Miller's Homemade Soap Pages:
Miller's Homemade Soap Pages:
Hi I just started soaping and I wanted to know if you have ashing problems on your cut bars, as they are air curing? What would cause that? And does adding the Bee's Wax help prevent ashing when the cut bars are air curing? Thanks, and your web page is fantastic!!!
Glad you have enjoyed the web page! I used to have some soaps ash like that before I started using a stick blender for mixing... what a difference that makes in the end texture! Wow! If you haven't tried it, you ought to give it a "whirl", so to speak. They are pretty inexpensive at places like Walmart. I have a picture of mine on the site in case you're not sure what a stick blender actually is... much more powerful than using a regular kitchen mixer.
Beeswax does help with ashing. I think it's more likely to happen if the soap is not well blended before it thickens, if it loses too much heat and doesn't go through gel, etc. It also seems to help to insulate it and have a certain amount of humidity around the top of the soap during the first 24 hours... which is why some folks probably have good luck putting it into the oven (gently pre warmed and turned off first) with a dish of water for the first 24 hours. Whatever you do... if you use the oven method, hang a BIG sign on the front! I read a posts from a gal who had her husband nuke two separate batches of soap when he preheated the oven to bake some biscuits (once maybe... but twice?). I wondered if she had even thought of putting a sign on the door of the oven, but didn't want to ask! :-)
I just stumbled upon your page while looking for a way to "recycle" the old bars of soap that are laying around and decided what the heck, I'll try it. Anyway I used:
I think I mixed the water/lye mixture with the oils to soon because the bowl seemed quite hot, but then I stirred and stirred and mixed and mixed and used my electric mixer and tried my whisk, and could never get the stuff to thicken up. Finally, I dumped in the EO that I wanted to use (orange) and poured it in the mold and am hoping for something, don't quite know what is going to happen. Did I do something wrong? Should I have let things cool down? Is that crucial? My oils where warm, is that what is the proper way?
If you have any time, I would appreciate some input.
Kathy Shultz
Hi! Sorry I've taken so long to get to this... still playing catch up on things (not the web page, unfortunately!).
It appears you took a castile recipe and substituted glycerin for the palm oil. That is an oops. You cannot make soap from glycerin, but it often gets added in in moderate amounts and is actually a byproduct of the soapmaking process (that's where they get it). It does not function in the same way as base oils and fats, however and your soap will need to be rebatched and have an oil or fat added back in that will be the same sap value as the palm that was left out (if you don't actually use palm for this). You can always figure out how much olive to add to compensate for this, or use a pound of lard or tallow, which would be close (but I don't know if you want all-veg or not). The thing to do is go to the Majestic Mountain Sage lye calculator online and play with the numbers (once you decide which type of oil/fat you will put back in for the fat you left out) and figure out how many ounces of that will give you about a 5% lye discount when you use the 12 oz. of lye.
Once you figure out what you need to add back in, you'll want to remelt this in a covered container (no aluminum) in a slow oven. Read a little on my soapy success pages/rebatch area before doing this. In the future, be sure you work off a good recipe and don't substitute until you are sure of the end results of what you are putting in/how much you need to substitute, taking into account different sap values, etc.. As far as temps, there is latitude there, but you are better to wait for your ingredients to cool down to a range of 95-120 degrees before blending them. I like to use around 110 degrees most of the time. A candy thermometer can be used to measure the temps.
Your soap has a LOT of added glycerin, so it might tend to weep... not sure. But don't despair... figure out what you need to add back in, remelt and eventually you'll have soap. The next time around, you'll know more and it will probably come out wonderful the first time. I had 9 separated batches when I was first starting! Some people don't know when to quit! ;-)
I had to laugh when I saw your pics of the soap with the caves within. I've had one batch of soap come out like this. It's been a few years now, and my computer isn't at the same place where I make my soap, so my proportions will be correct, but not the exact amounts, since I can't remember exactly how much I made (it seemed like a whole lot at the time, but I make much bigger batches now.)
I made a batch of oatmeal-almond-milk soap with less water in the lye solution than I would have otherwise, and used condensed milk added at trace. My basic soap oil proportion is 7pts olive pomace, 6 pts vegetable shortening ( I use Shure-Fine rather than Crisco) 3 pts coconut, and about .5 to 1 oz castor oil / lb of oil mix. I used Sweetcakes Sp. Ed. Vanilla, and her Almond, both of which I had used before with no problems. I added about 1/4 cup of oat flour per pound and about a teaspoon of almonds ground to a paste-like consistency per pound.
The soap poured nicely, seemed to heat up a bit more than most of my soaps, smelled like a gourmet pudding. Actually, I had to double box it to keep the cats from sticking their noses in it, it smelled THAT good!! It turned a butterscotch brown, but with the milk and the Vanilla FO, I expected that.. Was shocked a few days later to find what you found.... weird caverns with clear oil oozing out. Bummed is a more apt description. :))
I dealt with it by chopping it up, melting it down in the crockpot ( with all the oil that was still oozing out,) making an equal-sized batch of my regular soap, and blending the two at the light trace of the new batch. A lot of the fragrance was lost, and I wound up selling most of it in my "bargain" soap bin ( at a buck a bar)... but my mother has a few bars of this stuff, and she hoards it jealously, claiming it's the most mild soap she's ever used. It's a really "yucky" brown, and looks kind of waxy, but Mom's pestering me to make her more. She has lots of allergies due to years of working in an agricultural chemical supply company and can't seem to use any commercial soap or any soap I make with any kind of FO in it. The only soap other than this one she seems to use is the lavender oatmeal one I make with pure lavender eo and ORGANIC oats (non-organic oats in the soap seem to give her a rash). Funny, eh?
Not sure that any of this helps, but wanted you to know that you're not alone here! :))
Be well, be happy, Blessed be!
luna
Enjoyed reading about your soap caverns! Sure is a disappointment when that big puddle of our comes pouring out when you cut, huh? Looked pretty good from the outside.
Think that's what we did wrong... too much insulation might have contributed. Soaps with milk and honey can get hotter. You said it got really hot PLUS you double boxed it to spare it from the cats. We probably shouldn't have covered them at all until they came down from the gel stage.
Dear Kathy, I hope you can help me. I have made my first batch of oatmeal honey CP a week ago. Everything went smoothly. Today I noticed tiny crystals on the surface of the soap. Is this part of the curing process or did I do something wrong? I am very nervous since these are my gifts for the holidays. Thanks, Cara
I've had some soaps do that once in awhile (maybe when they have some additives in them especially). Something has precipitated out of the soap... but I'm not sure what. You should test them for mildness after curing (tongue test will probably do it). If they seem okay, and you just want them to look nicer, you can wipe them gently with some rubbing alcohol on a soft cloth. This should smooth out the surface and polish it up. Will probably get rid of those crystals at the same time.
I'll have to tell my husband. Hope you like it!
It still sounds like there is some separation there that would warrant rebatching. If you think the measurements are fine (and your four previous batches are a good record to rest on!)... just rebatch without adding anything... except maybe a sprinkling of water if needed. It should be okay after that. Texture will be different, but you will be able to salvage and use the soap and it should be very mild.
By the way... since posting that recipe, I've gone with half as much evaporated milk for a recipe that size... 6 ounces instead of 12. The water is increased accordingly. I thought I would have fewer problems with less milk and 12 ounces if reconstituted is a LOT of milk! :-) If I didn't post that note I should whenever I get a chance to update... I'll have to put this email in the pending folder as a reminder.
Your Website was inspirational to my actually trying this. Thanks for all the info and advice you post - it's all really helpful. I also appreciate the links for supplies. My first try took six days to get hard enough to unmold. Is that common? Here's what happened:
I used a vegetable recipe from Ann Bramson's, Soap: Making It, Enjoying It. It called for 44 oz olive oil, 17 oz coconut oil, 24oz vegetable shortening, 10 3/4 oz lye and 32oz water. I weighed all as well as possible on a 5 lb limit food scale. I used a stick blender and got light trace in about half an hour. Temp was 98 degrees F. Threw in 1 3/4 oz essential oil (lavender, bergamot, rose geranium), 1/2 c shredded oatmeal, 2t cinnamon powder, 1 T celery seed. Poured all into plastic lined shoe box and 8" x 8" square glass cake pan, also lined. topped with Saran wrap. Covered it with tea towels and bath towels. Expected to unmold it in 24 hours. That's what the recipe indicated. It was like soft pudding. waited another day. Still like pudding. Put it in the oven with the light on. Four days later the stuff in the shoe box had a hard top, but was still soft underneath. Dumped all back into the soap pan and turned the burner on to med-hi. Stirred the stuff around for a few minutes mixing hard top back in to the rest. It got a little thicker and I poured it back into the two molds. Two days later the stuff is hard enough to hold it's shape when unmolded. Smells medicinal. Cuts like cheesecake. Cut the stuff into bars, put them on paper lined cookie sheets and stuck them back into the oven to keep the cat hair out while they age. Why did it take so long to get hard? The bars are beige with dark specks and have a slightly oily surface. I expect the extra oil to disappear as the bars harden up.
Sid Mulkern
First off... I would check all recipes (especially from books!) on a good lye calculator before proceeding. I ran this one through the lye calc. at Majestic Mountain Sage and it appears to be overly superfatted. That would explain why it's on the soft side. You could have used another ounce of lye for this batch. If you end up remelting it, I'd accurately measure one ounce of lye (a postal scale would be good for that), dissolve it in a minimal amount of cold water (1/2 cup or so?) and add that back in during the rebatching process.
I've never had trace take that long with a stick blender... hmm. I probably would have started with temps slightly higher, but close to 100 could be okay. I like the 110 range pretty well... especially in the winter when the house is not as warm. I would not have covered the freshly poured soap with saran wrap... it holds in the moisture too much. If you want to protect it from the towels, a piece of cardboard does a good job. The saran will not allow the moisture to escape the soap as well and you do want it to firm up.... that's one part of the process (shrinks for weeks, actually).
I think I would rebatch this and add the missing lye and repour (use that term loosely... do the best you can and smooth off the top after with a piece of saran and a rolling pin... in this case I leave the saran on until it firms enough on top to allow its removal... you don't have to do this, but it helps to push down those annoying little rebatch peaks!).
I made a batch of a basic recipe for soap I found in a soap book. It was basically olive oil, coconut oil and palm oil. I only made about 1/3 to try it. I noticed after I cut it into bars and cured it for about a month that some of the bars seemed to have 'clouds' or discoloration. They weren't a solid blotch(hence calling them clouds) and I wondered if it was ash, not letting it stir(to correct saponification but I swear it traced) or just the fact that it was such a small batch. It still lathes well and feels nice, but I'm worried that if I give these as gifts(my original intention for Christmas) that someone could end up with a patch of lye or something(though it was well mixed and traced lightly).
Any ideas?
E. Cavin
It could be a bit of ash swirling, or marbling. Marbling often happens with perfectly nice soap when it gets really hot during gel. The ash marks can be more white and contrasty with the base soap look, while the marbling is more of a swirling pattern and when the soap cures it sometimes often has texture on the cut side if you run your finger over it. If you think it feels mild and nice on the skin, I'd go ahead and share it for Christmas. Should be okay.
If you are getting ash swirls, it might be that it's not heating to gel all the way through. A deeper mold, raising your temps or more insulation can help that. Marbling I wouldn't worry over.... maybe less insulation would reduce the tendency for that to happen... but the soap is always nice to use.
Dear Kathy,
Just finished reading your 'Botched Batches' section and loved learning about other ways to completely ruin soap! I was hoping to find a story that matched my experience with an old soap recipe that I obtained from our local 4-H extension office. It only called for 2 gallons of 'sweet' cow's milk, water and lye. I excitedly went right to our neighborhood dairy and bought whole milk thinking it was probably what the recipe meant by 'sweet'. Ran home, mixed it up, which only required pouring the lye into the milk and then pouring the entire mixture into a large container and then back into the stir pot, then into the mold. (You can see why I was so excited about this recipe with no 'stir time'). Everything was hunky dorey until I checked on the soap after 18 hours of 'cozy time'. To my horror, and I don't use this term loosely, the once beautiful creamy colored mixture had turned BLOOD RED! Not only was it red, but the solids had separated leaving a red liquid. Wanting to banish this scary concoction from my home immediately, (and of course this happened at night) I realized that I probably shouldn't flush it down the toilet because of it's toxicity and couldn't put it down the drain, I decided to break it up and pour it into trash bags to store outside by the shed until I could think of something to do with it. (Rebatching was out of the question.) Donned in my apron, safety goggles and gloves under the cloak of darkness, I took the bags with the hideous contents out to the shed. It looked like a scene from the movie "Rear Window". I hoped my neighbors wouldn't get snoopy or I might've been arrested on suspicion of murder. The next day I took a sample to a local chemist and he tested it and although he didn't know what had gone wrong, he did say I could probably dispose of it down the toilet. We wondered if maybe the hormones or antibiotics in present day cow's milk could have caused this spooky reaction! Any thoughts?! I haven't tried this recipe again, but love to tell the story around the campfire!
Happy 'trails' to you!
Liz Jones
P.S. Do you have stock in the Stick Blender?
No... it's just so GREAT to use for making soap. My enthusiasm is hard to squelch.
Your story was hilarious, but I'm sorry you lost all those ingredients. What a terrible recipe! There was not enough fat in that to make a bar of soap. Something got very left out... like the fats and oils!
When dissolving lye into any milk product, it will turn color. I've heard some scary descriptions... but they usually are orange and clotted looking. Blah! This is with goat's milk, since not as many people use cow's milk for their soap. If you want to use soap in a recipe, there are ways to do it, but I like using some evaporated milk after mixing the fats and a concentrated lye solution. The milk will usually turn the soap an orange and then a brown or tan after it cures. If you use it for dissolving the lye straightaway, you can prevent some of the discoloration by keeping the temps down. Some folks do this by freezing the milk first and having it at a slushy consistency... then put the container in a sink of ice water and only add a bit of lye at a time... keeping the temps down. This way, your soap will not be such a dark color. Dark or light, milk makes a nice soothing bar of soap.
Good luck with your next batch! I will post your email when I EVER get to updating... it will bring a smile to many faces. You wrote it very well.
Thanks for sharing! ;-)
MY NAME IS LISA AND I'M A BALLOON DECO AND I REALLY WANT TO LEARN THE CRAFT OF SOAP MAKING. WELL I WAS MAKING ONE OF MY FIRST BATCHES OF SOAP AND I FOUND AFTER I POUR IT INTO MY MOLDS I FORGOT THE OLIVE OIL 2 HOURS LATER CAN IT BE SAVED OR DO I NEED TO TOSS IT OUT? I HOPE I SENT THIS QUESTION TO THE RIGHT PLACE..
LISA
I think if you can scrape it all out into your pan, add the oil and then warm it all up - you can probably get it to trace... it's still pretty fresh. I would try to warm it to around 110 degrees or a slight bit more while periodically stirring the whole thing. If you have a stick blender, it would be a great help to zap this after it all gets warmed up.
If that doesn't do it... I'd do a rebatch in a covered pan in a slow oven... either way... DON'T throw it out... it can be saved! :-)
This is the 2nd time I've tried to to make this soap. My 1st batch was wonderful the second was a mess.
The problem started when I mixed the lye into the goats milk. I poured the lye in slowly mixed well went to stir the lard and when I looked at the lye mixture again it had turned into a (curdled?) mass of goo very thick almost impossible to get out of my bottle. Any ideas as to why it did this? I don't want to do a repeat.
thanks
Marsy
This is quite common with goat's milk soap when you dissolve the lye directly into it. I haven't done it myself (have only used some evaporated goat's milk after mixing a concentrated lye solution with the fats), but I think the key is keeping the milk cold while you SLOWLY add the lye a bit at a time. Some folks start out with the milk semi-frozen and slushy and put the container in a sink of ice water. Then they add a little lye at a time and let it cool as they go... so it never gets hot enough to scorch or curdle the milk (which is what happened to yours). If you succeed in doing this... you might even get a bar that is creamy white or light tan instead of brown.
Good luck on the next attempt! Goat's milk soap is not for the faint of heart.
P.S. - Your recipe has very little cushion (about 2%, I think)... you could probably add a few ounces of another oil (maybe olive?) or a few more of the lard to up it to 5%. I'd check a calculator first.
Hi Kathy!
I'm new to this site. I got to it out of desperation, don't all first time "soapers?" Anyway, I tried to make 2 batches of soap tonight. I felt that the ingredients were measured correctly, I even went and bought a new scale after the first failure. The problem is no trace!! I'm using a stationary mixer. I think I read in one of the letters in this site that this could cause a failure, because the mixer is too fast. Is this true? Well, for the second batch, I imaged I saw a slight tracing, 1 1/2 hours later. (An idea I got from another letter here is that the oils were just getting cold and hardening up, not really tracing) I threw in the essential oil and covered it up, hoping for the best. My first batch is in a large glass container under my sink, because I didn't know what to do with it. Is it a candidate for "rebatching?" I did not put essential oil in that one, if it makes a difference. By the way, while I was mixing both of the batches, they both looked like they had oil or water at the top of them. (I used two different recipes.)
Thank you for helping out so many people with their soap problems, that is really kind of you!!
Kathy
Hi! This brings back memories. First... I don't think you can overmix soap like the old lye company said... I had more failures when I was hand stirring with care than I ever do with the trusty stick blender. A regular mixer is not as good, although some people do large batches with a Kitchen-Aid. You have to be careful that the blades are very immersed so they don't pull air into the soap. Also... if you put this stuff in a big mixing bowl, I'm wondering if it pulled a lot of heat out of the soap base and it got too cool for good mixing. It sounded very separated from your description.
First... if you are willing to invest in a scale, you probably won't mind investing in a stick blender. Think you can get one for about $12. If you buy one... get one with a guard around the little food processor style blade and read the instructions for using one (on the site). You will not have the same separation problems with this little gem and trace will happen usually within minutes. (With certain recipes maybe even one minute... which is not what you want!... I'm speaking of the Rachael's Tried and True one)
I think your soaps lost too much heat and never really blended well. In the future, try mixing them in a stainless or enamelware pan and if they get too cool and grainy looking right away, you can turn on some LOW bottom heat while you stir and get it all to smooth out and get that honey-like translucence. This is only done for a few minutes usually and then the heat goes OFF.
That batch that was separated can definitely be remelted... probably even without adding any water to it. After it gets all blended and jelled in the oven (read the directions... I usually do it in a covered roaster pan in a slow oven) you can mix in your essential or fragrance oils before "pouring" it into the mold (mashing it is more like it!). You might mix them in and put it in the oven for a few more minutes before pouring if it gets too funny on you when mixing in the oils... you be the judge.
After pouring, I usually put a piece of saran over the top and press it gently with a pastry roller to get rid of all the little peaks and some of the roughness that will be there. When it's totally cooled off and firm, you can cut it. Different texture than the first way... but it will be soap in the end and work just fine in the shower.
Hi Kathy!
I just recently checked back at your website to see what was new, and I saw what you termed "My most fascinating "botched batch" (separation) to date!" and had to tell you that I've had a soap that looked just like that! I've NO idea what caused that, although I think it had to do with the fact that it overheated - and, *yes*, it was an oatmeal, milk & honey batch of soap too! I'd made it in a loaf mold {a basic olive, coconut & palm recipe}, and when I went to slice it, a *huge* amount of oil poured out of it! It had the same fibrous structure in the hollow area as your soap did. I wound up standing the soap back up on its narrow end to see if it would absorb some of the oil back into the soap, but it never really did over a couple of weeks. In the end, I just poured the oil into a pot, grated the soap into the pot and rebatched it. It turned out fine, but, as you know, rebatching is never the thing you want to do - but it did turn out to be perfectly fine soap.
Have you heard from anyone else who's made soap that turned out like this? Do you have any theories on what caused this? I'd love to hear what your thoughts!
~ Cyn
One other person emailed me to say they had shared that experience... also a soap with honey in it. Think that's probably the biggest key... sure weird, huh? You must be a real optimistic person to think that oil was going to slurp back in. ;-) I had to rebatch mine also, but it was okay in the end. Better that than to toss it all out.
Kathy....well I did it..I think I FINALLY made some soap---after 4 failure batches!!!
My blender is broken...I can use a hand held electric mixer/beater (as in the kind ya make cake mixes with..)eh? This is not the same as a stick blender. For a photo of the latter, go to the Modern Procedures page... it's at the top. Doesn't work the same way and the regular mixer is more likely to pull air into the mix.
Am trying to make a tea tree bar of soap like Paul Mitchell -don't know how to mix and match...wish I did...do you?...have you ever used this?? It is AWESOME...talk about refreshing!!! My son said "now I know how a candy cane feels like"
Here's the list of ingredients from the back...sodium palmate..sodium cocoate(or sodium palm kernelate), water, wild mint (mentha arvensis), oil glycerin, tea tree oil,awapuhi white ginger extract, aloe barbardensis extract,kelp extract, parsley flakes, rosemary extract,rosemary/jojoba/lavender/eucalyptus/peppermint oils...lye, salts, colorings. It smells great--like tee tree oil and menthol pepperminty...BUT the BEST part is how it makes your whole body tingly cool...as I said --my son calls it "like a peppermint candy cane"...didnt know if y'all make specific scents/formulas ...?? Thanx
QUESTION ...as I said I am JUST beginning w/ this soapmaking...AND it seems that the fragranced oils I used (from Victoria's Secret) smelled good going IN...but now my batch smells like ammonia!!!--tried rebatching by adding a bar of similarly scented body shop soap...but still smells...guess their oils had alcohol in it??? Or was it the vanilla EXTRACT I added into it??--well, actually it was IMITATION vanilla extract!! HELP...b/c the fragranced batches made w/ FO's off the web made soap smell great!!!...??? ALSO...had a bit of a yucky watery layer on bottom of one of the batches....could this be b/c after I poured the batch into box mold (only a 1 lb batch made by blender) I forgot to cover it and started cleaning up ( was late for work)..then 10-15 mins later noticed it was right there on top of table...UNcovered...so THEN I covered it...???
Thanx again for all of your help!!
Lisa
I've never used or looked at one of these bars you describe. The soap base is palm and coconut oils and they have added a bit of jojoba oil to the blend... all those would need to be taken into account when calculating the lye addition rate (using a sap table). Not sure where you'd get the white ginger extract... that scent is wonderful in the FOs I've sniffed. The veggie extracts might be difficult to copy, although you could infuse some of those things and use that water for dissolving the lye. It will smell and look icky at the beginning, but should cure out okay... will probably turn brown though.
Fragrance appears to be a blend of the rosemary, lavender, eucalyptus, tea tree and peppermint oils, but not necessarily in that order. For a batch the size that I make (using 12 oz. lye), I would make a mix probably more to the order of:
You can guess at blending since you've actually smelled this stuff... not knowing, I'd probably use 1.5 oz. peppermint EO, one ounce each of the rosemary and lavender and 1/2 oz. each of the eucalyptus and tea tree. That will make it pretty STRONG smelling, but it will fade a bit after cure. If you want to toss a tiny bit of pulverized parsley flakes into this, they will retain much of their green color. I'm sure that's why they used them... to give the appearance of herb without the stuff being brown.
Many fragrance oils will mutate in cold process soap. That's why it's good to get them from someone who has tested them... or who you know has this in mind. Also... ammonia is a byproduct anytime you add something with protein or of an organic nature to your soap... like milk, oatmeal, etc. It usually dissipates in a few days. The batch you describe probably lost heat too quickly and wasn't blended enough. Lye water on the bottom is not good, so you may want to remelt and "repour" this one. (Notice the quotes... probably won't be able to POUR it at all... do your best).
HELLLLLLLOOOOooooo...it is me...Lisa..I have a bunch-o-questions...My soaps that are now curing are covered with ash....shrinking...and lQQking deformed...since they are from the milky way molds, I cannot shave them...the plain bars I can...should I remill all of them (as in 6 lbs of molded soaps...or will they lose their scent...or will the scent also mutate due to the heat of rebatching...ARGHHHH!!! OR do I just wait it out to see how everything turns out?? HELP ME PULEEEEEEEZ!!! I am about to give up on this soapmaking adventure!!! I have three books on it...some say beeswax will prevent it--did that. Another says to remill....BUT when I did that with one batch it smelled really bad afterward...and another book says to use a warm damp cloth...or a serrated knife...which, again would work on rectangular bars...
pleeeeeze respond ASAP as I am making them for my church bazaar in 3.5 weeks!! So I need to do whatever THIS weekend!! Thanx
I think I'd just let these cure out and maybe make another batch for the church thing... but that's just me. I hate rebatching and these will probably soap fine when they are cured, but may not look as pretty with the ash. If you rebatch, they will not ash but will shrink and look rough and a bit weird (unless you have better luck than I) and will take longer to harden up because you'll have to add a bit of water to do this.
If you do another batch, I would recommend a couple of things for good texture and hopefully, no ash where it counts:
Run your recipe through the Majestic Mountain Sage Calculator online first and be sure it's about 5% lye discounted... if not make adjustments.
Use a stick blender to mix... I have had minimal ash problems since I've switched. A regular mixer is not the same thing... did you use the stick blender before?
If you are pouring small molded soaps, do what you can to prevent the soap from losing all its heat... it can tend more to ash when it gets too cold in the process of pouring and small molded soaps do not hold their heat very well anyway. I would raise your mixing temps at least to 110 degrees or slightly higher if your kitchen is cool. After pouring the molds... if you can, try putting them into a preWARMED (no heat on anymore and not hot) oven on the racks with a container of water in the oven to set overnight. If these are small molds, maybe they can be placed on a couple of cookie sheets that are also prewarmed.This will provide the "insulation". Be sure to hang a sign on the door so no one bakes your soap for you! Blah!
Be more patient than what is the human tendency when it comes to molded soaps. Do not try to turn them out in 24 hours... leave them in the molds for a few days if need be until they loosen around the sides and shrink away nearly to the bottom... or totally. They will usually look better on the presenting side if you don't unmold them too soon (and are less prone to ash).
One last idea on the batch you just did... I have not done much of this but have seen the results... when the soap is firmed up really well... try "polishing" it with a soft cloth and some rubbing alcohol. It might take some of that ash off and leave it nice and shiny for you. Worth a try.
Thank you for this service. We need help. After making 3 batches of basic soap using 38 oz lard, 24oz coconut oil, 24 oz olive oil, 1 qt rain water, and if we followed the directions correctly 12 oz of lye ( our directions said to use one can which we did but they were 18 oz cans). The soap would not trace until we used ice water below the pan. We should have been able to take the soap out of the mold in 24 hours but it is too soft. Now that we know what we did wrong is there any way to fix it? Is this soap salvageable?
Joan & Mary
Hi! There are a couple of problems here. First... if soap doesn't want to trace after you've mixed it for awhile, cooling it off is the last thing you want to do. All that accomplishes is to harden up the unsaponified fat compounds in the pan and you will have separated poor quality soap. Next time you have this problem, WARM the soap by applying some GENTLE bottom heat while stirring. This should help it all to blend properly and it should hasten the saponification. You don't want to get it really hot, just warm it for a few minutes until it no longer looks grainy, but smooth and translucent.
If you put in 18 oz. instead of 12 oz. of lye, you must rebatch this and add in enough oils and fats to take up that extra 6 ounces of lye. Otherwise, it will be way too harsh for you to use. You will need to rebatch anyway because of the separation. Add back half the amount of your original fats/oils and you should be okay... probably this:
Also... just a little bit of water... maybe 4 oz. to a cup to start. Read the rebatching instructions on the rebatch page. A large covered roaster pan (no aluminum) in a slow oven works well.
Good luck! If you are careful, you should have soap in the end! :-)
I have been enjoying your page for a couple of months now, it is full of great information which is given in a clear and concise manner with a touch of humor. (What a nice thing to say... thanks! :-) Always a pleasure to read. That being said, I have a terrible mess on my hands. I made a batch of carrot soap, (not one of your recipes, but one from the sugar plum library) 10 oz palm oil, 4 oz coconut oil, 2 oz olive, 2 oz lye, 4 oz water, 4 oz carrot juice for color. It took forever to trace, even with a stick blender which is somewhat normal for all veggie soaps I have tried. I added some tangerine essential and some pulverized oatmeal. So far so good. I poured it into the mold and popped it into my oven with the pilot light on. This is the best way I have found to keep soap warm. Usually my soaps gel within a few hours and are ready and easy to cut after 24 hours. This batch however, did nothing of the sort. It never reached the gel stage and was still the consistency of thick pudding the next morning. It was also quite cold, compared to the other batches which had quietly saponified during the night. So, I scraped the mess into a double boiler and attempted to gently warm it up in order to hasten the process. It turned on me like a rabid skunk. I think it may have had to do with the oatmeal. It now looks like orange oatmeal swimming in a pool of orange oil. UGH. Any ideas?
I ran the recipe as you gave it to me through the calculator at Majestic Mountain Sage and it is QUITE superfatted... to the point that I would say there was not enough lye to really do the job and give you a hardened bar. For what you used, you should have had 2.3 oz. of lye instead of just 2. Doesn't sound like much difference, but for a batch this small... all the difference in the world! 2.3 oz. would make it a 5% lye discount, which is the number I like to work with. The water addition rate was a little high, which would make it a bit soft, but don't think that's the main problem. She might have done it a bit high because there's so much palm and coconut in the bar... should be okay.
You can rebatch this and add back into it the missing lye that has been dissolved in a minimal amount of cold water. Should become homogenous and will look like gel stage when you scrape it into the mold. Texture will not be the same, but it will be good soap in the end... slightly softer texture and less dense.
Looks like it's back to the double boiler, or a covered pan in a slow oven (not aluminum). With the added lye though... it should work.
Hi, I hope you can help. I made a batch of soap yesterday afternoon. I stirred & stirred and stirred a day later it has not traced yet. What should I do???
First off, I would say to warm this up and blend it with a STICK BLENDER (it would be worth it to buy one if you are going to make much soap)! It will thicken in a matter of minutes. I would only warm it to about 110 degrees or so.
What is in your recipe? That might help me. Is it just olive oil? Those soaps are notorious for taking a long time to trace if hand stirred.
Thanks for your prompt response,
I used 44 oz olive oil,17 oz coconut oil, 24oz shortening, 9 3/4 oz lye and 32oz water.
What is a stick blender? how much do they cost?
I ran this through the MMS Lye Calculator (online) and you are about 2 ounces short on the lye. That is much of the problem. I would dissolve 2 ounces in a small amount of cold water (maybe about 3 - 4 oz.) and then blend that in with your soap that you are going to warm up on a low setting on your stove... keeping up with the stirring until it warms up to 100 - 110 degrees. If there are clumpy places, you could break them up with a normal hand held mixer to start... but then the spoon should be okay. It should eventually get honey like in texture and start doing what soap is supposed to do. Once it warms nearly to the temp you are after, turn the burner off. If it is still kind of thin and you do get a stick blender, you could zap it with that for a minute or two (read the suggestions on how to use it first and keep it below the surface so you don't pull in a bunch of air) and it should thicken up quite nicely. Take care not to get it too thick! Thick cake batter is plenty.
>What is a stick blender? how much do they cost?
I have a photo of this on my site in a couple of main places... it's hand held with a small food processor type blade on the bottom (usually protected by a guard). It is wonderful for mixing soap and you can probably pick one up for around $14 or so. Look in the kitchen goods of a variety store or places like Walmart.
Greetings, Kathy Miller, from the hills of Tennessee! I absolutely love your website, especially all the soap info!! I am very new to soapmaking and don't mind saying I am hooked! I've even printed off pics of your soap mold and had my hubby make one for me and a friend who is also getting into soapmaking. Your site is PACKED with great links and info and lovely pics of all your soaps. We are finding that one must be very careful when choosing shortenings, etc. We made a batch recently using beef shortening. It turned out beautiful but has a slight "meaty" odor since we did not add fragrance. We are going to try to have it soak up a little fragrance from lemon balm leaves my friend Pat grows in her backyard by packing them around the bars as they cure.
I do have a question I need help with!!!! I've made only a few batches of soap, and have made only a couple of batches using coconut oil. Both batches have turned out very dry and the second smaller one is especially dry and crumbled when I sliced it into bars. The first recipe I got from the web: 42 oz shortening, 5 oz canola oil, 5 oz coconut oil (I used Spectrum), 17 oz water and 7 oz lye. The second recipe I got from a book that was mostly about making facial cleansers and such and had a few small batch recipes. The one I used is: 1/2 cup veg oil, 1/2 cup coconut oil, 1 cup veg shortening (Crisco), 1/2 cup lye granules (Red Devil) and 2 cups water. At light trace (after about 20 min stirring and about 3 min with a stick blender) I added 2 Tbs rubbed sage for color, 1/2 tsp eucalyptus eo and 1/2 tsp sage eo. It smelled wonderful (still does) but the green has faded to white almost overnight!! I measured very carefully. This small batch I poured just after light trace as it appeared to be thickening right along. I'm hoping to make some soaps with some fragrance oils to give for Christmas but I'm not sure why these batches with coconut oil are so dry and crumbly. The first batch bars have held together fairly well, the soap is very white (like Ivory) and lightweight, but some have some hairline cracks. However, the color is very even. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks. Phyllis
Hi! Thanks for your nice comments about the website! :-) I'll try to remember all the questions you asked... I think coconut oil is not the problem here but that the batches are lye heavy. Really small batches are problematic in the first place because the slightest miscalculation can result in the ratio being "off". Personally, I would never make a batch of soap that had me measure the lye in any other way than by weight... it's just too iffy. Then you need to have a scale accurate enough to do that justice. Since I can weigh my heavier things on a kitchen scale I already had, I got a lower priced postal scale for weighing lye and fragrance oils. It weighs up to 4 pounds. I did a calculation on the first recipe you gave me and the lye discounting is pretty low (3%)... so if any measurements got off at all, it would be noticeable and give you soap that is a bit lye heavy (brittle, prone to cracking). I aim for a 5% discount usually.
Are you hand stirring or using a stick blender? The latter will give you a better mix and I think you'll find that the texture of the finished soap will be improved. You can certainly make nice soap without it if that's your preference... but it's GREAT! Smaller batches can lose heat more quickly than larger ones and this is another concern and can affect the end texture of your soap. You might raise the temps about 10 degrees or so and see if that helps. I would probably cure your tiny batch and just grate it up for the washing machine. The other one will probably be okay, but not quite as mild as it could be.... but after curing probably usable without rebatching if your measurements were accurate.
Some beef shortenings can have some odor... others hardly any. I do try to pick fragrances that blend better with that mellow earthy quality that beef tallow has... you should be able to put something scented in with the soap to mask that. Cotton balls with a teensy bit of EO or FO on them can work also... but direct contact with the soap can sometimes leave "burned" places... if the oil is something spicy. Depends on the particular oil in question.
Good luck with the next batch! I hope this helps.
Hi Kathy,
First, let me thank you for a terrific website! Especially for that neat little tip about the stick blender. I tried making olive oil soap a couple of times a year or so ago and was completely turned off by the eternal stirring. I _like_ three-minute traces! Hubby says it's your fault I'm hooked on soap now. :-) :-) :-) (He's kidding, of course.) Sorry this is so long, I seem to have a natural inability to be brief!
So I have a screwy batch here, with the first recipe I have made up on my own - I modified your Favorite Castile III, recalculating it with the MMS calculator for approximately 6% superfatting. The recipe runs as follows (quantities by weight of course! and percentages rounded off): 20 oz water, 9 oz lye, 30 oz olive oil (45%), 12 oz coconut oil (18%), 12 oz palm oil (18%), 10 oz corn oil (15%), 3 oz jojoba (5%). I use a strange mixing method told to me by an elderly lady in a store (!!!), where I just warm the solid oils in hot tap water to melt them, combine them with room temperature (70F, more or less) liquid oils, stir the lye with the water until it stops actively boiling/fuming and mix the whole thing up. No messing with temperatures. I have done several batches so far with this method and have not had one separation! (In fact, this is the first time anything weird has happened at all.)
I made this twice over, one right after another, with different colors and scents. Batch 1 came out better - it was colored with 1 tbsp cinnamon and 2 tbsp cocoa powder in 1 tbsp jojoba and scented with 2 oz of "Warm Comfort" EO from A Garden Eastward. Batch 2 was colored with chlorophyll powder dissolved in 1 tsp water and a handful of dry parsley flakes, and scented with 1 oz of "Herb Garden" EO from A.G.E. The "Herb Garden" EO actually thinned the traced soap back out and I had to re-blend it for a little bit to get it to thicken back up. Both were in molds (PVC pipe) for about 24 hours before I slid them out - thank heavens for freezer paper liners - and cut the 3" x 12" logs into 1" discs. Then I set them to dry, and they looked perfectly smooth and pretty.
After a few hours, I looked at the bars and noticed tiny holes, almost like pinpricks, on the surface of batch #2. There didn't seem to be any fluid coming out of them, so I ignored them figuring they were air bubbles. More and more holes began appearing as the hours went by! It's 32 hours after slicing now and there are an awful lot of bubbles. I took one of the bars and sliced a piece off to see inside, and it is just _loaded_ with tiny, tiny, tiny bubbles. Looks like a glass of champagne. It is also pretty harsh on my hands, they feel a tad raw after washing with the soap, although hubby says it is fine on his hands. The other batch seems to be okay, with a few scattered bubbles.
Could the extra ounce to ounce-and-a-half of oil make _that_ much of a difference in a five-pound batch of soap? Is my bubbly soap a candidate for rebatching with some additional oil to mellow it out some, or am I risking overfatting it and thus courting rancidity? My gut tells me I should rebatch but I detest doing it as it almost never comes out nicely and want to avoid it as much as possible. Am I being completely neurotic? :-) I've spent most of the evening reading the Botched Batches pages but I'd love some advice, if you're willing to give it - I've spent a good bit on supplies for this batch and am feeling rather antsy!
Mari Morgan
Most soap that is 24 hours old is going to be kind of harsh on hands... but true some batches more than others. If there's no fluid coming out of them and the soap feels normal other than that, I would just let it cure and see how it is. If it's more harsh it might be that the air in it slowed the gel process or something... don't know. It might not have heated up as much in the mold. Time will take care of it and rebatching probably won't give you a better end product, all things considered. You can certainly wait a few more days before deciding to melt it all... you can still do it in that period of time.
If you added the right amount of ingredients in the first place, you should not need to add more oil at all... would only make it more superfatted than what is the best for long storage. Do you think you got the stick blender too close to the surface and brought in all that extra air? Would be careful not to do that in the future if that's what you think you did.
My final thought if no fluid is coming out of those holes (sometimes this will show up on the knife when you cut the soap... it will be wet), is to let time take care of it for at least a few more days and then make your decision.
Kathy,
I have really enjoyed your page. It has helped give me the courage to start "soaping". My first batch was with animal fat, the rendering process is something I never want to do again. (Not after reading the all veggie recipes!). Anyway, I have a wooden mold that is shallow and on the advice of the book I was reading, I lined it with Saran Wrap and sprayed it with cooking spray. The soap did not stick but the Saran Wrap was not smooth and the soap is not flat on the bottom and the corners were round. I waited not even 24 hours to cut it and it was too long. The soap broke and splintered! A lesson learned.
Last night I made a batch using Rachel's recipe. I used the same mold but saw that you lined your mold with freezer paper. I THOUGHT wax paper would work, when I went to cut the soap this morning, the cutting went well but here was the problem. The wax paper turned brown and stuck to the bottom of the soap. Is there a reason why? I guess I should go and get freezer paper, I just wondered what the difference was. I still had problems with the corners being round. Will the freezer paper be easier to crease? I put the soap in the oven with the light on and a bowl of water and it was ready to cut about 11 hours later. Do all soaps cut this early? I have been seeing 24 hours and mine are always ready ahead of that. I will learn more as the time goes on, but I am a little nervous being new to this. The wax paper peeled off of the soap but portions of it are discolored. I guess I will shave that off. Also, I am going to make more batches and when they cure do they need to be separated? Will the scents bleed into the next one?
Thank you for this wonderful site. Your pictures are helpful and your recipes and experience are easy to understand. I have read 2 other soap books and did not come away with as much knowledge as you have provided in this site. Thank you for giving me the strength to try this on my own.
Thanks,
Dawn
Not sure why the paper turned brown.. was it actually the paper or just some brown ooze that came off the soap? Did you spray anything next to the paper that could caused the brown reaction? When you use the freezer paper, put the plastic side up (next to the soap). It will crease easier with some practice, but the corners will still have a few lines where the edges were... but much smoother end product than when using saran wrap. You don't need to spray anything on the mold... just put the freezer paper in... two perpendicular sheets that are creased in at the corners and overlap slightly (I try for about a 1/4" overlap or so). I tape it down at the top of the mold at each corner.
Some soaps are ready to cut sooner than others... so you have to gauge by how it looks and when it's completely cooled. When you store the finished soaps, you should keep them separate by scent... they will blend with one another and lose their integrity.
First, thank you for your mighty efforts in our behalf. Your site is so full of helpful instruction, I am overwhelmed at your generosity. I appreciate the time you devote to what would seem to be your calling.
I am quite new at soaping. I've done three batches, the first two are fine, the third is a disappointment. It is brittle, crumbled alot while I cut it, the bars break easily. They are flaky though they can be pressed together there is only a tenuous cohesiveness to the batch. It is 24 hours at this time. I modified the recipe, in an attempt to increase the hardness of the soap,I added 3 T salt dissolved in 6 oz of warm water (this 6 oz is included in the 32 oz total water amount) I used 24 oz coconut oil, 38 oz Crisco, 24 oz olive oil, 32 oz water and 12 oz lye combined lye into fats at 98 degrees. The scent, added at light trace, is 2 oz cedar wood and 1/3 oz pine needle EO's. I colored the batch by using about 1 1/2 T of cocoa powder dissolved in about 2 T olive oil them after light trace I took about 1 1/2 cups of the soap and blended the cocoa solution in to that well , and used this to marble the rest of the batch. It looks nice from a distance and has the scent of cedar saw dust (that's a good thing) but I don't think it's going to hold together. It is still soft, do you think I should remelt it and add more fat? Did the salt do this, too much salt maybe?? What do you think about using salt? The batch did trace very quickly, in about 10 minutes, It set in less that 12 hours which seemed very fast to me considering it took about two days for the other two batches. I was pretty happy until I unmolded the beautiful stuff and it began to crumble apart.
Any suggestion you have would be greatly appreciated. Thank you again for all of your efforts.
Sincerely,
Cynthia Eaton
Thanks for your nice comments! I will guess on this and you figure out what seems applicable. That does sound like a lot of salt for one batch... I don't recall what I've read about what people use, but I don't think I've ever put that much in the couple of times I tried salt. Also... I think your temps to start might have been kind of low and judging by your description, the soap may have cooled too quickly before it was blended well enough... that can contribute to poor texture. A stick blender is great for this, as well as raising your starting temps about 10 degrees or so. If you are sure your lye was measured accurately and you left nothing out, I would just rebatch it with the tiniest amount of moisture sprinkled in and repour it (will lose the swirl... but it should still look okay for that scent). If you fear you messed up somewhere on your calculations or measurements, you can add back in a little bit of oil, but I would not go overboard in case you are making it extra superfatted... maybe 4 oz. or so, but no more?
Good luck! I hope this turns out for you in the end. We all have an occasional batch that will need extra measures to reclaim... kind of goes with the territory! :-)
I made some Goat's Milk and Honey soap. It is awfully dark brown...like brown gravy color. That is not the problem though I would have wished for a lighter color. The problem is that it is real crumbly. So any suggestions?
Should I reheat or add something or what?
Looking for Info
Kathie
I think that's the honey that does that.. I've had honey soap with that flaky texture. It's great when you use it but a pain to cut. You might try less honey next time. It really darkens the soap and the milk makes it tan to brown as well... but the honey really dark.
If your bars are really messy and seem to have pockets of fluid or anything like that you can remelt the batch... but on the one I did that to, it was still kind of crumbly even after rebatching! If there's not a separation, I would just let it cure and live with it... only you know how rough the bars are so you'll have to decide which you want to do.
If I were to do it again, I'd probably use less honey than I did on the recipe I posted with it as an ingredient.
I have made a few batches of soap now, and my soap crumbles at the corners when I cut it. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks, Christina
If the rest of your soap is fine in texture, my first guess would be that the temperatures at the corners are staying cooler when in the mold... it's maybe not gelling all the way out. This makes it more brittle in texture and it usually looks lighter in color and more opaque than the center where it gets hotter. The other thing with crumbly soap is that it could be lye heavy... but if you are sure of your measurements, my first thought is temp. If your mold is something thick, like plywood, you might warm it gently in the oven (the emphasis on GENTLY! :-) before pouring the soap. Then be sure to insulate it enough for it to heat up all the way to the corners. Do you use a stick blender? My soap improved immensely in texture when I started using the stick blender instead of hand stirring or the hand held mixer... no comparison. If you've not tried that yet... it's worth giving it a go. They are rather inexpensive.
Hi Kathy,
I just found your site today and I think it's wonderful. I've been making soap for about 6 mos now and I've had a lot of failures and a lot of success. I thought I had it mastered until last week. I'm making about 4 lb batches w/ 21 oz olive oil, refined A, 16 oz coconut oil, and 14 oz palm oil. I use 201 grams of lye and 19 oz of distilled water. I usually make 6 batches at a time. Our first 400 bars of soap were wonderful. We had enough for the next month so we didn't make soap again for a month. Our next 6 batches we used the same recipe and could not get our soap to trace.
I should mention, we use my Kitchen Aid mixer. It was taking 5 mins on first setting and then 5 mins on setting 2. We mixed our last batches for 25 mins and still got no trace. We were frustrated so we put in the FO because we knew that would thicken it up. Some of them turned out OK, but some had pooled lye pockets under the soap when we took it out of the mold. After cutting it, there are no lye pockets in the middle of the soap and what was on the outside has dried.
I think the soap is OK, but I was wondering why this is happening. It's taking us twice the amount of time it was taking us and our soap isn't turning out as well. We line our molds w/waxed freezer paper and it has never leaked through until now. I don't know if it's because when we pour it, it's not as thick or if there's a problem.
By the way, we recently started using colorants (ultramarines and oxides) and I can't seem to get them completely mixed in. There seem to be concentrated large pieces throughout the soap. I was taking out a small scoop of the soap mixture and mixing that good before adding it to the rest of the mixture and that seemed to help a little but still my soap looks grainy with the colors.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Adrea Bennett
If you are doing everything just the same, my guess would be a difference in temperature. It was probably warmer weather and in your house when you did the batch a month ago. Is this possibly a factor? If the soap loses too much heat while being mixed the the mixer, it might not saponify well enough before the fats want to coagulate... making it a poorer texture and not really "traced". I would recommend you try a stick blender instead of the Kitchen Aid and see how they compare. You can get a cheap one for around $14 and a nicer one for $20 to $25. The soap will trace in minutes and not lose as much temp as with a regular mixer. You can't run it non-stop for long periods, but don't really need to. Just a thought... I think you'd see a difference in the texture of the finished product.
Ultramarines and oxides will leave a bit of a fleck to the soap (small particles that are suspended) but you ought to be able to get it evenly distributed if that's what you want. The directions I had said to mix them in a small bit of warm or hot water (make it smooth, kind of like tempra paint)... then you mix this with a small portion of the soap and either swirl with that, or mix it all into the big pot if that's what you want. Again... I use a hand held stick blender so it would break things up better, but by the time I've done a swirl and such, I've switched to a spoon or spatula.
Hope the next batch turns out well for you and that maybe some of these thoughts might be on the mark.
Hello Kathy,
First of all, I would like to tell you that my best friend and I love your site. How did you get your soap so swirly and pretty? We have tried in our little batches and they turn out looking like agate rock (the ugly kind!) I wanted to tell you about an experience I had with a batch of soap I made a couple of weeks ago. I used some powdered kelp that I got from the Whole Foods Market here in Dallas. I mixed it in at trace and all that good stuff and everything went fine. I poured it into a pvc pipe mold that was resting on a ceramic plate. About 10 minutes later I heard a loud crash and ran into the kitchen. The heat from the soap mix had blown up the plate and the soap was growing like the blob. I am not kidding! It was really gross and smelled like rotting fish. It boiled and bubbled and reeked really bad. I am no chemist so I have no idea what caused it. I got the idea for seaweed soap from my husband who saw it while skimming the Home Shopping Network. They were sel
Take care!
Xaita
Hi! I enjoyed your email and have to confess... the fishy soap story cracked me up! Must have been a real mess to clean up! The end of your message got cut off... hope you were nearly done.
On the swirl and yours looking like agate... that might be because the temps get a bit low and you get some ash in the soap. Not sure. Sometimes I get that on mine also... toward the sides of the mold where it might not completely go through the gel stage. You might want to raise the temps of your soap slightly and be sure to insulate. If putting it in a wooden mold, preheating it gently so it's room temp can help... instead of pouring the soap into a cold mold. Also... as we get into the cooler season, more insulation will probably be in order for most soaps (but don't go overboard to you get alien brain soap!).
I think I've heard about soaps with kelp doing weird stuff before but not sure. For some reason maybe it caused that batch to overheat. Honey will do that in soap... maybe some other organic materials could do the same. Did it turn out okay in the end?
Good luck with the next batch. Thanks for writing... your email was delightful!
Finally figured out why the soap crystallized like it did. It's the honey. Honey caramelizes from the saponification reaction, and is heavier than all the other ingredients used. So if you rebatch and use a mixer with two heads the soap turns out excellent. The method I used for rebatching is posted on my forum at http://pages.prodigy.net/blondelll Blondie.
hello Kathy,
hope everything's well with you and your soaps, this is loi here, the soapmaker from the Philippines (hope u still remember me!)-- this is the new email addy of me and my soapmaking partner. we've been having some problems lately with sweaty and mushy soaps -- most of the soaps we made are oozing with sweat 2 months after being out of the mold -- we don't know the culprit yet but we have a suspect: soybean oil
I've checked the oil percentages we used on the really sweaty soaps and it turns out that the common ingredients are coconut and soybean oil - we use around 30% to as much as 64% coconut and from 29% to 60% soybean oil, here are some samples:
lemony lavender -- 5%
however, there was one recipe without soybean which sweated a lot, we used:
we also made a pure castile soap which also turned out to be sweaty, this was really frustrating cuz we superfatted at only 3% and even used extralight olive oil
then we also made avocado soap based on a recipe from Sugar Plum Sundries -- it had 60% palm oil and 20% coconut and still turned out to be mushy! with that amt. of coco and palm we expected it to be a hard bar... u think we superfatted too much at 7.25%??
as for the amount of water, we use 30% of the total oil weight -- after unmolding them, we dry them for at least 3 weeks -- the soaps which sweated a lot were already out of the mold for over 2 months -- some of them we already wrapped in brown paper after 3 weeks cuz they did not show signs of sweating -- just thinking of all the unwrapping we have to do really breaks my heart....
we're thinking that the humidity probably has a big effect on the soaps, my partner also observed that the heavy sweating occurred when it rained five days nonstop! u can just imagine the flooding it caused...
another problem we have is the soaps getting mushy when used and this we're really puzzled about cuz we are already using high percentages of coconut oil - one person who used our soap even said that they still lather well when 1/4 of the original size but it's so mushy he doesn't want to use them anymore.... sob.. sob... =(
we're really in a dilemma as to what formula would give us hard and non-sweaty bars which would not be drying to the skin, we already know that a 100% coconut soap with zero superfatting would make a really hard and no sweat bar but we also noticed that it is harsh and drying to the skin - please, any help would be much appreciated as this trial and error experiments of ours have been producing mostly errors!
we're just new in this soapmaking and would really appreciate all the help we can get -- we're really desperate and even thinking of adding salt to our soaps! please help-- looking forward to hearing from you....
all covered in mush and sweat,
loi & bok
I shot this question to Rachael and here was her response (I'm not going to fully edit these two emails! ):
although high humidity in the Philippines might be a huge contributing factor, i'd bet the farm it's the temperature of the soap when made that's the cause. the recipes are all great. the oil choices are all good ones. i use all the same recipes, same oils, same %'s. i use the same water addition rate too. 30% of oils. anyhow, i think that the temp on mixing is too low. low temps cause this 'weeping' of the soap in the final product. the stuff continues to weep throughout the life of the soap too. messy stuff.
tell her to run any of the recipes at 120 degrees and insulate it well. it prolongs the gell stage and (although i haven't a clue why, but could guess that it's a better dispersement of the glycerin in the soap matrix) makes a soap that doesn't cry glycerin, and collect water from the air. pour at a full trace, no sloppy thin ones. the culprit isn't the oils, or %'s of them. most books (cavitch is the worst) say to use 90 degree temps, and they are not appropriate for soapmaking (as most soaper find out). have her check her scale (calibrate it). just to see if the lye amounts are right on target.
beeswax also helps in humid summers, if the problem is just regular moisture on the soap, not totally weepy stuff. just use 2% addition rate. add to the oils, it really ups the trace time though.
Your question and answer section are such a big help. Many thanks!!
I have been making soap for 6 months. They are vegetable soaps. The past two months I have noticed yellow spots, about the size of a dime on some of the soaps a month to two after I made them. What do you think the problem is and how can I solve it? Is this soap safe to use?
Many thanks,
Jeanne
So glad the web page has been a help to you!
I think they are safe to use.. just not as pretty as at first. Are you doing very much superfatting? I'd read somewhere that these yellow spots might be a bit of rancidity setting in... some other folks thought it was caused by olive oil or shortening, or what have you. Maybe no one really knows! What are you making your soap with and how much superfatting/lye discount are you using in the recipes?
Also... be sure your soaps still have some air circulation when you store them. Only after they've really dried out a LOT can you shut them up away from much air. I've had some batches ooze a bit of glycerin and these have tended to develop spots in storage.
Hi! First of all I wnt to congratulate you on your site. You have been so kind to share all of this wonderful information about soapmaking, and I have learned a lot by browsing around the various parts of the site. Your pictures of soap are great too!
Two days ago I attempted a three pound batch of low-budget clove swirl soap using the following recipe:
Fillers/notes
For added scent, I used 1.5 tsp. each alcohol-free vanilla extract and almond extract (the sorts of edible extracts used in baking cakes). For a brown swirl, dried, stale 4 year old clove powder that was no longer any use for cooking.
To superfat with around 5% excess fat, I used 172.45g lye.
While observing safety rules, I proceeded as follows: I combined solid lye and liquid, stirred well. Let cool to 110F. Melted oils and waxes, let cool to 120 F. Carefully and slowly poured lye solution into melted oils. Prepared mold by spraying lightly with Pam. Stirred with immersion (stick) blender on medium, being careful not to get air into mixture, until trace. This took about 25 minutes solid mixing, then 3 more hours of stirring for 5 minutes at 15 minute intervals. By the time trace was finally reached, the soap was room temp (about 80F). At trace, scent was added.
All but 1 cup scented soap poured into prepared mold. 2 Tbsp. clove powder mixed thoroughly with 1 cup soap to make a smooth brown soap mix. Brown soap mix folded into soap in mold to create a nice swirl. Soap mold insulated with a blanket and placed in a nice warm (85F) spot... my garage.
Today, 48 hrs. after molding, the soap looked beautiful and had hardened into a cheesecake-like consistency. It looked just like a chocolate and vanilla marbled cheesecake. Yet, it smelled almost exactly like gangrene! I can handle a lot of stench, but I could barely stand to be in the same room with this soap. Besides, upon looking more closely at it, I noticed small brown pools of liquid forming along the brown swirl lines. A quick skin test (carefully done) determined this fluid to be lye.
Alas for my beautiful marbled soap! The separation meant I had to reclaim. Bye-bye swirl. :( I began by dumping out my separated swirl soap into a large stainless pot, and mixing 8 oz. milk thoroughly with 2 Tbsp. sugar and 2 Tbsp. glycerin. Using a potato masher I added the mixture and mashed it all up till it looked sort of like lumpy mashed potatoes. Then I put the pot over low heat on the stove, opened all doors and windows, put a clothespin on my nose, and used the stick blender to blend it the rest of the way. This took about 20 minutes. It never did liquefy but it got close. It reached a viscous, glossy, hot fudge sundae topping- like consistency.
I poured it into my prepared mold, and tested a little of the soap left clinging to the pot. The "dregs" lathered pretty well but there's still a slight slick feeling, possibly of excess lye, which hopefully will go away after curing. It's hardening now. The soap is a nice even caramel color throughout. Not bad, but nothing like the stunning swirl I had to sacrifice. Mercifully, the gangrene scent was almost entirely vaporized off by the heat in the reclaiming process! Yay! I can smell my soap without needing a barf bag! (It smells faintly of Lysol or Raid bug spray, now.) Maybe I can use it as camping soap to keep buggies away, and housecleaning/garbage bin cleaning soap to take advantage of that antiseptic scent. :P
I wonder why my batch stunk to high heaven. I have mixed chamomile, vanilla, almond, and clove scents together before and trust me, the soap smelled/smells *nothing* like that. Some people mentioned problems with almond scent, could it have been my almond extract? Or maybe my rendered chicken fat wasn't clean enough? How do you know when your rendered fat *is* clean enough, anyway?
Then there's the frustrating separation of my swirly soap... Did the clove powder cause that somehow? I seem to recall someone else had separation when they used clove oil.
Ah well, I guess it's no big deal since after all, the ingredients were nearly free. :) Thanks for the info on reclaiming, I would have been sorely tempted to pitch the smelly mess if I hadn't found your site!
Iris
Hi! I hope this batch turns out nice in the end. I laughed out loud when I read your email about the smell and all. I'll respond to a few things I noticed...
By the way... I haven't checked your numbers in the lye calculator and am trusting you have the right balance of lye. I'm not used to the metric measurements, but get the idea from what you sent.
Thank you for your kind remarks about the web page. I'm glad it's been helpful!
"Tallow" usually refers to beef fat, or maybe sheep or venison. It's very hard at room temp and makes a nice hard bar of soap. You were using chicken fat and it has a lower sap value than that of tallow. Poultry fats tend to make softer spongier soap and are not particularly desirable, although you can make soap with them. I suppose emu oil would be an exception since it has some remarkable qualities... but you wouldn't tend to use a whole bunch of it for a batch anyway. This recipe has a lot of unsaturated oils in it and will probably make a soft bar. In the future you may want some actual beef tallow, coconut, olive or palm oil in the soap to make it harder. This can still be soap though... I don't want to discourage your sense of experimentation. Read the "Design Your Own Recipe" information... particularly the "properties of oils" section and you'll get the idea. (maybe you already have)
Extracts are not very strong as soap scenters in the long run. You can get by with using them, but won't necessarily smell them later. Let me know if you can still smell these after cure. I'm curious.
This shouldn't have taken so long... and thank goodness your stick blender didn't burn up into a cinder! I've heard people speak of burning one out in 15 minutes. You must have a good brand. From reading this, I'm thinking your soap may never have actually reached a real saponified "trace" state... it probably was semi-blended but maybe lost too much heat in the mixing (it was a relatively small batch) and just thickened up do to cooling as much as anything. This could be why you had the separation. With smaller batches, it is more necessary to take precautions in keeping their heat. Using a little gentle bottom heat during the mixing is helpful. I think 25 minutes with the stick blender on such a small batch is much too long and might have even contributed to it getting cooled off too quickly. Just a guess. In the future, you can do a stick blend for a half a minute or so and then turn it off and just use it to stir (or switch to a spoon)... alternate until it thickens up. I only end up blending/stirring my soaps anywhere from two minutes to maybe five for a 6# size batch.
That's a lot of clove powder. It tends to be a bit irritating in quantity so I would probably use much less for a single cup of soap... maybe only about 2 tsp.? Won't give you as much dark color, but you don't want the soap to irritate anyone's skin. Since you've diluted it by rebatching, maybe that won't be as much of a concern.
>Yet, it smelled almost exactly like gangrene!
This is probably partly due to the separation (lye smells) and maybe a bit to the clove powder (could put off an ammonia smell when the lye works on it). Most of those off odors cure out, but if the separation is severe, there's always something rotten in Denmark! ;-)
How do you know what gangrene smells like? Is it from raising animals or having a medical background? Maybe you were just kidding, but I got the feeling you'd actually smelled it at some point in your life... probably something a person doesn't forget.
When you are rebatching, be careful in using the stick blender or an electric mixer too much... unless you don't mind floating soap. Just stirring it around with a slotted spoon and mushing it up good will often be enough during the heating/melting process. Sometimes there are stubborn lumps though... and I've used a mixer to get them incorporated. Often means getting air into the mix ... I guess floating soap is okay, but I like the bar to be denser.
Well... it was a real learning experience wasn't it? You'll know so much more for the next batch and probably have it all go as you'd planned. Soapmaking is such an interesting hobby and the end result can be great on your skin.
I want to read more... click here for Botched Batches, page 4 ...
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page last updated August 22, 2000.
If you still have questions, please read through the information on the Troubleshooting Help page, MOST Frequently Asked
Questions and Modern Procedures. More can also be learned through the Botched Batches and Soapy Success pages. Many common problems have already been addressed on the site and it's difficult for me to keep up with emails these days and get anything else done. If your question involves my looking up information that you can also research, or going over numbers and recipe calculations, I might not respond if in the middle of a project around our home and garden. I apologize for this, since I've enjoyed my correspondence with people and don't like to ignore emails of any kind. Thanks! :-)