weird question about soaping and tongues

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I drink iced tea from morning to night, all year around. Could not live without iced tea. But not that syrup some southerners call sweet tea.

OH LAWD!! She done talked about sweet tea now! LOL:grin:

Seriously, I'm first gen Northerner so while I like my tea sweet, I CANNOT drink sweet tea once I pass the Mason-Dixon line. My great aunties made lemonade one time and I had to dilute the juice for my daughter. 1 part juice to 4 parts water. It was still sweet for my taste but at least I could drink it. I'd have been livid if they made sweet tea that time.
 
The whole three times I've made soap I've noticed kind of a bitter, salty taste on my lips afterwards- and I'm not drinking the batter. I'm wondering if there's a tiny, tiny bit of lye dust that gets in the air (I mix the lye outside and wear a mask because I'm sensitive to the fumes), or if it is from the lye fumes (if just a little settles on your skin/mouth etc). Or maybe I just have a very well developed imagination.

I doubt it, I got lye fumes on my arm once from stirring my solution with short sleeves, it started burning immediately. I've also got a little soap batter on my lip once, it burned and blistered within a couple minutes with no taste or saltiness.
 
Does anyone ever get a chemical taste or slightly numb tongue from making soap? I don't even make very much soap, only maybe 5 batches in the past 2 months, but for a few weeks now I've had that weird taste on my tongue. Not all the time, in fact at first I was thinking it was from breathing/tasting lawn chemicals when I was walking dogs in certain neighborhoods. I made two batches of soap in the last three days and today the taste/numbness is pretty strong. I usually mix my lye outside but still got some fumes last night, and yesterday I also zap tested a new soap with my tongue. Also since I was able to turn the furnace off, my curing room is now open to the rest of the house so I can smell the fragrances a lot too.

Never google anything, it has me full of horrible diseases or lacking vitamins or even going through menopause, but to my mind soaping is a new thing for me before this started so it makes sense it might be the culprit. Anyone else?
well I'm sat here in bed watching tv after doing my first ever batch 3 hours or so ago n guess what i have a. Numb strange tasting tongue and then wow I just came across your post how strange
 
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Does anyone ever get a chemical taste or slightly numb tongue from making soap? I don't even make very much soap, only maybe 5 batches in the past 2 months, but for a few weeks now I've had that weird taste on my tongue. Not all the time, in fact at first I was thinking it was from breathing/tasting lawn chemicals when I was walking dogs in certain neighborhoods. I made two batches of soap in the last three days and today the taste/numbness is pretty strong. I usually mix my lye outside but still got some fumes last night, and yesterday I also zap tested a new soap with my tongue. Also since I was able to turn the furnace off, my curing room is now open to the rest of the house so I can smell the fragrances a lot too.

I wanted to respond to this a few days ago, but hadn't joined the forum yet. Well, now I joined, so here goes:

Yes, and my first thought was how much zap-testing have you been doing? I noticed that when I zap test, I do have an altered sense of taste for a while. Of course, 'a while' is relative. For me it has lasted as long as a couple of weeks, maybe longer but that was when I was doing a lot of zap testing.

Also, it just so happens that the sense of taste is affected by alterations to the sense of smell, so it certainly makes sense that the fumes from any scent might affect your sense of taste. Be it lye solution fumes, or fragrance oil fumes, or whatever.

People previously mentioned dietary factors as well as other things that are ingested as having affect on the sense of taste, and boy is that the truth! Many years ago, I took St. John's Wort tablets for a period of time and it altered my sense of smell remarkably, and it affected my sense of taste as well. Don't know which came first the taste or the smell, but it was incredibly distracting to me.

You and others have also mentioned migraine factors and that's another one to watch closely with soapmaking, I guess. I have had ocular migraines, but not so much lately. At first it was really alarming, but after I was diagnosed and knew what it was, it was actually kind of fun some of the time, like seeing a psychedelic show in my eyes, and not so bad unless I wanted to read a book or otherwise visually focus, then it wasn't so fun. So far no ocular migraines with soaping. It doesn't seem to trigger them for me.

BTW, in all my zap testing I never actually got zapped until last week (another story), so I'm thinking the altered sense of taste wasn't from the lye, it was from the saponified soap itself. And maybe some essential oils, although I didn't used to use much of those until recently, so I don't even think they were a factor when I first noticed this happening, but I could be wrong. Colorants, maybe, but not so much as I didn't used to use them much at all either.
 
Isn't it strange? The doctors ask about visual disturbances, but I have heard at least as many people describe non-visual warnings for migraines as visual ones.

I've had migraines since I was a kid. I have had the "classic" aura only ONE time in all of those years. The only reason I had that is because I was having eye surgery and the drops they put in my eye to numb it caused an instant migraine with aura. Nausea, dizziness, visual distortion. It was horrible. I almost didn't get my surgery that day, but the doctors let me take my Relpax and I was fine in 15 minutes. I had never had a migraine come on so fast in my life. It felt like someone shot me in the head with a cannon ball. For the second eye, I came prepared and had already taken the Relpax, but they decided to give me a different drop to avoid that problem completely.
 
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Yes, and my first thought was how much zap-testing have you been doing? I noticed that when I zap test, I do have an altered sense of taste for a while. Of course, 'a while' is relative. For me it has lasted as long as a couple of weeks, maybe longer but that was when I was doing a lot of zap testing.

You and others have also mentioned migraine factors and that's another one to watch closely with soapmaking, I guess. I have had ocular migraines, but not so much lately. At first it was really alarming, but after I was diagnosed and knew what it was, it was actually kind of fun some of the time, like seeing a psychedelic show in my eyes, and not so bad unless I wanted to read a book or otherwise visually focus, then it wasn't so fun. So far no ocular migraines with soaping. It doesn't seem to trigger them for me.

I've only zap tested a few soaps, and those were not spaced closely together. The tongue thing has faded to just a little of a 'burnt my tongue drinking something too hot' feeling now though, so whatever caused it is passing.

My migraines are triggered by food or drink, usually, although they can certainly be brought on by other things as well, like pulling my hair back too tightly. In fact I have given up ponytails entirely in favor of braids for this reason. I've only had one ocular migraine that I know of, and it was long before I had my first actual head-pain one. It was weird and freaked me out, but then my uncle told me what it was and that migraines do run in our family. Everyone's experiences are so different and it's rather fascinating to read about it all!

TeresaT that sounds awful!!!
 
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I've had migraines since I was a kid. I have had the "classic" aura only ONE time in all of those years. The only reason I had that is because I was having eye surgery and the drops they put in my eye to numb it caused an instant migraine with aura. Nausea, dizziness, visual distortion. It was horrible. I almost didn't get my surgery that day, but the doctors let me take my Relpax and I was fine in 15 minutes. I had never had a migraine come on so fast in my life. It felt like someone shot me in the head with a cannon ball. For the second eye, I came prepared and had already taken the Relpax, but they decided to give me a different drop to avoid that problem completely.

That's a great thing it happened only once. Aura sucks elephant bullets when you have migraines. I always have to be in a quiet, dark place in the event I get that.
 
I thought that was what defined a migraine. I get spots and sploges in front of my eyes for 1/2 an hour then clear vision for 1/2 an hour then whammo migraine followed a free hours later by throwing up then I am shaky but better. My son's vision goes black and white! Our trigger is salicylates.

These days if I have some heavy duty migraine medication at the time of the visual disturbances I can generally ward off a full-blown migraine.
 
Not everyone who sees spots gets a migraine headache and not everyone who gets the headache sees spots.

I get visual (ocular?) migraines a few times a year -- a lacy vibrating white pattern that starts in a small area but gradually enlarges to cover most of my field of vision. Triggers are stress or bright dazzling light (sunlight reflecting off pavement or water) or flickering bright light (ceiling fans between a bright light and me are awful!)

I don't get the headaches. Thank goodness. My fear is that someday this might change and I dread the idea.
 
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Are you licking the soap (i.e.: doing a zap test?) I have never had any tongue issues but I don't use the zap test I test the PH with strips or a meter. Other than that I wouldn't expect your tongue to react from soap-making.
 
Yesterday I made s complicated batch and really concentrated on what I was doing. I touched my face after touching the lye mixing spoon with gloves (wash 1). I got a spot of batter on my face and (so very foolishly licked it off) (wash 2). I got too hot & took jumper off and got batter on my arm (wash 3).

Not everyone is as thoughtless as I was and it was a complicated recipe but I do have to learn to think, slow down and plan better. You have to wash the smallest spot of lye or batter immediately to avoid burns.
 
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