Hey friends,
Been lurking for a while, but never posted. My name is Nick. I've been using store bought melt and pour for a few years now and decided to try my hand at making it. Also done some CP a while back, but wanted to try M&P instead as its suits what i need.
Anyway having some great success made around 15 batches that worked great. Exactly how i wanted. I've been tweaking my recipe along the way. My standard recipe is basically coconut, castor oil. stearic acid, glycerine, sodium hydroxide, propylene glycol, sorbitol, sugar, TD, quite a simple recipe However i started to encounter a really odd problem, the last few batches started to get these odd blue spots forming at random. I thought perhaps my stick mixer was having some issues and perhaps it was reacting in a strange way with the soap maybe some sort of grease or plastic. I adjusted my recipe at one point and added sorbitol and i wanted to cut down on the PG i was using. The soap base has a pH of 8-9 when tested with strips.
I keep going back to thinking its some form of Mold but given the level of pH it shouldn't be this. But it is soft, it doesnt really spread or creep like mold does, but it just sort of appears. I usually make up a 6kg batch and then pour it into "brick" shaped moulds, once they have cooled they are immediately wrapped in cling film tightly to keep them stored and give them some time to rest. The last few batches haven't shown as much of the spots, but they are there.
Absolutely everything is squeaky cleaned before a cook is done, so there is no left over residues. Things are mixed in separate clean containers before mixing.
Any suggestions or ideas on how to fix this issues or what might be causing the problem? Im wondering if its the mixing of certain ingredients (which i doubt as my first batches had no issues) its obviously something has interfered along the way. I am stumped and would really appreciate any help i can get!
Thanks for your help!
Been lurking for a while, but never posted. My name is Nick. I've been using store bought melt and pour for a few years now and decided to try my hand at making it. Also done some CP a while back, but wanted to try M&P instead as its suits what i need.
Anyway having some great success made around 15 batches that worked great. Exactly how i wanted. I've been tweaking my recipe along the way. My standard recipe is basically coconut, castor oil. stearic acid, glycerine, sodium hydroxide, propylene glycol, sorbitol, sugar, TD, quite a simple recipe However i started to encounter a really odd problem, the last few batches started to get these odd blue spots forming at random. I thought perhaps my stick mixer was having some issues and perhaps it was reacting in a strange way with the soap maybe some sort of grease or plastic. I adjusted my recipe at one point and added sorbitol and i wanted to cut down on the PG i was using. The soap base has a pH of 8-9 when tested with strips.
I keep going back to thinking its some form of Mold but given the level of pH it shouldn't be this. But it is soft, it doesnt really spread or creep like mold does, but it just sort of appears. I usually make up a 6kg batch and then pour it into "brick" shaped moulds, once they have cooled they are immediately wrapped in cling film tightly to keep them stored and give them some time to rest. The last few batches haven't shown as much of the spots, but they are there.
Absolutely everything is squeaky cleaned before a cook is done, so there is no left over residues. Things are mixed in separate clean containers before mixing.
Any suggestions or ideas on how to fix this issues or what might be causing the problem? Im wondering if its the mixing of certain ingredients (which i doubt as my first batches had no issues) its obviously something has interfered along the way. I am stumped and would really appreciate any help i can get!
Thanks for your help!