I have only made two batches of soap in my life. The second batch was a shampoo bar, and I was a tad bitsy short on the lye. I ran out and instead of aborting the project, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. The bars still cut, but are a bit soft and seem somewhat greasy. Does the greasiness mean it didn't saponify fully? It does lather a little when I used one of the bars. We'll see how my hair feels/looks when it dries. What are the odds I could let the bars cure a little longer and they'd harden up? I wouldn't even mind if they are just soft. I have looked into rebatching (?) it. The questions are, what recipe did I use (I don't know which one it was anymore!), and how short was I on lye? If I had to guess, it seems I remember saying what a shame it is that I was a mere 1 oz short. Should I just melt it down and add an ounce of lye to it? Would this added lye have to be mixed into a bit of water? How much? Is it just this easy?
Rebatch 1
- Thread starter gpeppers
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gpeppers said:
I'm sure it saponified just fine. The softness and greasiness come from a high superfat because of not using enough lye. In other words, or what I am trying to say, is that the little amount of lye you had in there reacted to the fullest, or fully saponified what it was able to saponify. The problem was that there was too little lye to take care of the rest of the oil, which seems to have left you with a soap containing a 20% superfat or so (depending on how short of lye you really were).
gpeppers said:
That's what I would do. How long have you let them cure for so far?
gpeppers said:
It doesn't look like it was a huge batch, so if it were me, I would just leave well enough alone. Remelting CP soap is not as easy as it might sound since it doesn't exactly melt all nice and smooth and fluid. It's more like thick, gloppy mashed potatoes or vaseline, and will leave you with a rougher, rustic-looking soap.
If you do rebatch, then yes, the extra lye will need to be fully dissolved in at least an equal amount of water, or else you will have solid lye crystals thoughout your soap. Ouch! Not good. That will mean adding at least 1 oz extra of water, which will temporarily make your soap even softer than it already is right now (in spite of the extra lye), until it has a chance to evaporate back out over time.
IrishLass
Goodie. I'll just wait. It's not too soft, so in time it will dry out more and be fine. Thanks! I didn't really want to rebatch, anyway, but just didn't want to be a soap-making wimp. If that was really what was called for, I'd like to think I could rise to the occasion. Maybe I can, but not this time, sounds like!
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