First time making soap. Can this be saved?

[pacarb915]

Sounds like we've got another chemist on board here. You may have done this already but I did an exhaustive search on here for 'pine tar' before I made mine. Also, FYI, I did NOT like my pine tar soap after the 6 week cure. It was soft and melty. I recently used a 12 month old bar and it was hard and had great lather.
And, um, this whole bergamot dominating is what exactly? LOVE bergamot. JK. If you have not yet discovered eocalc, it's a whole fun new rabbit hole to explore.

Biology degree but I work in pharma and have done media and buffer batching etc. Wish I had gone the chem route lol.
6 weeks already seems like forever from now. I can't imagine waiting 12 months. I have a little bar I cut off and have been testing every day to see how it smells and feels (and tasted once lol). It's crazy how much it's changing from day to day. I imagine the changes slow down over time as it cures.

 

[lgranger]

So I poured the lye water in too quickly and it didn't mix evenly and then started to seize up bad so I mashed it into a mold. Cut into it after 32 hours. Used a soap calc. 65% lard, 25% olive oil, 10% pine tar. Obviously not smooth or even. I don't think the lighter bits are lye. Any way I can remelt it?
View attachment 71809

I recommend doing a soap without any additives for the first time and even subsequent times until you learn how to make a basic soap. Do Google for instructions on rebatching, but pine tar accelerates trace. A lot, sometimes.

 

[pacarb915]

I recommend doing a soap without any additives for the first time and even subsequent times until you learn how to make a basic soap. Do Google for instructions on rebatching, but pine tar accelerates trace. A lot, sometimes.

The rebatch worked. Still needs a few more weeks to cure. Lathers nice (I assume thanks to the sugar). Skin feels really nice. Pine tar smell is very dominant, I think I lost some of the volatiles from the EOs during rebatching lol. Didn't make it for the smell though so that's ok. I'm happy with it.

Gf's daughter wants to make some soap that smells nice and doesn't smell like pine tar lol. I'll probably make something with her. And maybe another pine tar batch with different EOs after that.

 

[Savage Daughter]

I've had that exact result with some of my pine tar batches. I've since switched to the method recommended in this video:

This video makes me want to try a pine tar batch, which I have never had any interest in previously. Lord knows I have enough of it out here where I live, so why not?

Has anyone tried spruce or pine SAP directly from the trees, versus pine tar? I've got a whole lot of these types of trees around me as well. It's amazing stuff in salves.

Thanks so much for sharing this video

 

[Vicki C]

Thanks for the welcome!
I'm pretty stubborn and I have my mind set on pine tar lol. I think, next batch I make, I'll make it a little easier on myself and add the pine tar after I've added my lye water to my other oils/fats. I've worked with sodium hydroxide in various applications and made lots of medias and buffers following complex SOPs for my job. I think I really need to slow my roll and just treat it like chemical reactions at work lol. Mixing my fats and lye water and getting it to a light trace before adding pine tar and essential oils might make for a more manageable process.
Also is it normal for bergamot to just dominate the other scents?

I use @DeeAnna ’s pine tar method and it works well for me. If you haven’t already found this gold mine of soapmaking info I highly recommend it!
https://classicbells.com/soap/pineTarSoap.asp

 

[DeeAnna]

...Has anyone tried spruce or pine SAP directly from the trees, versus pine tar?...

Pine sap isn't the same thing as pine tar, so you can't think of it as a substitute. I'm not thinking this is what you had in mind, but others reading this thread might try to draw this conclusion, so I'm trying to keep other readers from going there.

Sap from coniferous trees (pine, fir, etc.) is essentially turpentine and rosin (colophony). Yes, you can make soap with sap and/or turpentine and/or rosin, but here are downsides to think about. Turpentine is a volatile, flammable solvent that is a skin irritant or sensitizer. Rosin is even trickier to use when making soap than pine tar. When used in soap, it adds detergency (cleansing power). The end result will be a soap better suited for household and laundry more than bathing. See the article @Vicki C referenced (previous post in this thread) for more.

 

[Savage Daughter]

Sap from coniferous trees (pine, fir, etc.) is essentially turpentine and rosin (colophony). Yes, you can make soap with sap and/or turpentine and/or rosin, but here are downsides to think about. Turpentine is a volatile, flammable solvent that is a skin irritant or sensitizer. Rosin is even trickier to use when making soap than pine tar. When used in soap, it adds detergency (cleansing power). The end result will be a soap better suited for household and laundry more than bathing. See the article @Vicki C referenced (previous post in this thread) for more.

Fair enough, but still something I intend on trying when I get some time to fart around with more test batches. I have often created some very good products just by being willing to play with raw materials I forage in the forest

In salves, I personally have not found pine or fir sap to be an irritant, the opposite actually, and none of the people I custom make salves for have reported any skin sensitizing side effects to me.

In soap, I have not tried it yet, but I am looking forward to seeing how this would work out.

 

[TheGecko]

Cold process. Allowed lye water to cool to rt. Fats were just warm enough to melt fully. Fragrance was 10g each of cedarwood eo, bergamot eo, and white pine resin dissolved in olive oil and were added after it started seizing. 5.5g sugar added to lye water. No colorants. I didn't use heat transfer method. I think the biggest issue is that I poured the lye water in way too fast and it sunk to the bottom and then became really hard to mix and there was liquid fat on top of my bowl and a thickening glob underneath. I mixed until it was almost too thick to scoop out. It got pretty hot as it sat in the mold and the naoh continued reacting. I think my fats were pretty well mixed but the lumps could be lard I guess.

There are number of things that can cause your batter to thicken rapidly and/or seize, but I've never heard of pouring your Lye Solution in too fast as being one of them. Whether you pour slowly or just dump it in like I do, your Lye Solution WILL sink to the bottom because 1) Oil and Water don't mix, and 2) Water is heavier than Oil.

I don't think your batter started to seize after your poured your Lye Solution in, I think what happened is that your Lye Solution was a lot cooler than your 'just warm enough to melt' oils and that it caused your Lard to start to solidify, and you probably started to panic a little bit (which is perfectly normal). And you were using your SB at the bottom of the bowl instead of moving it throughout the batter and so your batter would naturally be thicker on the bottom with oil on top. Now I do have some confusion as when exactly the EO/Pine Tar Resin mixture was added...in the above you said you added it AFTER your batter started to seize and in other responses it sounds like you added to your oils before adding your Lye Solution. I haven't made a Pine Tar soap myself, but I do understand that the resin can cause acceleration. And continuing to use your stick blender on an accelerating batter just makes the problem worse.

Some FO/EOs can cause the batter to get fairly hot fairly quickly, but heat is a normal part of the saponification process. And the Sodium Hydroxide will continue to react with the oils until the saponification is complete...which can take anywhere from 24 to 48 hours.

My recommendation is to put all the colorants, scents and additives aside for a few batch and just make some soap so you can learn about emulsion and trace. Then get some sample colorants and make a few pretty bars of soap. Then get some small bottles of scent and play around with them. Then mix some color with some scent. Learn to walk before you take off running.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Pine sap isn't the same thing as pine tar, so you can't think of it as a substitute. I'm not thinking this is what you had in mind, but others reading this thread might try to draw this conclusion, so I'm trying to keep other readers from going there.

Keeping @DeeAnna 's sage advice in mind, I don't see any harm for you in particular to give it a go with a small (500 gram) batch.

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/pine-tar-soap-tips-and-technique.86067/
As for rosin, I've worked with it quite a bit.

ROSIN saponifies much like an oil but without any resulting glycerin. It gives a smooth cold cream finish to the lather and also acts as a detergent and preservative. (NOTE: May cause contact dermatitis in sensitive individuals). To Calculate - Rosin has the same SAP value as Wheat Germ Oil.

I started out to dupe Murphey's Liquid Oil Soap for Wood. Once that was successful, I tried it on my hair. That resulted in formulating Zany's Flaxseed and Rosin Shampoo -- which I love -- as much as others who have tried it.

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/zanys-flaxseed-shampoo.69272/#post-688715
The best way to melt rosin is to melt it with coconut oil, 1:1 or 1:2. Once melted, I pour it into 3 oz. circle molds. Stick it in the freezer for an hour. Pop out the discs and store them in the freezer until I need them. NOTE: As little as 1 oz. of rosin can bump the lather of a 5-lb batch. Nice.

NOTE: Traditional Pears Soap - a transparent soap for faces that was popular in mid-last century - contained rosin. It is still made today but is far from the original in terms of how lovely it was back then.