Should I trash my oops?

[JJBlaine]

My scale tends to shut down really quickly, so on my notes, I usually write down the amount of lye solution I need plus the weight of the container I use to mix it (60g). Last night, I mistakenly counted the container twice, ending up with an extra 30g each of lye and water.

Even accounting for the high SF in my recipe, I'm pretty sure it is going to make an awful soap, assuming it eventually cures long enough not to zap. After just 6 hours, it was already difficult to cut.

Would it be safe to grate it up and use it in a confetti soap? If so, should I use reduce the amount of lye in the new batter by the amount of extra lye in the confetti? Or, should I just toss it in the trash?

This is the recipe I was going for:

• 450g lard
• 200g olive and coconut oils
• 50g each cocoa butter, shea butter, and castor oil
• 279.18g lye solution (1:1)
• 38% liquids- 95g heavy cream plus 145.41g water
• 2 Tbsp. sugar, and 1 Tbsp. salt
• Note: 5% superfat does not include the cream, so probably closer to 7-8%

EDIT (for clarification): I used an extra 60g of lye solution for a total of 339.1g, therefore I was over by 30g of NaOH and 30g of water. Thanks DeeAnna, for helping me realize I was not exactly clear about that when I first posted.

 

[DeeAnna]

Am I following this correctly? You actually used a total of 280 grams of NaOH in your soap? (Not talking about the NaOH solution, just the NaOH.)

If so, I honestly don't think this soap will ever cure out to be zap free. I've made an experimental soap that was this lye heavy, but there was a lot more water in the soap too. The extra water seemed to be the key to the soap becoming skin safe after several weeks of cure. Other people who made a similar lye-heavy recipe but with less water found the soap remained lye heavy no matter how long it cured.

You could rebatch and add sufficient extra fat to react with the excess NaOH, but honestly it's a large enough batch that this might get pretty cumbersome. I would not use it to make confetti soap due to the extreme amount of extra NaOH. Instead, I'd get the soap fully melted and react that excess lye with more fat.

Tip -- If you are going to use heavy cream in soap, you need to be splitting that cream into milk fat (butter fat) and whey. The whey is the only thing that contributes to the water amount.

 

[JJBlaine]

Thank you, DeeAnna, for the reply.

Am I following this correctly? You actually used a total of 280 grams of NaOH in your soap? (Not talking about the NaOH solution, just the NaOH.)

It was a total of 169.5g of NaOH, instead of the 139.5g, so an extra 30g. I was supposed to use 279g of the 1:1 lye solution, but used 60 g too much. 279+60=339÷2=169.5g

If so, I honestly don't think this soap will ever cure out to be zap free. I've made an experimental soap that was this lye heavy, but there was a lot more water in the soap too. The extra water seemed to be the key to the soap becoming skin safe after several weeks of cure. Other people who made a similar lye-heavy recipe but with less water found the soap remained lye heavy no matter how long it cured.

Given that I used 169g of lye, and not 280, and that I also had an additional liquid equal to the amount of extra lye, so you still think it is too extreme an overage to cure out, or be used as confetti?

I had hoped to avoid melting it down, as you can probably tell, math is not exactly my strong suit, so figuring out how much extra oil I need would be a challenge, lol. Plus my soaping crockpot is small so I would have to split it into several batches.

TIP -- If you are going to use heavy cream in soap, you need to be splitting that cream into milk fat (butter fat) and whey. The whey is the only thing that contributes to the water amount.

Thank you for the tip. I will be doing some research into how to make that calculation. ,

EDIT: correcting my autocorrect.

 

[TheGecko]

I have 'made' three batches of 'lye heavy' soap and even though in all three cases it would have been easy-peasy math (add the missing oil in two of them and double the recipe in the third), I choose to toss the mess simply because I have zero interest in rebatching, and mind you I'm a thrifty person.

To safeguard from making these mistakes again, I 1) wrote with a Sharpie how much each of my containers weigh on the bottom, 2) note on my recipe sheet what the total weight of my Lye Solution and Oils/Butters WITH container should be and then I weigh them BEFORE I mix them, 3) never partially batch my oils, and 4) rewrote my recipe in the order that I add my oils/butters so I can check off each one as I add them. And example of the latter is Cocoa Butter, Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Shea Butter, Castor Oil and Olive Oil. Cocoa Butter is first because it takes the longest to melt; when it's about about half way, I add my Coconut and Palm Oils and then use the residual heat to melt the Shea Butter. Castor Oil goes in next because it's such a small amount and would be easy to miss in the "weigh in" and while you would think one would forget to add Olive Oil because it is 35% of my total oils, I have done it twice and the reason for # 3 and #4.

 

[cmzaha]

If you actually used 30 g too much lye it would put you around a -4 superfat. Given you did not allow for the Butterfat in the cream I would just let it cure out 3-4 months and it should be fine.

As Gecko mentioned I always recommend marking the tare weight of your mixing container. It can save a lot of grief. Gecko goes even further than me, I just have tare weights on all my buckets.

 

[DeeAnna]

I obviously really misread your first post. My apologies.

Now that I understand the problem, I agree with Carolyn -- let it cure and it should be fine.

Your recipe is probably also based on the assumption that your NaOH is 100% pure, and real-life NaOH never is. The difference in purity as well as the unaccounted-for butter fat in the cream will offset the extra NaOH.

 

[JJBlaine]

Thank you TheGecko, cmzaha, and, DeeAnna for the replies. I am going to stop worrying about it, and set it to cure.

TheGecko, I have read your very sage advice on marking the containers before. I actually took it a step further, and have different colored containers for different ingredients, so I always know what is in each one at a glance.

On this soap, I was with you on tips 1, 2 & 4, but took a detour on #3. I wrote down the total of the lye solution+the container (279+60=339), then I forgot to subtract the container weight (339÷9 instead of 279÷9) when I decided to try doing layers.

I would have caught my mistake if I had poured out the amount of lye I need for the entire batch, then divided it instead of just doing the math on paper, like I did the oils, but I don't have that many lye-safe containers. I'm going to shop for some to (hopefully) avoid this mistake in the future.

Now for some searching on milk fat/whey....I know there was a post or two on this subject here on smf.

 

[cmzaha]

Read this explanation of DeeAnna's for figuring out the fat content from labels. https://classicbells.com/soap/nutritionLabel.asp

 

[JJBlaine]

Read this explanation of DeeAnna's for figuring out the fat content from labels.

Awesome! Thank you so much! I was muddling my way thru a dozen windows open to different smf posts, which all had snippets of what this one link had all summed up in one clear, easy to understand aticle!I

Than you cmzaha, for providing the link, and DeeAnna for the fabulous information.

***going to spend the next hour or three reading more of those articles on classicbells***

 

[TheGecko]

Gecko goes even further than me, I just have tare weights on all my buckets.

After having been interrupted a few times while weighing, knowing how much everything is supposed to weigh has been real helpful.