Soap discoloration

[wholemadefarm]

We made a few batches of soaps a week ago and have two of the soaps with unique discoloration that we are trying to problem solve before making more
the recipe is
14 oz olive oil
10 oz coconut oil
7 oz lard
1.75 castor oil
1.75 sweet almond
milk 3.67
2 tsp honey
sodium lactate

the lye was 5.08 oz
water 7.6oz


We add the milk and honey to the oils before adding lye/water mixture.
we keep the temps low and mix between 80 and 90, making sure they are always within 5 degrees. We use a little bit of stick blending to emulsion as ours tends to heat up and go thick because of the additives. We do not put through gel nor do we insulate ours normally as we use honey and milk in all of them (our niche as we have dairy cows and raise bees )

The first soap that is green, red and yellow was scented with nurture soap white tea and pear 1.25 oz (recommended medium scent amount on their calculator). the green color was pistachio with green chrome from brambleberry and rustic escentuals. As you can see from the picture, half way up the soap, the green color is orangey looking. We colored about 3/4 of batch of soap green all at the same time, poured a base, then were trying for tear drop shape. The discolored green areas are exactly the same batch and color as the base, but were poured from the sides together. Then. . . we ran out of the green LOL So we used the remaining brick red and sunburst sparkle to top it off. The picture from the side, shows the texture is also off from the discoloration on up. The top shows how white and ash it is, plus it is also a bit crumbly and I'm wondering is it deep ashing? If so, what did we do that caused this now when we haven't experienced it any other time?

The next soap we are showing was same recipe but used 40/42 lavender essential oil from brambleberry . We were trying for the first time to only color with clays, indigo, etc and nothing was working well. It was supposed to be clamshell swirl but it went grainy and wouldn't pour nicely . Anyway, it has the dreaded DOS which is a first for us, and we are wondering if you have any suggestions or helpful advice on why? Also has ash on top.

The last three soaps together are the same recipe but with different FO's - lilac, jeweled fir and comfort and joy from nurture soap. They are there to show you the soaps we made all same day, same recipe.

Thank you so much for your time!

 

[AliOop]

Sorry, edited because I realized I didn't read the numbers right for the water:lye ratio.

Some of the graininess appears to be stearic spots to me, but what you see on the top and side of the green bar is probably soda ash. Ash is more common with ungelled soap, soap that is exposed to air before saponification is complete, and soap with certain additives. Conversely, gelling the soap, using a lower water percentage, and keeping it covered for several days can reduce ash. I get a lot of ash any time I use clay or activated charcoal.

However, the fact that it is crumbly can mean that you either didn't get a stable emulsion before pouring, or that some of your lye wasn't completely mixed in. Have you zap-tested it?

The fourth picture looks like undissolved clay to me, not DOS. How old is the soap? If it looked like this out of the mold, it is probably not DOS, which normally takes a couple of weeks to develop.

 

[wholemadefarm]

yes, we zap tested it. no problems just soap tasting and nasty fragrance oil taste
Soap Queen said that soda ash can run all the way through a bar causing crumbly soap so I did wonder if that was the problem, what did we do that caused the ash - we used no clay. it happens on soaps without any clays in them, but tends to happen in soaps we pour thinner. Gelling the soap with honey and milk results in some pretty nasty results unless we could do so at much lower temperature than I've tried as the honey and milk do not do well. Would covering the top of the bars help? We haven't covered in the past but would have to make a tall sided lid for the molds as we fill to top, add texture or even frost many which means much higher than the sides. I'll put some thought into it though - thank you for the suggestions.
The 4th picture was all colored with clays - brazillian, purple, rose clay etc. The soap had those spots at 3 days when we cut it, it is now 9 days old - it took forever to harden so we could cut. How do you mix your clays when you use them - this was the first time we'd used all clay. We dispersed them in water 1 part clay to one part water as the nurture soap instructions said.

In re to the stearic spots (are you talking about the first bar?), do we need to raise the temperature we soap at from 80-90 to closer to 100 to help this? We've stuck to low temp for the honey and milk.
Thank you!

 

[wholemadefarm]

The last soap I had another question about and forgot to add. It was with the scent jeweled fir from nurture soap and we used caribbean blue from brambleberry to color it. The dark blue that you can see in the drop swirl is indigo, but the caribean blue from brambleberry is now green - the soap was all shades of blue and now looks like camouflage (my oh so helpful husband pointed out). Any ideas why? We used a touch of titanium dioxide with the caribbean blue for the lightest color (which is the bottom of the soap and should have been light blue).which we keep pre mixed with oil and ball bearing in a squirt bottle for convenience and to keep it from causing white specks. But we see there are white flecks in the three good soaps . . . how frustrating. Any recommendations? The titanium dioxide is from brambleberry and says to disperse in oil which we did (sweet almond). We've made a fair many batches of soaps and never had issues, but this last week it seems like everything was going wrong

 

[wholemadefarm]

and in re. to the concern about lye, water and milk quantities. I've made soap with the half and half method many many times. Is this frowned upon? I initially read it in the brambleberry and then majestic mountain sage blog and have seen it on soap makers blogs several times. It seemed to work well and produced lovely soap, but are there concerns if it passes zap test?

 

[amd]

Where do you get your water from? If you're using tap water, you will want to switch to distilled water.
Do you use your stick blender to blend in colors? If so, do you clean it with water between colors?
Where are you getting your lard from? If it is home rendered, it may not be clean enough.
Where are you curing the soaps?

For the most part I don't see anything wrong with your recipe or methods. I'm inclined to think it's within your processes itself causing the DOS. (I don't see ash as a problem, and I've not personally experienced crumbly soap, so I can't offer trouble shooting advice). I was having trouble with DOS before my soaps could get off the cure rack for awhile, finally I narrowed it down to two things:
1. My cure rack said it was stainless steel, but I'm fairly certain it was only a thin coating of SS material, so the metal underneath was still able to react with my soaps.
2. I was cleaning my stick blender between colors by running it in a container of tap water. I noticed this particularly in a layered soap that I made, the top two colors developed DOS, while the bottom did not.

I stopped doing these two things and rarely have DOS troubles.

 

[wholemadefarm]

We use distilled water, not tap. We don't wash our stick blender between colors, and our racks are plastic. we've cured all our soap on them without problems before, but thanks for suggesting them.
Our soaps are cured in our basement with the dehumidifier set to 37 all the time.
The ash is just a cosmetic problem for selling. If we steam, the ash disappears, but we get many batches without ash, so we're trying to understand how to make it more predictable.
The clays are reconstitued with water, and since we used 5 clays, that did add a decent bit of water. I have no idea if that could have contributed to any of our problems.

 

[TheGecko]

The darker green kind of looks like your soap was trying to gel.

Soda ash is a complete mystery to be...sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't. I've made two soaps from the same batch, same colorants, different scents, same molds. One I spritzed with alcohol, the other I didn't...the one with the alcohol got the ash. I've had a very light dusting of ash, I've 'rolled' it off the soap, I've also had it so bad that there was less that a half a bar of soap by the time I got it all off. The sample soaps...I just tossed.

Honestly...I think that sometimes we just have 'bad' soaping days.

 

[AliOop]

yes, we zap tested it. no problems just soap tasting and nasty fragrance oil taste
Soap Queen said that soda ash can run all the way through a bar causing crumbly soap so I did wonder if that was the problem, what did we do that caused the ash - we used no clay. it happens on soaps without any clays in them, but tends to happen in soaps we pour thinner. Gelling the soap with honey and milk results in some pretty nasty results unless we could do so at much lower temperature than I've tried as the honey and milk do not do well. Would covering the top of the bars help? We haven't covered in the past but would have to make a tall sided lid for the molds as we fill to top, add texture or even frost many which means much higher than the sides. I'll put some thought into it though - thank you for the suggestions.
The 4th picture was all colored with clays - brazillian, purple, rose clay etc. The soap had those spots at 3 days when we cut it, it is now 9 days old - it took forever to harden so we could cut. How do you mix your clays when you use them - this was the first time we'd used all clay. We dispersed them in water 1 part clay to one part water as the nurture soap instructions said.

In re to the stearic spots (are you talking about the first bar?), do we need to raise the temperature we soap at from 80-90 to closer to 100 to help this? We've stuck to low temp for the honey and milk.
Thank you!

Stearic spots are cosmetic only, and fairly common, so no need to worry as long as they don't bother you.

As @TheGecko said, ash has a mind of its own. You can do everything right and still get it, or do nothing right and never see it. As you noted, pouring at a thinner emulsion can definitely contribute, since less of the lye has saponified at that point. The more free lye, the more of it is available to react with the air and cause ash.

Covering the soap for at least 48 hours will help. Make a "tent" out of cardboard and then put plastic wrap over that to avoid messing up your tops.

The extra water from hydrating all the clays could definitely have contributed to the ash. You can hydrate the clay in some of your milk instead.

If those spots appeared within three days, they probably aren't DOS - they are either undissolved clay or unmixed fragrance oils, perhaps. Clays can be tricky to get out all the lumps. You can run it through a strainer or use a mini-frother to work out all the lumps before adding it to the soaps.

 

[wholemadefarm]

I noticed in comments under the Caribbean blue in brambleberry that somebody said theirs went dark green and would it change to blue as it cures and they responded with the product does not go green and to call customer service to discuss it. So I'm going to do that also

thank you guys for all the tips and tricks - I am looking forward to another batch and trying again!