My Very First Soaps

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Marleina

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Hi, I am new to soaping and these are my first soaps :)
I'm not sure how well I'm doing and would love some feedback
 

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They look quite nice. Did you try to use them?

Thank you.
I have :) they lather nicely and cause no irritation. My husband has also been using them often and is very happy with them. my only real concerns are the crystallization in the first two and I did get some soda ash on the second bar. I tried a different recipes with the third and there is no soda ash or crystals :) I am curious as to what caused it in the first two and if it is normal as I'm just starting out I'm not too sure.
 
They look pretty. :) There are a lot of threads here about the causes of soda ash and crystallization. You can use the search bar at the top of the page to find some of those threads.
 
They look pretty. :) There are a lot of threads here about the causes of soda ash and crystallization. You can use the search bar at the top of the page to find some of those threads.

Thank you so much I will do that.
 
Congratulations on really successful and attractive first soaps. By crystallization are you referring to the whitish spots on the soap? If they’re hollow they may be air bubbles from stick blending or otherwise vigorous mixing. If you shave a little soap off a white spot and it looks hollow, it’s a bubble. If a spot still looks white/solid it’s probably a stearic spot/crystal. I reduce/eliminate stearic spots by melting my hard fats until they are crystal clear before I add liquid oils. Past that, working temps, batch size and recipes all affect the outcome, so it may take some trial and error for the recipes you’re using. As for ashy soap tops, I mostly work at a high lye concentration now and rarely get ash unless my batter is very thin and doesn’t gel properly. If you search the threads, you will find many suggestions for ways to reduce ash. Minimizing air contact seems to help, but that means no peaking, which means it doesn’t work well for me. 😉
 
Congratulations on really successful and attractive first soaps. By crystallization are you referring to the whitish spots on the soap? If they’re hollow they may be air bubbles from stick blending or otherwise vigorous mixing. If you shave a little soap off a white spot and it looks hollow, it’s a bubble. If a spot still looks white/solid it’s probably a stearic spot/crystal. I reduce/eliminate stearic spots by melting my hard fats until they are crystal clear before I add liquid oils. Past that, working temps, batch size and recipes all affect the outcome, so it may take some trial and error for the recipes you’re using. As for ashy soap tops, I mostly work at a high lye concentration now and rarely get ash unless my batter is very thin and doesn’t gel properly. If you search the threads, you will find many suggestions for ways to reduce ash. Minimizing air contact seems to help, but that means no peaking, which means it doesn’t work well for me. 😉

Thank you so much!😁
Yes that's exactly what I'm talking about.
This explains a ton, I did over blend the first two times and was impatient but took my time with the third batch as I was less nervous haha
The first two also have more hard fats so thank you so much this has helped tremendously.
 
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