Is my soap safe to use?

[Gemmapet]

Hi there! This is my first time making soap. These are photos 24hours after molding. The visual appearance isn’t consistent some faint lighter colors, the soap is my smooth and feels consistent. No coloring added.

Not sure if it’s safe to use (I hope so, $80 ingredients). Looked into a lot of lye heavy forums but not sure if this is the same issue. Help!

 

[artemis]

First, that's a lot of soap for a first batch. Best to start small, so you don't have a ton of soap that you don't (maybe) end up liking.

Second, that top looks like "alien brains." Search the forum for that phrase for more info.

Lastly, we'll need your recipe and method to really help you trouble shoot.

 

[Todd Ziegler]

@artemis is right, we need your recipe. With just the pictures, it looks like your soap went through an uneven gell phase and I don't think the top is alien brain. It looks to me that while your soap hardened and went through the gel phase, that it shrank and with the wax paper touching the batter it gathered up and created that look. I think if the wax paper wasn't touching your soap, it would have been a very smooth top.

However your recipe and any additives will really help us, help you.

 

[DeeAnna]

Why do you think the soap is lye heavy? Have you zap tested it? If not, that's the definitive check for lye heaviness.

Don't put waxed paper directly on soap unless you don't mind the risk of it sticking and then spending a lot of time picking it off. Parchment paper or plastic wrap is better if you think you need to do this. Most people don't put a covering directly touching the soap.

The color variations look like you might not have scraped the bowl with a spatula and mixed everything together, but without a recipe or method, I'm just guessing.

Focus on learning the basic process of soap making and learn what is required make safe, good soap. Soap with a total of 16 oz / 500 grams of fats max. Ask for a critique of your plans and recipe before you make the soap and you'll have fewer concerns afterward. Check every recipe using a soap recipe calculator to ensure the numbers are correct -- don't ever assume a recipe is good just because someone wrote it down. People make mistakes.

Don't get carried away with using a long list of expensive fats. It's a common error to assume the properties of the fats carry over into the soap, and that's not true. Lye tears the fat apart into fatty acids, so by the time the batter is fully saponified, little or nothing of those fancy fats are left intact.

 

[Gemmapet]

Thanks everyone for your advice! I used the first beginners recipe from The Soapmaker’s Companion with litsea/eucalyptus lemon/peppermint essential oils. I wonder if next time I can split the recipe in half.

Totally makes sense now why I wouldn’t need to line the silicone insert with wax paper.

I was expecting the color to be consistent. With the lighter white swirls in it does that mean I didn’t fully mixed the lye solution and oils together? And would I assume some of the lighter part, maybe lye, isn’t saponified and unsafe to use?

thanks!

 

[cmzaha]

As DeeAnna stated above, do not depend on any written recipe to be correct whether in a book or not. Take the time to learn to use a soap calculator and you can always ask in the forum and we will certainly critique your recipe. There are many knowledgeable soapmakers available here. No, you do not want to just cut a recipe in half, run it through a soap calculator. The only unfixable recipe I ever made was a recipe written by a well-known soapmaker and teacher with a well know website. It was an error in her recipe that I did not catch because I did not run it through a soap calc or figure it out myself, so it goes to show even the experts miss.

 

[DeeAnna]

If you're going to line a mold with a paper product, most people use freezer paper. Second choice would be parchment paper. Never waxed paper -- it's just not strong enough. Obviously if you're using a silicone liner, it's .... well, the liner. So no additional lining material is required.

"...I was expecting the color to be consistent. With the lighter white swirls in it does that mean I didn’t fully mixed the lye solution and oils together? And would I assume some of the lighter part, maybe lye, isn’t saponified and unsafe to use? ..."

Yes, it should be all one consistent color if you are not intentionally doing a multicolor design. But the fact that there are some variegations in the color doesn't automatically mean the soap is unsafe. You know what they say about the word "assume." Like I mentioned before, there's a way to KNOW. Learn to do a zap test and you will know what you've got. How To Properly/Safely Conduct The Zap/Tongue Test

And like Carolyn (cmzaha) said, you don't want to just halve all the ingredients in a soap recipe, because there can be rounding errors involved -- and you should never assume your math (or the original author's math) is correct.

The safest and most reliable way to downsize a recipe is to cut the fats in half (or reduce them by whatever amount you want to) and then enter the reduced fat weights into a soap recipe calc. Let it calculate the water and NaOH amounts for the weight of the fats.

Also, it's nice to know where you found the recipe, but you can't assume other people have access to the book. If you really want help, please provide the recipe (all ingredients, all in weights please -- not a mix of percentages and weights!!!) and your method.

 

[TheGecko]

Just putting the oil weights at 30% Lye Concentration and zero SF, I get 575.12g water and 246.48g Lye. And the percentages you wrote are wrong. OO is 33.92%, CO is 37.49% and PO is 28.59% with those weights.

Recommendation would be to put the soap on a shelf and revisit in 6 weeks.

In the meantime, get yourself a small 4" Square Silicone Mold...Amazon and most soap suppliers carry them. It holds approximately 20 oz (14 oz oils).

Start with a very simple recipe:

Olive Oil 35%
Coconut Oil 30%
Palm Oil 30%
Castor Oil 5%

33% Lye Concentration
5% SF

Use SoapCalc or your preferred soap calculator; enter 14 oz or 396.89 g for total oil weight, the percentages above, the Lye Concentration and your SuperFat. Don't worry about adding any scent or colorant...you want to start out with making a basic bar of soap.

Mix your Lye Solution and allow it to cool to room temperature. Melt your hard oils, then add your soft oils...have them around room temp too. If you're itching to make soap, you can freeze your distilled water to make your Lye Solution and melt your oils 1 minute at a time. I wouldn't go over 110F for either Lye or Oils since you are new to soap making.

Pour you lye solution into your oils and stir. Then using your stick blender, in 5 second bursts and then stir, mix your batter to a medium trace. There are LOTS of videos on You Tube about 'trace', but with 20 oz batter, it won't take long. Pour into your silicone mold and set somewhere for the next 18-24 hours. Your soap should feel like cheddar cheese when it's ready to unmold.

I let my soap sit for 24 hours before I cut. You will get 4-5 oz bars. Then set up, out of the way, and let cure for 6 weeks.

 

[earlene]

Just putting the oil weights at 30% Lye Concentration and zero SF, I get 575.12g water and 246.48g Lye. And the percentages you wrote are wrong. OO is 33.92%, CO is 37.49% and PO is 28.59% with those weights.

Recommendation would be to put the soap on a shelf and revisit in 6 weeks.

TheGecko, I don't follow your calculations at all.

When I enter the numbers from the image of the recipe used into soapmakingfriend calculator, the total oils total 1446.2 grams.

To get 100% of oils, Gemmapet's calculations are more correct than yours. Perhaps you made an error entering the numbers into your soap calculator.

The recipe calls for 1446.2 grams of oils, when using the numbers that appear in Gemmapet's image, this is what I get:

595.3 ÷ 1446.2 = 41.2% Olive Oil
454.0 ÷ 1446.2 = 31.4% Coconut Oil
396.9 ÷ 1446.2 = 27.4% Palm Oil

The settings I get for that recipe are this when reverse engineered in soapmakingfriend calculator:

[27.209% Lye] Concentration = 2.67:1 (water:lye ratio) (538.7 g water : 201.x g NaOH)

SF = 8.5%

Total Batch size = 2241.1 g (IF the FO is at 3% - I can't figure that out based on the original recipe indicating ML)

Not sure if it’s safe to use (I hope so, $80 ingredients). Looked into a lot of lye heavy forums but not sure if this is the same issue. Help!

Gemmapet, if the measurements were correct and nothing was left out, Gemmapet, the zap test should be negative. Follow the link below to learn how to How to Properly and Safely do a Zap Test, which will tell you if it is safe to use. THIS LINK HERE

As others have said, a smaller batch size for practice is better. I would start with only 400 grams of oil, which still gives you a pound of soap (4 - 4 ounce bars). It's good practice size. One benefit to practicing with smaller batches is that if you hate it, you aren't out much. Another is, if you make an error, you aren't out much. Another is, you can try various recipes and not get over run with too much soap. And you will have something to do while waiting for your soap to cure. And you will have a rotation of soaps curing, so you can periodically try the newly ready soaps every couple of weeks or so.

Welcome to soap making.

 

[Zing]

Welcome and good luck!! Soaping is a constant learning process, I learn something fascinating with nearly every batch. Keep us posted!