What did I do wrong?

[Kay Kaye]

I’m a hobby soaper and only been soaping for a couple of years, during that time I’ve come up with a CP recipe that always works and suits my skin etc.
I average a 1.5kg loaf per week which I make for family and friends.
Recently I‘ve been using vinegar (plain white vinegar) in my batter as I find there’s a lot less scum formation than when I used citric acid powder.
Anyway, long story short, yesterday I made my usual Tea Tree oil and AC soap and the photos show what I cut this morning after 24 hour.

Usual Recipe with 1kg of oils: OO 30%. CO 20%. Palm 20%. Shea 15%. Cocoa butter 15%. Sweet Almond 5%. RBO 5%
usual ‘extras’ tussah silk, sugar 10g Na lactate 2 tsp TD 2tsps to lye solution.
SF 5% NaOh conc 33% (I added an extra 5g lye to account for 140g vinegar and dissolved the lye in 145g H20)
I also added: Activated charcoal 2 tbsp, Kaolin clay 1 tbsp with EOs
EOs: Tea tree 12g lavender 9g Litsea 9g

I soap at room temperature (I’m in UK) the batter did thicken quicker than usual - I assumed the EOs and kaolin to blame - put in the mould and CPOP for an hour. Zap test ‘negative’ so doesn’t seem to be lye heavy

 

[AliOop]

Without knowing what actually changed from your usual recipe, my best guess is that the combination of all that charcoal, TD, kaolin clay and sodium lactate was too much, and that's why the soap is crumbly. You may have needed to cut it sooner, as well.

 

[Kay Kaye]

Without knowing what actually changed from your usual recipe, my best guess is that the combination of all that charcoal, TD, kaolin clay and sodium lactate was too much, and that's why the soap is crumbly. You may have needed to cut it sooner, as well.

Thank you.

I make this particular soap roughly every eight weeks and the only ingredient that was different this time was the addition of vinegar.
However I do think you're correct that I should have unmoulded and cut it sooner.

 

[AliOop]

Oh, that helps. I read that you recently started using vinegar, but wasn't clear on the fact that it was the first time using it with this specific recipe.

Vinegar does cause the soap to harden more cleanly and quickly - which means you do need to unmold a fair bit sooner. For future loaves of this recipe, I'd recommend checking at 12 hours to see if it is firm enough.

Meanwhile, to fix this soap, you could put it back into a 250F oven until it softens up just enough to cut it. You'll have to watch it very closely though to make sure it doesn't become a gooey mess; if it does, let it cool down and firm up again.

Given the crumbly texture, I don't know that you could make confetti shreds with it. The other option is to chop/crush and rebatch the whole thing.

 

[earlene]

In my experience a higher amount of vinegar does increase the possibility of crumbling when the soap is cut, but it looks to me like you are on the lower side, a bit less than 50% vinegar replacement for water. And if you always use the same measurements for your other additives in the same size batch, and they never crumble, then I wouldn't blame the AC, clay or TD. So I'd say it's perhaps a combination of the Sodium Lactate plus the vinegar plus waiting too long to cut. Both will harden the soap. I'd leave out the Sodium Lactate when using vinegar.

With crumbly edges like that, I have let the soap sit and cure a long time and usually it can be smoothed out after cure and does not crumble when used. The bars will look a bit oddly shaped, but with a planer, you can smooth the broken areas after the cure.

 

[cmzaha]

I would recommend using either SL or Vinegar but not both. I will mention I do not find vinegar to be an efficient chelator. I use vinegar from 50-100% of my liquid in all my soaps plus my EDTA and Sodium Gluconate. The vinegar allows me to unmold my soaps quickly and boosts my lather, or at the least does not deter lather in my soaps and the SG and EDTA at 0.5% each is an efficient chelator.