What the heck happened?????

[Guest]

I made three soap logs this week, which, when I pulled them out of the plexiglass mold they looked fine. But when I when to cut them...they fell apart in a dry heap.

Each was a six pound batch that I ran thru Soap Calc.

Coconut oil 40 percent
Lard - 20 percent
Palm oil 20 percent
Olive oil 20 percent

Water - 36.4 oz
Lye - 14.3 oz


I used sandalwood FO and tumaric for the first, cucumber melon FO for the second log and peppermint oil for the third. They all had the same result.

I have used this same recipe before in wood molds and it was fine. The only thing different I did was to pour at light trace rather than heavy trace....only because I was trying to get a well-formed log this time.

here is the end result.....I could cry......ok....so I actually did cry.....








Any insight into why I have 18 pounds of chalky, dried soap....I would appreciate it....

 

[LJA]

Oh, Soapmommie. :cry: So bummed for you. I'll defer to the soapcalc whizzes to help you on the whys but...what a drag.
I have a batch in the mold right now that I accidentally doubled a colorant, so it's probably going be...interesting... too. ::sigh::

Hugs.

 

[Asil02]

Oh man! I feel for you. I am by no means an expert, but if you look at Miller's Soap Troubleshooting page http://www.millersoap.com/trouble.html it says that soap that turns out this way is generally heavy in lye. I looked at your recipe and put it in a calculator and it all seemed fine. So am not sure. Take a look at this page and see if any of the causes and suggestions fit your situation. I hope you figure it out. Good luck!

 

[LJA]

Did you see if it was "zappy", just to rule that out?

 

[Guest]

soap mess

Thanks guys!

 

[Guest]

soap mess

Did see if it was "zappy", just to rule that out?

Not sure I know what that means..

 

[LJA]

You do a "tongue test". Touch your tongue to the soap and if you get a small "zap"...a slight electrical charge feeling...that means the soap is lye heavy.


Edited to add: I swear I'm not making this up...lol.

 

[IrishLass]

Oh man, oh man, oh man! :shock: I feel for you, especailly since the batches were 6 lbs. each.

If you're absolutely sure your scale was working properly, and if there is no 'zap' in your soap which would indicate lye heaviness, my only other guess at this point would be the ratio of hard oils in your soap recipe to soft oils.

A general rule-of-thumb-ratio for a well balanced soap is to shoot for roughly 60% hard oils/fats to 40% soft oils/fats. Although you have olive oil in your recipe which makes a wonderful contribution to conditioning, it is considered by most soapers to be in the catagory of 'hard' oils because it makes a nice hard bar of soap when it cures. That technically means that you made a soap with 100% hard oils and no soft oils- which may or may not explain the unfortunate results you ended up with- but that's all I can think of off the top of my head if all else was done properly.

IrishLass

 

[Guest]

I am sorry this happened to you. Do you think it could be rebatched or shredded and added to new soap? Do you think it was that the plexiglass mold got too hot? The mold is the only thing that makes sense to me .Your recipe is okay , the FO's and EO's are okay.I have poured at thin trace many times and never had a problem. My best guess is that it was a false trace or the molds got too hot.Are they the 3 together kind?

Kitn

 

[Guest]

Figured it out.

OK...list this under the "Darn, you're stupid" category.

I found out what I did wrong. Fortunately, I take really detailed notes on everything when I make a batch. My mistake was ridiculous but somewhat understandable.

Instead of including 2.4 pounds of coconut oil, I used 1.2 pounds (the amount of the other oils......without adjusting the lye. So what I wound up with was a lye-heavy, crumbly mess.

They were three very attractive batches....but I screwed up big time.

Thanks everybody! I chalk this up to a lesson learned.

 

[Asil02]

Glad you figured out what happened. While the batch may have not turned you learned a lot, didn't ya? From what I've read here even the most seasoned soaper makes a flub from time to time. So you're not stupid at all...just human. Good luck with your next batch and let us know how it turns out.

 

[IanT]

now on to your next lesson...rebatching!!.... melt it, add the required amount of oil that was left over...stirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...... pour back into mold and there ya go!!...wear gloves!!

 

[Guest]

rebatching???

now on to your next lesson...rebatching!!.... melt it, add the required amount of oil that was left over...stirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...... pour back into mold and there ya go!!...wear gloves!!

Really? Tell me more? How long do I heat it? How do I know when it's ready to be poured back into the mold? Will the lye explode when exposed to heat?
If so, anything I can do to prevent that???