Need Help! soap top not smooth

[Isa]

Hello, i recently started making soap and i keep getting some droplets on the top of my soap that then look like soda ash or salt.
i spray them with alcohol and i do add sodium lactate to my lye water. I also live in a very humid and hot place. My oil temperatures are around 105- 115F.
I use olive, coconut, shea cocoa and castor oil. I want to get a smooth looking top. Also it takes about 3 days for me to safely unmold. I add 1.5% sodium lactate. Should i add more?

I attach picture of how it looks after 18 hours

I appreciate any help!

 

[Marsi]

The oily look on top says to me that your soap is getting a bit too hot and is splitting slightly during gel.
(This can happen with something as simple as too-high a water contect for the recipe/your environment, as an example of one possible cause).

Process and recipe information (including water content/lye concentration) helps to diagnose issues

PS. Pretty top shaping!

 

[Isa]

The oily look on top says to me that your soap is getting a bit too hot and is splitting slightly during gel.
(This can happen with something as simple as too-high a water contect for the recipe/your environment, as an example of one possible cause).

Process and recipe information (including water content/lye concentration) helps to diagnose issues

PS. Pretty top shaping!

thank you so much i might need to decrease the amount of water then. Here is some extra information.

 

[Marsi]

Yes, at 27.5%, the lye concentration is low for a high olive soap.
Increasing to about 33% will help.
The higher lye concentration means the soap need to be a little hotter to gel ... which should help in your heat

The other point is to take the batter past emulsion, to trace (where you can see the batter pattern staying on top of the soap a little, if you make a drizzle of it on top).

The ingredients aren't listed in your screenshot, but if you are happy leaving the soap in the mould for 3 days, I'd leave out the sodium lactate (it mostly helps with unmoulding, so not really necessary when first learning to soap - simplify first, then start tweaking).

 

[Isa]

Yes, at 27.5%, the lye concentration is low for a high olive soap.
Increasing to about 33% will help.
The higher lye concentration means the soap need to be a little hotter to gel ... which should help in your heat

The other point is to take the batter past emulsion, to trace (where you can see the batter pattern staying on top of the soap a little, if you make a drizzle of it on top).

The ingredients aren't listed in your screenshot, but if you are happy leaving the soap in the mould for 3 days, I'd leave out the sodium lactate (it mostly helps with unmoulding, so not really necessary when first learning to soap - simplify first, then start tweaking).

Perfect, thank you so much for the help! I appreciate it.