ParliamentofRooks
Member
I've been making soap for about 6-8 months and this is the first time I've really had a screwed up. I was making two batches this weekend, one seems fine, and one is so lye-heavy it crumbled.
Backstory: I did two 3lb batches. The first was a body bar sented with BB Passionfruit Rose. The second was a shaving soap scented with BB Blackberry Sage. Ran both batches through the lye calculator. I added the lye amounts and the water amounts for each batch together and made one batch of lye (mistake #1?). I have two crockpots so I measured the oils separately for each batch.
Once melted I measured the lye from the pitcher into a separate container by weight, and added it to the first batch--the body bar batch--traced it, added the FO, and poured it. No color was added. This batch seems good except when I cut it, I have some small irregular bulls-eye type rings in the bars. They are hard to discribe, but they are almost like the outline of air bubbles, but the soap seems consistent on either side of the outline. I have no liquid seepage, the bar doesn't zap after 48 hours, texture (other than the rings) is uniform. So my question is whether this is just cosmetic? Caused by the fragrance oil? Just one of those unknown "things" that happens in a batch?
After batch one was complete, I moved to batch two. Added the remaining amount of lye I had on hand, Added two tablespoons of bentonite clay at trace and colored 8 oz with two teaspoons of nettle leaf and the remainder with two tablespoons Charcoal. This still zaps like crazy and totally crumbled when I tried to cut it. I might try to rebatch it, but I don't know that it's going to be something worth giving to people.
I'm assuming my major screw up is that I should have measured lye and water for each batch separately? I've done multiple batches like this before and not had issues, but this is the first thing that came to mind.
I also want to make sure the other batch doesn't need any more TLC than usual.
TIA
Backstory: I did two 3lb batches. The first was a body bar sented with BB Passionfruit Rose. The second was a shaving soap scented with BB Blackberry Sage. Ran both batches through the lye calculator. I added the lye amounts and the water amounts for each batch together and made one batch of lye (mistake #1?). I have two crockpots so I measured the oils separately for each batch.
Once melted I measured the lye from the pitcher into a separate container by weight, and added it to the first batch--the body bar batch--traced it, added the FO, and poured it. No color was added. This batch seems good except when I cut it, I have some small irregular bulls-eye type rings in the bars. They are hard to discribe, but they are almost like the outline of air bubbles, but the soap seems consistent on either side of the outline. I have no liquid seepage, the bar doesn't zap after 48 hours, texture (other than the rings) is uniform. So my question is whether this is just cosmetic? Caused by the fragrance oil? Just one of those unknown "things" that happens in a batch?
After batch one was complete, I moved to batch two. Added the remaining amount of lye I had on hand, Added two tablespoons of bentonite clay at trace and colored 8 oz with two teaspoons of nettle leaf and the remainder with two tablespoons Charcoal. This still zaps like crazy and totally crumbled when I tried to cut it. I might try to rebatch it, but I don't know that it's going to be something worth giving to people.
I'm assuming my major screw up is that I should have measured lye and water for each batch separately? I've done multiple batches like this before and not had issues, but this is the first thing that came to mind.
I also want to make sure the other batch doesn't need any more TLC than usual.
TIA