Help troubleshooting- bubbles in finished soap?

[Teresa408]

Hi everyone! I’m brand new to soaping and I’m so grateful for all the help I’ve gotten here already. Thank you all for being so generous with your experience and expertise. I made some melt and pour a few weeks ago, got hooked, and I’m now trying to figure out all things soapy.

Yesterday, I made a small batch 50/50 coconut olive oil soap with 13% SF. I used soapcalc to get exact weights for all ingredients. My oil was at 120 and my lye milk was maybe 110 when mixed. I used P&J brand coconut and mango FO layers, colored with a little mica mixed in OO, and used canned coconut milk (frozen) in place of the water. I poured them in small silicone molds and cooked at 170f for two hours, shut off the oven and left it till this morning. They are oily to the touch and are visibly full of bubbles! They look like little flower shaped sponges. The batter looked nice and creamy and behaved like pudding when I poured it. Did I beat it too much with the stick blender? Will my soap be okay to use or should I melt it down and try to get the bubbles out?

Thanks in advance for any help, I would love to know what I did wrong and what I can do differently in the future.

 

[Teresa408]

 

[lenarenee]

Looks like overheating, with some oil separating out. Are you familiar with the zap test?

 

[Teresa408]

They aren’t zapping me. Does that mean all the lye has reacted already, meaning I cooked them too long?

This is funny because I put this batch in the oven only because my first batch wouldn’t cure at all. I’m 0 for 2 here, folks.

I did make some lovely lotion bars, though.

 

[lenarenee]

I could be wrong - I've only cpop once. What makes me think it's overheating is: 1) length of time in the 170 degree oven for individual soaps, and the fast that some oil seeped out. The holes remind of "silicone rash" which happens sometimes with hot soap in a silicone mold.

If there's no zap (in your picture you're holding a soap in an ungloved hand, and I'm assuming your skin also wasn't irritated?), then the soap is safe to use. They are not cured though; any soap made with any method needs to cure. (there's more to curing than just completely saponification and evaporating excess water)

I'm confused about your first batch - it didn't "cure"? What made you think that batch had a problem?

 

[Teresa408]

Lenarenee- thanks so much for the feedback.

Now that you mention it, overheating would make sense. I didn’t see the excess oil on the surface until the bars had been in the oven a while, and I remembered seeing CPOP instructions but they were likely for a loaf, not little bars.

There is no irritation at all. The bars are relatively hard already. I will just let them cure and think of them as exfoliating “loofah” soaps.

As for my first batch, perhaps I was being impatient but after two or three days the bars were sticking to the molds and were not firming up much. They were soft-ish... kind of like a goat cheese softness is the best I can think of to describe it. They were made of olive oil, hemp oil, and coconut oil, but in retrospect maybe I just didn’t give them enough time considering the higher quantity of liquid oils. I melted them down and rebatched. No matter how much grapefruit and eucalyptus oil I used I could not cover up the hemp seed oil smell. They are curing still in the molds, and it has been 3 or 4 days since the rebatch. Do you think they would have been okay if I had just left them alone?

 

[shunt2011]

Hi and welcome. You’re first batch it doesn’t sound like they gelled so can take awhile to get out of the mold. One you get them out then you can start letting the, cure. The second batch sounds like they gelled so will be harder and come out of the mold easier and sooner. As long as they don’t zap they will be fine after a 4 week cure or so. I find higher coconut soaps need a bit longer.

 

[lenarenee]

Yes, your first batch simply needed more time (assuming your used a soap calculator and measured your ingredients correctly). Fragrances and essential oils can affect how quickly/slowly soap hardens. I've had soaps sitting in molds for as long as a week; Nurture's black raspberry vanilla is one of them - and I still unmolded too soon! This one of the ways that soaping makes us better people - by forcing us to be patient!

 

[Teresa408]

Thanks shunt2011. I will give these “test batches” some time to set and cure and hopefully they will still be of some use.

I think I’ll try something with lard next, there seem to be less complications with lard and PKO.

 

[Teresa408]

oooh lenarenee, I have so much trouble with patience! It’s amazing my son made it to adulthood. I kid, I kid.

I will sort this out. I ordered some sodium lactate already, so hopefully I won’t have this particular problem again. Thanks again for the help!

 

[Obsidian]

Those kind of bubbles form in silicone molds when they get too hot in a oven.

When you cpop, you don't want to cook the soap, just keep it warm. Heat your oven to 170, turn it off then put your soap in.

 

[cmzaha]

Those kind of bubbles form in silicone molds when they get too hot in a oven.

When you cpop, you don't want to cook the soap, just keep it warm. Heat your oven to 170, turn it off then put your soap in.

It is called silicone rash and Obsidian is correct, to hot and /or long in the oven. This is why I never put any silicone molds in the oven, especially ones that are the smallish multi cavity molds

 

[Teresa408]

Those kind of bubbles form in silicone molds when they get too hot in a oven.

When you cpop, you don't want to cook the soap, just keep it warm. Heat your oven to 170, turn it off then put your soap in.

I just now finished up two batches of bars. I will give your method a whirl. It seems like it will work great. For the loaf, I just put cardboard over it and a towel.

Rose FO loaf with mica swirls and rosemary grapefruit EO with turmeric/paprika and chlorella swirls. Fingers crossed! Thanks for the help!

 

[Dawni]

Hope all your soaps turn out the way you want them! They all sound lovely.. These last two look nice, too. Good luck!

 

[Teresa408]

Hope all your soaps turn out the way you want them! They all sound lovely.. These last two look nice, too. Good luck!

Thanks Dawni! They seem to be setting up nicely so far.