When soap goes bad....life isn't the same

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Spice

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When the new year rung in in Jan of 2017, I was making soap for the street fairs and farmer's Markets coming around. I had made lots of soap, I mean LOTS. Lavender was my fav. I had ordered some Alkanet root, and was infusing sunflower oil to add into my Lavender Haze Soap. I was not happy with the Saddlewood powder that I had been using for over a year; so I decided to do the infusion thing.

I got good results with the Alkanet, nice color, my EO smell great. All my soaps were good looking. When my first street fair come around in early May, I started noticing that my soaps were a different color. An ugly yellow, like massive DOS. the lavender was the worse, to the point I stopped putting it out for sell. Soap that I had never had an issue with, ever, had DOS; but the Lavender was the worse. I couldn't figure out what was so wrong. I managed to get enough soap, to skinny by 2017.

Since September, I havent sold any soap, I needed to find out what was going wrong. I bought, new blenders, thinking that it was the Hand held blender gone bad. I got rid of, yes; threw out, 2 ounces of Lavender EO, and bought new. Got rid of any old pipettes and started over with new ones ( I usually clean and save my pipettes). Posted pictures on this forum, to no avail. I tested so much soap, that I had more soap then food! All were awful, the alkanet root took a turn for the worst, it turn absolutely brown after just 2 weeks. I was going to quit and just sale everything I had, every soap had a problem now. It looked as if I didn't know what I was doing.

To make matters worse, I had two Boxer dogs that had cancer, I euthanized one in Oct and the other in Nov. I shared my life with them and they shared theirs with me. I euthanized my last on Nov 20th,Thankgiving week.

By now, I had a clue of what was going on though, thank God because I was in no shape to think; my test batches were beginning to talk to me.
I remembered that in Jan of 2016, I bought new lye, I thought that maybe it was the lye because I had changed everything and still was coming up with the same results. Brown soap. I talked with the manager from the chemical company, I wanted to know where did the lye I bought came from, and if there had been any other complaints. He assure me that there wasn't, if it made me feel better he was going to give me a 50 lb lye bucket. I figured since it was Sept, and the batch was from Jan, why not.

Then I started thinking again, what if it does the same thing, how would I know? I decided to order a small amount from Bulk Apothecary. I got the lye from Bulk, made a test batch, and what do I get......brown soap! Now I knew, it wasn't the lye, so what was it?

I remembered that I was having an issue with my batter tracing really fast, I posted on this forum about that. Some asked the % of lye to water, if I soaped at full water I wouldn't have an issue with tracing. So I started soaping at full water. Worked good, that was in 2015, at end of 2016 is when I ran out of the old lye, that's when I started the new lye from that Chemical company that I had called bout the lye. I hated to buy from them because it was more money for the lye, but the old lye I had been using come from some guy, that I met at the back of some store.

When I started to think about the new lye, I realized that I was still soaping at full water. My new lye water was RT, and my oils were not very hot, I started to wonder if I was soaping to cold. I started a test batch with my lye at 120 and the oils at about 80. It was better but within a week I could see DOS coming.
I finally got it, it was the blending, my soap wasnt even tracing, the new lye that I had was different from the first. So the next test batch, I blended the crap out of it and I could barely get it to trace, but I knew it had saponified. I could see the difference. It was Lavender with Alkanet infused oil, by the 4th week, I had one little DOS mark, God only knows where it come from; the rest was perfect.
I don't know if the first lye was a lower grade or what. I just know that, it took this long to figure something out when it comes to soap. I was totally depressed because of the disappointment.

I guess that not all lye is the same, the one thing I learned, I will be staying with companies that are reputable and test each time I get a new batch of lye....no matter what.

My apologies for this post being so long. Its been a while.:headbanging::headbanging:
 
Thank you for sharing your journey of resolving a rather tricky issue -- I'm inspired by your patience and persistence. Well done. :clap: :clap: :clap:
 
So sorry to hear about your horrible year. I hope 2018 is much better for you.

I had a couple of batches that started getting yellow spots (about 1/2 an inch across) but it wasn’t DOS because it started to spread along the edges of the soap. I am pretty sure it was the FO turning the soap yellow. Perfect soap - some yellow all over some with yellow edges. I stopped using that FO and have had no further problem. Fingers crossed. So difficult to pinpoint problems!

I do know that lavender EO can make soap prone to DOS but haven’t used it yet so have no experience with it.
 
Your experiences are one of the reasons we tell newbies not to sell in less than a year or so. You need to know what your soap is going to do over time. Hopefully you get it worked out. I purchase my lye from a chem house and I get a COA and of course the MSDS with my purchase. Have you tried making single oils soaps with the lye you think is suspect, you can learn quit a bit about your recipe this way if you use the oils you normally soap with. If you use lard in high amounts in your soap it could be your lard that is the culprit. While I love the feel of lard it hates me when it comes to soap so I never go over 25%. Some will remember my lard test a few years ago using different brands available here and Farmer John was the very worst, but all came down with dos. Hope you get it worked out, but it can take months to work out
 
Sorry for your loss.. Hope u have an excellent 2018..
It's great to read n learn from. Your post. Thanks for posting and appreciate your patience.
Being a newbie, I had made a few batches n sold them all right out to known people. They all loved it.. I did save few pieces of each batch.. . For observation
 
Sorry for your loss.. Hope u have an excellent 2018..
It's great to read n learn from. Your post. Thanks for posting and appreciate your patience.
Being a newbie, I had made a few batches n sold them all right out to known people. They all loved it.. I did save few pieces of each batch.. . For observation

Being a newbie, I wouldn't be selling your soap, even to friends. If you want their opinion, give them some, don't sell it., You have only been making soap for a couple of months ( your words). I think you need to read this thread - http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=16002
 
It can certainly be difficult to pinpoint the cause of DOS. The main causes, as far as I know, are:

- not using distilled water
- using old oils
- using oils with a short shelf-life
- using old/short-lived oils in a high superfat
- curing soaps in sunlight
- curing soap on metal racks
- curing in particularly hot/humid conditions
- not allowing good airflow around curing soaps
- using certain essential oils (lavender especially!)
 
I'm so sorry for your loss. The hardest thing I've ever had to do was make that decision for a pet. My first dog. . . and he filled such a whole in my heart. But it was the humane thing to do. . .

As for the soap, I've given up on lavender (fo and eo). For some reason, it turns my soap yellow--not the whole bar--just the outside . It starts light, but over the course of the cure, the whole outside changes to ugly yellow. For a while, I thought the fragrance oil I was using had vanilla in it; the way the color slowly took over was like discoloration from vanilla. But lavender 40/42 does the same thing. I wish I new what was causing it. I love lavender so much!

Indecently, the only time I've ever seen DOS on one of my bars, was with with a lavender bar (a mix of fo and eo).
 
So sorry to hear about your horrible year. I hope 2018 is much better for you.

I had a couple of batches that started getting yellow spots (about 1/2 an inch across) but it wasn’t DOS because it started to spread along the edges of the soap. I am pretty sure it was the FO turning the soap yellow. Perfect soap - some yellow all over some with yellow edges. I stopped using that FO and have had no further problem. Fingers crossed. So difficult to pinpoint problems!

I do know that lavender EO can make soap prone to DOS but haven’t used it yet so have no experience with it.

Your experiences are one of the reasons we tell newbies not to sell in less than a year or so. You need to know what your soap is going to do over time. Hopefully you get it worked out. I purchase my lye from a chem house and I get a COA and of course the MSDS with my purchase. Have you tried making single oils soaps with the lye you think is suspect, you can learn quit a bit about your recipe this way if you use the oils you normally soap with. If you use lard in high amounts in your soap it could be your lard that is the culprit. While I love the feel of lard it hates me when it comes to soap so I never go over 25%. Some will remember my lard test a few years ago using different brands available here and Farmer John was the very worst, but all came down with dos. Hope you get it worked out, but it can take months to work out

Sorry for your loss.. Hope u have an excellent 2018..
It's great to read n learn from. Your post. Thanks for posting and appreciate your patience.
Being a newbie, I had made a few batches n sold them all right out to known people. They all loved it.. I did save few pieces of each batch.. . For observation

penelopejane, I thought it was DOS, at first, then when the entire bar was a yucky brownish yellow, I knew at that point I had something very bad. Yes I noticed it first with the Lavender EO.

cmzaha, what is a COA? I plan on sticking with the chem house that I have now and will ask for the MSDS too. I never used lard before, I have heard its a nice soap though. The thing about the lye, worries me because I used that for a year or more, it was 50 pounds of lye.

isha, Thanks, I have to admit, when I was a real young newbie....like my first batch....I sold my soap too.
 
Could it be your sunflower oil? This oil has a very short shelf life. It should be used within 3 months. How old is our sunflower oil?

Julie

Sunflower is actually a year and if high oleic it would be longer.

Being a newbie, I wouldn't be selling your soap, even to friends. If you want their opinion, give them some, don't sell it., You have only been making soap for a couple of months ( your words). I think you need to read this thread - http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=16002

EssentialSuds, I did think it was the sunflower oil too, and one of my test batches was no sunflower oil....would have been nice, but no cigar.

shunt2011, thanks for that info, I had been wondering bout its shelf life, that's why I thought it could have been the sunflower oil. I am actually glad it wasn't, I like sunflower oil.

Relle, haven't seen the thread, but thanks and I will.
 
It can certainly be difficult to pinpoint the cause of DOS. The main causes, as far as I know, are:

- not using distilled water
- using old oils
- using oils with a short shelf-life
- using old/short-lived oils in a high superfat
- curing soaps in sunlight
- curing soap on metal racks
- curing in particularly hot/humid conditions
- not allowing good airflow around curing soaps
- using certain essential oils (lavender especially!)

I'm so sorry for your loss. The hardest thing I've ever had to do was make that decision for a pet. My first dog. . . and he filled such a whole in my heart. But it was the humane thing to do. . .

As for the soap, I've given up on lavender (fo and eo). For some reason, it turns my soap yellow--not the whole bar--just the outside . It starts light, but over the course of the cure, the whole outside changes to ugly yellow. For a while, I thought the fragrance oil I was using had vanilla in it; the way the color slowly took over was like discoloration from vanilla. But lavender 40/42 does the same thing. I wish I new what was causing it. I love lavender so much!

Indecently, the only time I've ever seen DOS on one of my bars, was with with a lavender bar (a mix of fo and eo).

How long does it take dos to show up when using lavender? I'm guessing it's not right away. I just made a batch HP, I intended to give away, but I will keep a couple for observation.

toxikon, that is interesting, your list got me with the, "high superfat", because out of all these batches, I think that if oils don't get a good trace, then it creates DOS. I usually do a 2% superfat anyway.

Saranac, for whatever reason, it seems that lavender was the one I used to see if my test batches were right now. When I finally figured that it was in the tracing, that's when the Lavender acted right and that is when I noticed the difference. I would not mix FO/EO of Lavender together for that reason.

Laurabolyard, for my batches, It took a week, it started out so ever slightly, when that, I new it would be just a matter of time for it to turn. I don't think it was DOS, really......whatever it was, thank God, we got it figured out.


Thank You all for your replies and the kind words for my dogs, I will miss them so.
 
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