595g
16% Shea Butter - 128g
9% Castor Oil - 71g
227g Distilled Water
101g Sodium Hydroxide

Most of the recipes in this book are around a 5% super fat and I ran the numbers in Soap Calc and it seems to be around a 30-31% lye solution for this recipe.

I added Lemon Peel powder and Lavender/Litsea essential oil blend.
What a fun experience it was making this soap. I took Friday off from work and had the house to myself so it was very relaxing. I mixed the lye solution and oils when the lye was about 120 degrees F and the oils around 110 degrees. The color of the batter was bright Orange in the mold. I will attach pics. Put freezer paper on top and wrapped in a couple of kitchen towels. I obsessed about checking it so I probably unwrapped it too many times. A couple of hours later I saw that it was going into gel phase. Not really sure about the timing. I should have written it down. All I know was that there was a pronounced darkness in the center on top and you could see through the silicone mold the darkness in the middle. It was crazy how warm it was to the touch. Left it wrapped for around 12 hours and checked periodically and noticed how the color was changing as time went one. Attached are a few pics. You can see in the cut pieces that there is a very tiny border where the color is slightly darker. Is the darker area the area that did not gel fully? Sorry for being so long winded, that’s just the way I am. I am hooked, my daughters and wife think I am nuts!! Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[Todd Ziegler]

If you get a partial gel, it will usually from the inside out. It gets hotter starting from about dead center, where the soap is thickest and cools off the closer you get to the outside of your soap. There is where you will see a distinct change in color.

Looks like it gelled right out to the edges but I could be wrong on this one.

 

[Catscankim]

It looks like fo with vanilla in it. Somebody pointed it out in one of my soaps...which eventually all turned the same color as the “rind”.

But the OP said he only used Lavender and Litsea EO, so i dont know...

The yellow with the rind turned to all brown

 

[earlene]

That uniform pattern of darkness around the outer edges is due to fragrance. As the soap ages, the rest of the soap will turn that darker shade. I've never had this with Lavender, so I have to assume it was in the Litsea. I have only used Litsea once and do recall how it affected my soap's coloration. I have had this with some FO's however.

 

[SoapDaddy70]

That uniform pattern of darkness around the outer edges is due to fragrance. As the soap ages, the rest of the soap will turn that darker shade. I've never had this with Lavender, so I have to assume it was in the Litsea. I have only used Litsea once and do recall how it affected my soap's coloration. I have had this with some FO's however.

Yes, the color already has evened out. I took those pics seconds after I cut them.