Hello everyone,
Please see images below to help me troubleshoot. Essentially I got this areas off dark spots that collapsed in slightly. The first week it was the same color as the rest of the soap and only after curing for some time I just saw the dark spots today develop.
My recipe was at least 50% liquid oils (olive, sweet almond, avocado) plus the 5% castor. I wanted a really light trace to assure the batter gets in the mold to take up the delicate design of the mold which a thicker trace may not achieve.
I used a fragrance oil, English garden from candlescience, which was supposed to cause moderate acceleration. So what I did was blend everything together. At the lightest trace I added my fragrance oil and no longer stick blended. I only hand stirred with a spatula and I saw clumps forming. Not small like rice. But proper size little lumps like 0.5cm x 0.25cm. Is this ricing? Anyho so I know I had two choices. Whip out the stick blender and attempt to smooth it out but risk the batter turning so thick that it wont take up the delicate imprints of the mold. Or hand stir conservatively and get the batter in the mold and pray the small lumps somehow smoothes out— which is what I did. Now I see dark spots in my soap.
Were the lumps predominantly lye or oil or fragrance oil? Naturally the first question is to identify what it is to determine if the soap is safe. And secondly, what would you have done? Just keep stickblending it? Would having a higher water or superfat helped? Or is this just the fragrance oil misbehaving?
Please see images below to help me troubleshoot. Essentially I got this areas off dark spots that collapsed in slightly. The first week it was the same color as the rest of the soap and only after curing for some time I just saw the dark spots today develop.
My recipe was at least 50% liquid oils (olive, sweet almond, avocado) plus the 5% castor. I wanted a really light trace to assure the batter gets in the mold to take up the delicate design of the mold which a thicker trace may not achieve.
I used a fragrance oil, English garden from candlescience, which was supposed to cause moderate acceleration. So what I did was blend everything together. At the lightest trace I added my fragrance oil and no longer stick blended. I only hand stirred with a spatula and I saw clumps forming. Not small like rice. But proper size little lumps like 0.5cm x 0.25cm. Is this ricing? Anyho so I know I had two choices. Whip out the stick blender and attempt to smooth it out but risk the batter turning so thick that it wont take up the delicate imprints of the mold. Or hand stir conservatively and get the batter in the mold and pray the small lumps somehow smoothes out— which is what I did. Now I see dark spots in my soap.
Were the lumps predominantly lye or oil or fragrance oil? Naturally the first question is to identify what it is to determine if the soap is safe. And secondly, what would you have done? Just keep stickblending it? Would having a higher water or superfat helped? Or is this just the fragrance oil misbehaving?
