Hi! May I please get some help figuring out if a batch of soap I made is safe to use or too lye-heavy to use? I am still new to soapmaking and this was my 14th batch (using various recipes) and this was the first time I tried out this recipe.
Here is the recipe I formulated and used:
I added sodium lactate in an attempt to make hard and long-lasting soap without palm oil or animal fat. It was my first attempt to use sodium lactate. I added it to my lye water once the temperature came down to 100F.
I added the sodium lactate-added lye water to the oils when the lye water and oils were both 100F.
When I started mixing the lye water and oils with a stick blender, the batter immediately got very thick right around the stick blender and the thick batter stuck to it. So I stopped using the stick blender and started hand-mixing the batter with a whisk. The thickened batter that had stuck to the stick blender seemed to have gotten blended well into the rest of the batter after being hand-whisked. When the overall batter was at medium trace, I added the essential oils and whisked just a bit more to blend them in.
I poured the batter in individual flower-shaped molds placed in a cardboard box, closed the cover, wrapped it in a blanket and let it rest for 24 hours.
When I was unmolding it after 24 hours, I noticed that soap was dewy. When I put a pH strip right on the dew on one of the bars, it turned deep indigo blue (pH 13ish). My instinct was to rinse the soap bars with warm water (warmest tap water possible) and wipe them dry and that’s what I did before putting them back on a plastic rack.
Four days later, I checked the soap bars again and although they didn’t look as dewy as when I unmolded them, they still felt moist to the touch. I put a pH strip right on one of the bars again and this time, it turned deep green (pH 9ish). I rinsed the bars with warm water again and wiped them dry.
It’s been almost 4 weeks since I made this batch and when I lathered up one of the bars with water and tested it with a pH strip, it turned green (pH 8ish).
I was thinking “oh, good, the soap is no longer lye-heavy” but in another thread I had posted about plumbing and soaping (https://www.soapmakingforum.com/thr...ss-soap-and-plumbing.71086/page-3#post-720612), shunt2011 had mentioned, “PH strips will not tell you if the soap is lye heavy. Plus they are not reliable when testing soap” and this got me worried again. So I tried zap testing one of the bars. This was the first time I tried a zap test and am not sure if what I felt was a zap…. It tasted salty and I felt a mild tingling sensation on my tongue, like tiny bubbles dancing but it wasn’t what I would expect a “zap” to be.
So here are my questions if you would be so kind to help me figure out if and what I had done something wrong:
Here is the recipe I formulated and used:
- 8.83 oz Coconut Oil (35%)
- 8.83 oz olive Oil (35%)
- 3.6 oz Canola Oil (15%)
- 2.4 oz Shea Butter (10%)
- 1.2 oz Castor Oil (5%)
- 8.83 oz Distilled Water
- 3.43 oz Sodium Hydroxide
- 1 1/2 teaspoon Sodium Lactate
- 3 ml Lemongrass Essential Oil
- 3 ml Rosemarry Essential Oil
I added sodium lactate in an attempt to make hard and long-lasting soap without palm oil or animal fat. It was my first attempt to use sodium lactate. I added it to my lye water once the temperature came down to 100F.
I added the sodium lactate-added lye water to the oils when the lye water and oils were both 100F.
When I started mixing the lye water and oils with a stick blender, the batter immediately got very thick right around the stick blender and the thick batter stuck to it. So I stopped using the stick blender and started hand-mixing the batter with a whisk. The thickened batter that had stuck to the stick blender seemed to have gotten blended well into the rest of the batter after being hand-whisked. When the overall batter was at medium trace, I added the essential oils and whisked just a bit more to blend them in.
I poured the batter in individual flower-shaped molds placed in a cardboard box, closed the cover, wrapped it in a blanket and let it rest for 24 hours.
When I was unmolding it after 24 hours, I noticed that soap was dewy. When I put a pH strip right on the dew on one of the bars, it turned deep indigo blue (pH 13ish). My instinct was to rinse the soap bars with warm water (warmest tap water possible) and wipe them dry and that’s what I did before putting them back on a plastic rack.
Four days later, I checked the soap bars again and although they didn’t look as dewy as when I unmolded them, they still felt moist to the touch. I put a pH strip right on one of the bars again and this time, it turned deep green (pH 9ish). I rinsed the bars with warm water again and wiped them dry.
It’s been almost 4 weeks since I made this batch and when I lathered up one of the bars with water and tested it with a pH strip, it turned green (pH 8ish).
I was thinking “oh, good, the soap is no longer lye-heavy” but in another thread I had posted about plumbing and soaping (https://www.soapmakingforum.com/thr...ss-soap-and-plumbing.71086/page-3#post-720612), shunt2011 had mentioned, “PH strips will not tell you if the soap is lye heavy. Plus they are not reliable when testing soap” and this got me worried again. So I tried zap testing one of the bars. This was the first time I tried a zap test and am not sure if what I felt was a zap…. It tasted salty and I felt a mild tingling sensation on my tongue, like tiny bubbles dancing but it wasn’t what I would expect a “zap” to be.
So here are my questions if you would be so kind to help me figure out if and what I had done something wrong:
- Do you think this batch of soap is safe to use? If not, how best can I tweak this recipe? Maybe more water?
- Why did the soap become dewy and how can I prevent it from happening going forward?
- Was it unnecessary to add sodium lactate to this recipe?
- Is there a lye calculator that takes sodium lactate into account and gives you the overall soap bar quality and fatty acid profile with the added sodium lactate?
- Do you think what I felt by licking the soap was indeed a zap?
- I have read that lye-heavy soap can be used as laundry soap but I have read some articles that recommend against using lye-heavy soap even for laundry. What are your thoughts here?
- Why did the batter get really thick so quickly? Was it because of the sodium lactate? (Looking back, I think that I may not have mixed it thoroughly with the lye water, thinking that it would be blended in later when the lye water and the oils are mixed.) Or maybe not enough water?
- Are there different things a zap test and a test using a pH strip can tell us about the soap being tested?
- When working with this batch of soap, I used a cheap spoon that I purchased at a dollar store. It was 99 cents for a pair. The label said stainless steel and I tested them with a magnet and it stuck. However, would it be possible that they have alminum underneath the stainless steel and somehow it caused an undesirable chemical reaction with sodium hydroxide?
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It's not humid where I live which is in LA county in California and the temperature was not much higher or lower than when I had soaped successfully previously. So sodium lactate doesn't make the soap long-lating? It only makes it cure faster initially? Bummer! May I ask what you mean by SF? Some of the acronyms of soapmaking terms are still puzzling to me.... Thank you!
