That's a bummer. Such a beautiful and laborious soap, but then these specks all over!
I can't imagine these are soda ash either. Some questions towards troubleshooting: It appears to me as if this could be stearic spots, that somehow became worse the later you poured the colours. Do you happen to use a lot of hard oils (palm, lard, shea etc.) at a not too high temperature, so that the red batter had chance to cool down just too much for the reaction heat to re-melt the secretly solidifying fats? Did you force gel/CPOP?
I guess you have prepared a single batch of batter and split it into six portions to add the respective colourants. Or did you split lye and oils into six separately?
Did you pre-mix the red dye/pigment/mica with some oil/liquid, or did you stir it directly into the batter?
I've seen similar appearance also when I added too much sodium lactate. I can't explain why only one of the layers is affected, but who knows?
If you're concerned about safety, i. e. to ensure it's merely ugly but not dangerous, make a
zap test.
Loosely related, how did you get these soaps so shiny? I've never seen that mirror-smooth cut surfaces.
I did one layer at a time - and my husband was rushing my process, so yes, we prepped each layers oils all at once and almost 30% shea and the rest soft oils.
So we would heat the oils up to shea's melt point (which I think is highest) to mix and then cool to a room temp so they would pour nicely and we would have lots of time to work with the batter.
I did mix the mica colorants in about a half tbsp of a lightweight oil this time in a separate small containers. Last time I did it in the 32 oz graduated mixing pitchers that I use to make the soap batter.
I would mix the oil and lye and then add colorant (I may have added the colorant sludge to the oil - it was 28 days ago! haha), I think I would stick blend for a tiny amount, then whisk in the fragrance until emulsification, then pour.
Then I would put the mold under a thick towel on my heat pad set to 100F to force gel - no CPOP (plus my molds are too big for my over - but that might make the process faster?).
We were doing 30 min layers, but we got super weird, what I call ocean-y waves in the first batch (came out cool, but not what I wanted) - weird like the blue layers in both soaps didn't solidify as fast as the other colors and I poured over a spatula and I'm usu pretty good at this process.
I did use sodium lactate - 1 tsp per layer, which ends up being about 6tsp/5lbs oils.
I am noticing that the outer edges of the soap are displaying this mostly. As you get towards the center cuts it's just on the top and sides.
So for the second batch we waited 1 hour between. Such a painful soap day! haha.
The soap looks super shiny because I was doing an 'ash wash-off test' with an end-cut. I did wipe the top bit of the bar wet - the red part on the inner elbow - and let it sit for 3 minutes with no reaction.
I've been searching and searching all over the house for my pH test strips and dang-it, I can't find them!!! grrr!!! I really don't want to stick my tongue on a bar of soap. haha
So I soaped at room temp 80F and sometimes the lye would be way lower due to the icebath or being in the fridge. lol I think this may be a big learning moment for us. This isn't our standard soap recipe, but I may move to it in future if I can learn to work with it. My typical recipe only has 10% hard oil and SL. I can prob ditch SL in this recipe.
I'm trying to see... are all soaps fully shrink wrapped? If so, was the - well let's just call it soda ash for the moment - present before shrinkwrapping?
It's only on the red (top) layer, correct?
How do you make your layers? Do you mix in one batch, or do you mix separate batch for each color? If separate batch, do you make one batch of lye solution or several small batches?
Reason for my questions... I have a brewery soap that tends to do this that is also poured in layers. I get this odd soda ash only on the top layer occasionally as well. It's very stubborn. Have you tried steaming? I usually have to steam several times before it goes away. The only thing I've been able to chalk it down to is because I mix each layer separately from one batch of lye solution - and I don't check the last layer, I use whatever oil is left in the MB and whatever lye solution is left in pitcher. I wonder if I have a just slightly off mixture that has a bit more lye present in that layer, which makes it more vulnerable to soda ash. Fortunately the soap never zaps, so it's not off enough to be unsafe soap. My other thought is the color may be more prone to soda ash, I have a few that do that. [I know I know, color shouldn't influence soda ash, but my experience tells me otherwise.]
The single bar on the rack has been washed. I was under the impression that the ash would wash off right away? I also scraped at it, can you see?
it's deep. Mostly on the outer edges, like soda ash, which I find strange. See my reply to the first, it's really in-depth. I made everything separate so that the measurements would be as accurate as possible. the last photos are from an earlier batch where we didn't take so much time between layers and why their smooshed, but that bar is wrapped. And we don't wrap until cured, which is usually 4 but closer to 6 weeks cuz we're lazy.
Yes the ash-like color is present before wrapping.
I have had this happen too. I have never been able to remove it except by planing if it doesn't go too deep. I suspect pouring too thin/bare emulsion, or not truly emuslified batter as being the problem, but that is not necessarily the case.
This sounds very close to my problem. It goes deep. I did use a really cooled lye mix too that I didn't think would contribute too much. Maybe I soaped too low of a temp for an almost 30% Shea...?
