Newbie question: what's wrong with my soap?

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
"...I bought my lye from a chemical market so they sold it to me from a big sack of lye...."

Yes, I agree with Coffeetime. If it was "caustic soda" or "caustic lye" or "caustic soda lye", meaning pure sodium hydroxide (NaOH), it could never, ever be safely stored in an open bag. The lye would attract so much moisture from the air that the bag would eventually fill up with liquid and create a huge, dangerous mess.

I suspect you were given sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), also known as soda ash or washing soda. A very old name for sodium carbonate that might still be used in some places is just plain "soda lye".

You want sodium hydroxide. Nothing else will work correctly to make soap. Sodium hydroxide must be kept in an air tight container to keep moisture and air out. It will never be sold in an open bag.
 
Last edited:
your successful batch is not lye heavy (considering you did all measurements right). you superfatted for 18%, that means 18% of the total oils is not saponified. it is also often called a lye discount.

a lye heavy soap is generally considered one that has a superfat below 0%, meaning there is too much lye to have all the oils saponified.

so you said you had 1 good batch using the same lye, hmmmm... that's weird.. for now, i stand by my previous post that it is possible that you could have a bad lye.

have you try making via hot process/crock pot method?

Sorry for confusing you. I misunderstood the term "superfat" and "lye heavy" so I said it wrong. Basically the recipe of my only successful batch was: 220g of coconut oil, 100g of water and 70g of lye. The soap came out like in this photo, smooth and no lumps. Im sure the lye ratio in this soap is pretty high but it worked.

P_20140305_143620_HDR_1.jpg
 
I too suspect the lye, (that soap batter looks so wrong! But, what if it has way too much water???) but I thought I'd heard some US members of this forum mention buying 50-lb sacks of lye? I always figured they were sturdy, waterproof sacks like for bulk fertilizer.
 
Ok this problem has been bugging me, so I ran the two recipes given by the OP through soapcalc. The first with 9 oz CO etc comes out to an 8% SF with a bit of a water discount. Should have worked.

The second of 220g CO 70g lye and 100g water is way off. You only needed 37g lye for the same 8% SF and 83g water for full water. So that one would be lye heavy. But if the lye is poor quality, that would possibly explain why you had better results with the second recipe.
 
Ah now i understand. I will try to find a better reliable lye soon and will update my new batch. Thank you so much and the forum Ive been wondering about the problem for so long. At first I thought it was my 300W stick blender pheww..
 
I don't know what kind of hardware stores you have there, but I can buy 100% sodium hydroxide in the plumbing section of mine. It is used to clean out drains. It needs to be in an air tight plastic bottle of some sort. To make sure it is air tight, just squeeze the tightly closed bottle. You should not hear any air coming out, and the sides should not move.

Since you live in the tropics, I know you have humidity. I store my lye in a ziploc bag while still in its original bottle. Better to have 2 layers of protection from the humidity.

If you are not making soap really fast, buy the smallest bottle you can to limit how long you have to store it. If the lye clumps, you need to buy new. So, to avoid wasting money on lye you can't use, either plan on making lots of soap at once, or share the expense and the lye with another soaper.
 
Last edited:
what's wrong if my lye clumps?

It means it has absorbed moisture and the weight will not be accurate. That is, 100 gm of lye will actually be less than 100 gm because some of that 100 gm will be water but you will not know how much if it is water and how much is lye.
 
I can tell you first hand that I've purchased lye in a bag. 55 lbs but it was in 3 layers of bags. There was a plastic bag, then a cloth type bag then a really heavy duty plastic kind of bag. I was able to just leave it in the bag and dig out what I needed (usually filled 10 1 lb bottles at a time with it). It is a huge hassle and for just a bit more money wise (.15 per pound) I've decided it's so much easier to order from Essential Depot and it's already nicely bottled and much easier to store.
 
Ok this problem has been bugging me, so I ran the two recipes given by the OP through soapcalc. The first with 9 oz CO etc comes out to an 8% SF with a bit of a water discount. Should have worked.

The second of 220g CO 70g lye and 100g water is way off. You only needed 37g lye for the same 8% SF and 83g water for full water. So that one would be lye heavy. But if the lye is poor quality, that would possibly explain why you had better results with the second recipe.

Excellent detective work! The lye definitely has to be cut with something, using nearly twice as much is the only thing that worked, so that really rules out just about everything else.
 
Ive bought new lye in a more trustworthy shop and started making another batch. My new lye is 96%. I used the same recipe that I had trouble with, now my mixture is perfect! It had trace after 1-2 mins being whisked and it worked! yeyyyy... i was so happy ^_^ now im waiting to unmold my soap. Hopefully everything turn out fine :thumbup: Thanks everyone for helping me figuring out the problem! thank you so so much :D
 
Ive made the green ones yesterday afternoon, I unmolded and cut them this morning. Did I cut them too soon? Should I have waited longer? I havent done zap test, I'm gonna wait for a week or so.
 
I can tell you first hand that I've purchased lye in a bag. 55 lbs but it was in 3 layers of bags. There was a plastic bag, then a cloth type bag then a really heavy duty plastic kind of bag. I was able to just leave it in the bag and dig out what I needed (usually filled 10 1 lb bottles at a time with it). It is a huge hassle and for just a bit more money wise (.15 per pound) I've decided it's so much easier to order from Essential Depot and it's already nicely bottled and much easier to store.

I purchase my lye in 50lb bags and just pour it out into a 5 gallon bucket. The bags mine come in are very heavy coated bags. Not hard at all transfer the lye to buckets with tight fitting lids.
 
Ive made the green ones yesterday afternoon, I unmolded and cut them this morning. Did I cut them too soon? Should I have waited longer? I havent done zap test, I'm gonna wait for a week or so.


Only you can tell when to cut them. I usually CPOP my soap and it's ready to cut in 12-14 hours after taking it out of the oven. I wait until it feels cool to the touch and the freezer paper comes away cleanly. Saponification should be complete by 72 hours so I would zap test then. But then I'm impatient
 
Did I cut them too soon? Should I have waited longer?.


I try to wait to cut my soaps until I can press on them and only leave a very small dent. I also want the freezer paper (or whatever you're using as a liner) to come away cleanly with no sticking.

Depending on my recipe, sometimes this is the next morning; sometimes it's 3-4 days later. Depending on my mood, sometimes I have better luck waiting than others.
 
FoxySoap, you had asked how to lower the temp of your mixture at one point in this thread, and one way to do that is to set the container you will be mixing the oil in into a larger container of cold water. Pour your lye water into the oil and mix it there. I think you would be fine without doing that now that you have some higher quality lye. I have soaped in a room that warm before and did not have problems and I really don't think you will have any more issues.
 
Back
Top