Post you ugly soap pics here - Troubleshooting thread

[Saponista]

Did you use fragrance oil Sonia? That may have been what caused your soap to trace so quickly. I love the colour though!

 

[jules92207]

It is still beautiful, what cool colors. I bet once you cut it will be gorgeous inside!

 

[Sonya-m]

I did use FO, sugar plum. For my next batch I'm gonna research for a no acceleration FO from one of the recommended suppliers in the UK suppliers thread. I WILL get a swirly soap.

Here it is cut

 

[Saponista]

Sensoryperfection sell fairly good value fragrance oils and they tell you in the description whether they can be used with cold process soap.

 

[shunt2011]

That turned out nice. Like the pink variations.

 

[fuzz-juzz]

This was supposed to be facial bar with lard and OO. It was hot and I was lazy so I just poured it into silicone muffin cups. 4h later they were separating and still consistency of a sour cream. Here are they, after HP, seriously ugly, but lovely white colour and they smell wonderful, they have no colour or fragrance, just plain soap smell.
One that did set was the last one to pour and I wanted to test new FO so added it in. It was fine and hardened nicely after 1h. So I'm not really sure what happened with the first soaps, same batter, same time of the pour, just no FO. :Kitten Love:

 

[Cindy2428]

Cammoflauge Anyone?

I am so close to finding my "it" recipe. I HP'd this with 100% coconut milk sub. Way, way overcooked - even venting at 20 minutes I never saw it gel. So at 90 minutes I stirred and way overdone. Bound and determined I let it cool for my EO/FO and still added my colors. Even though the color is a total FAIL, it smells great and I love the soap. Can't wait for it to finish curing.

 

[AMyers]

Cindy, Your soap looks like river rocks under the water!

 

[snappyllama]

I like how the cut soap came out, but the tops do look a little, umm, "Mommy thinks all her kids are beautiful".

 

[IrishLass]

I like how your soap came out, too, Cindy (well, except for the tops, that is)! They look like marble!

IrishLass

 

[jules92207]

Cindy, those look awesome!

 

[Cindy2428]

Thanks guys - all of my soaps to date no color, just EO/FO. Still have a lot of learning to do. Did some color testing today and some shopping at Nurture Soap Supplies

 

[RhondaJ]

I am so close to finding my "it" recipe. I HP'd this with 100% coconut milk sub. Way, way overcooked - even venting at 20 minutes I never saw it gel. So at 90 minutes I stirred and way overdone. Bound and determined I let it cool for my EO/FO and still added my colors. Even though the color is a total FAIL, it smells great and I love the soap. Can't wait for it to finish curing.

I'd be trimming those tops off and proclaiming SUCCESS! I love the way they look

 

[JustBeachy]

Cindy after looking at those soaps, I'm thinking I may need to start over cooking all my soaps and breaking out a planer. Great looking soap. You ought to try to reproduce it while cutting back on the cook. I think it's a winner.

 

[lpstephy85]

Well throwing this one on here Eucalyptus soap. I had added ground up green Indian tea and added for a light exfoliant. I knew ahead of time that a lot of herbs added brown, but I didn't expect the to brown and expand. You can see the mica line and the bottom was a light green and above the line was uncolored. The hubby loved them and said anyone who buys this would think this was on purpose. He said it smelled so good no one was going to care.

 

[Saponista]

Curdled vomit wasn't exactly the design I was going for unfortunately! It was supposed to be an orange and white swirl to compliment the orange and clove scent. It still smells lovely, but I don't think I'll be gifting this to anyone for Christmas. Are the weird patches glycerin rivers? Wonder what caused them as I've not had them before.

 

[Cindy2428]

Holy glycerin rivers Batman! - I'll let the experts chime in but that's exactly what I think those are. I think that's the best picture of glycerin rivers that I have ever seen. Is the orange and clove EO or FO? I love the combination too, but Clove oil has been problematic for me even at very small amounts. In one of my favorite articles, http://roberttisserand.com/2011/06/essential-oils-in-soap-interview-with-kevin-dunn/ my conclusion (short version) was that since Clove oil has such a high boiling point, most of it's properties will be retained in soap, hence the risk for weird stuff. I think the soap looks cool!

 

[Saponista]

It was EO but I only used a small amount of clove 0.5%. I used 4% orange. It did get very hot but I unwrapped it when I realised and let it cool. It was weirdly soft as well, I used my usual soap recipe which normally pops out of the mould without a problem but this was more like dough. I will have a read of that article, looks really interesting. Thanks

 

[JustBeachy]

It was EO but I only used a small amount of clove 0.5%. I used 4% orange. It did get very hot but I unwrapped it when I realised and let it cool. It was weirdly soft as well, I used my usual soap recipe which normally pops out of the mould without a problem but this was more like dough. I will have a read of that article, looks really interesting. Thanks

Overheating and then uneven cooling can cause some pretty definitive glycerin rivers. Clove can heat things up a bit. From your description it sounds like it was a temperature thing. There's also been some tests done that say that water heavy batters, tend to be more prone to rivers.

That said, I don't think it looks as horrible as you described it. Let it set and see how it cures out.

 

[Saponista]

I splashed in 10g extra water too but thought such a small amount wouldn't make a difference. I bet it was the extra water and the overheating that contributed to the crazy rivers!