What is this in my soap?

[harleygrl42]

I made a batch of soap last night with olive oil, coconut oil and rosemary oil, some food coloring, lavender essential oil and ground up gunpowder green tea. sure the lye and water mixture seemed heavy but after mixing it in to the oils and other ingredients it all seemed to mix up very well.

Well, when I'm cutting it this evening I notice there are white little chunk like tiny balls in the soap and on the top. i touched one and it gave no reaction so it doesn't seem harmful. i also cut them and let them lay out on a cardboard box and they felt fine to the touch so it seems not dangerous.

here is a pic of what it looks like!





you see that it kind of looks like the initiall formation of mold
the soap is a greenish color so that part is ok with specks in it but the whitish part is what i'm concerned about

 

[Lindy]

Can you take a picture and post it so we can see it?

 

[harleygrl42]

Can you take a picture and post it so we can see it?

Sure Lindy I've posted a photo.

It is a first batch 8) but hopefully it could be salvaged.

 

[Deda]

Gunpowder? Like black powder? Charcoal and Potassium Nitrate?

I've never heard of using it in soap. I'm really interested to find out more. Could the charcoal have separated from the potassium nitrate and that's what you're seeing? I have no idea, but I really want to know.

The soap looks cool, though.

 

[carebear]

Gunpowder? Like black powder? Charcoal and Potassium Nitrate?

no no - Gunpowder GREEN TEA! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_tea

 

[Deda]

Gunpowder? Like black powder? Charcoal and Potassium Nitrate?

no no - Gunpowder GREEN TEA! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_tea

Well - I didn't know! Her name is Harley? Maybe like Hells Angels, biker babe, NRA, who knows?
I'm ashamed, again.

I was all excited about making gunpowder soap! How cool would that be?

 

[heartsong]

x

you need to touch your tongue to the white balls. if it's like licking a battery, then it's lye. if it just tastes like soap (yuck!) then i would just watch it and see what it does in the next few weeks.

how much tea did you use?

 

[harleygrl42]

Hello again well heartsong, I used your advice and it turns out, that it was actually lye left in the mixture. yeah it was very sour like ..negative ions or something weird. ~i used about two tablespoons of tea, and it was really the tea flakes blended finely to a sort of powder.

now after one real experience with lye.... i think it would be better if i try some recipes first before concaucting my own batch. who knows what could happen next time, lol.

 

[mandolyn]

Hello again well heartsong, I used your advice and it turns out, that it was actually lye left in the mixture. yeah it was very sour like ..negative ions or something weird. ~i used about two tablespoons of tea, and it was really the tea flakes blended finely to a sort of powder.

now after one real experience with lye.... i think it would be better if i try some recipes first before concaucting my own batch. who knows what could happen next time, lol.

If that was lye, it wouldn't taste sour, it would sting.

 

[Lindy]

I think pretty much any soap will taste "sour" "icky" "nasty" until it's finished curing and then it just tastes like soap. Like Mandolyn says it will sting if its lye. I don't think what I'm seeing is lye, but I can't really tell you what that is or why it would have happened......It looks more like a rebatch that didn't get fully melted down.