My soapy experiments - some failures, but lots of learning

[Mobjack Bay]

I'm amazed that there are so many different patterns from the same pour! Beautiful soaps!

I’m glad you like them. Actually, I poured each of these soaps individually through different strainers into individual molds. Same idea, different technique and I used different types of strainers. Some worked well and some were more challenging due to the holes being too small.

 

[penelopejane]

Thanks Krista! The bar with the spot doesn’t smell bad at all and I’m using it at my kitchen sink. Actually, it still has the nice scent of the lemongrass EO I used. Here are some close ups of the “spot”, with the red “dot” in the middle. It looks like there are other red dots without spots around them. I used gold Brazilian clay for the yellowish orange in this batch, but the dot doesn’t look like clay to my eye. It also doesn’t look like metal to me. I took the second pic through my hand lens and get extra points for that one .

Does the bottom pic have the brazilian clay in it?

It does look like DOS - and you will soon know for sure.

Metal doesn't have to be where it touches the soap - it can be metal contaminants in water or from stirring with an aluminium spoon or something like that. Someone had their soap on tea towels on metal shelves and they found they had to separate the soap with a plastic woven sheet and the tea towel to stop the metal contamination going through to the soap.

There are lots of things that can cause DOS like dirt/germs transferred by fingers or implements or molds not cleaned really well or old or rancid oils, a spot of something in an additive etc.

The list is endless and the best you can do is follow hygienic practices, use distilled or filtered water and hope for the best.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

The bottom pic is a close up of the soap in the pic above it. I turned the soap to take the photo. I just noticed that the lighting makes it look like the soap has a giant orange area below the “spot with the dot”, but it doesn’t. All of the batter had some clay, either white or gold, or AC added.

 

[KristaY]

@KristaY Does this close up capture the questionable area of the other soap you mentioned above? I was thinking the color is from the additives.

View attachment 40842

Yes! That's exactly the area I noticed. As I suspected, it was most likely light/shadow causing the variation of color. Those other orange-ish spots with the dark spot in the center are interesting to me. I wonder if it's some type of larger particle of clay or some odd contaminant. Since it's clay, I bet there are many other particles that might end up in the final product. I'm happy the scent is still good so that's promising but I wonder about the longevity. If you have the patience, tuck a bar away for a while and see how things develop. Hopefully the spots are just clay and nothing else. Time will tell though!

 

[Saltwater Scented]

As a person with a degree in marine biology, and a minor in polymer chemistry, I wholeheartedly approve of this thread.

Fun fact, diatoms are responsible for 25% of the world's production of oxygen every year.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Of all of the possible reasons for DOS discussed in these useful DOS-specific threads:

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/is-there-a-reason-for-dos.63281/
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/question-on-my-7-month-bastille-soap.58256/
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/i-hate-dos.60691/

and above, I’m elevating the SF > 5%, the gold clay, or a stray bit of plastic strainer (one of the strainers is suspiciously the same red color as the “dot” in my “spot”), as the most likely causes of the spot of DOS. I’m discounting for now the possibility that a stray fleck of metal may have caused the DOS in this bar, which was made in an individual cavity mold. I clearly remember that the knife I mentioned above was used to cut early lard-based and goat milk soaps that I poured into a slab mold. Those batches are perfectly fine after 4+ months under the same storage conditions. While I don’t have every soap I ever made (> 400?), I do have multiple bars saved from each of the batches across all of the different recipes and there’s no signs of DOS in any of them. Plus, I still have every one of the “mud” soaps I made (40 bars) using the same “soft” recipe as the affected bar. The mud soaps differ only in having a lower SF, no gold clay and patchouli EO instead of lemongrass. They were made around the same time as the affected bar and there’s no DOS on any of them.

 

[Marilyn Norgart]

Thanks I will steer away from small round holes.

the oblong lines are what I got from the small holes in mine, it depends on how fast/slow you pull it up cuz the slower ones are more defined

 

[Jessa]

Perfect - I also have friends that work for NASA!

Have you seen the documentary series "One Strange Rock"? You'll be inspired after seeing the beautiful visuals and listening to the commentary from NASA astronauts. Diatoms are mentioned, too!

 

[smoothOlive2019]

Have you seen the documentary series "One Strange Rock"? You'll be inspired after seeing the beautiful visuals and listening to the commentary from NASA astronauts. Diatoms are mentioned, too!

Thanks for the recommendation, I can’t wait to check it out. I recently watched a “MasterClass” with astronaut Chris Hadley and since then I have been obsessed with learning everything about NASA. I thought I’ve seen all the documentaries, but glad to hear there is another one left to see. Thanks again!