When making small batches of soap it is important to have the measurements correct. Rating Lye solution and oil separates by: Anonymous Oh darn! Thanks for your help. I won't give up yet. Rating Lye solution and oil separates by: Sheila I followed your advice and put the separated mess into a pot and heated until it gelled.
But now my "soap" is an oily gooey molded gel. Can i use it or some of it to make a batch of soap? I hate to throw it out. I'm not able to buy anymore product right now and don't have much to work with to try again. I suppose that is a good thing though. Please help me. This was my first try and it's important to me to get this right.
Answer: Unfortunatley, if the hot processing didn't work then there likely was a mistake made during the measuring of the ingredients to begin with. I'm afraid I would throw out the soap since you cannot be certain that it is safe. It definitely cannot be used to make soap with. I took out the last of my supplies, measured the oils and sat out to write a recipe. Let's see Following the usual procedure I added lye to the oils and when the mixture reached light trace i added white clay, mixed it lightely and then poured Coco butter fragrance.
And then something happened that has never happened to me before, soap started to get a bit grainy and I still had to separate one third of it and add red pepper to it for color, because I wanted to make 3 layered soap, with a bit of red in between.
No such luck The next morning my soap has hardened, but there was oil on top and all around it, in fact - the lining paper was soaked with it. So I went on Internet in search of an explanation and after reading a few articles and a lot of comments on Soap Making forums, I figured what happened was probably caused by fragrance and it was probably what they call "separation", maybe even combined with "ricing'. The recipe uses millilitres for the water and some of the oil measurements.
You really need to use weight measures when creating a soap base recipe. It's okay to use volume for scent, colour and other additives but stick with weight with water, lye and base oils. The recipe instructs you to use coconut oil or vegetable fat.
This is a very risky thing to do. It assumes that the vegetable fat you are going to substitute has the same saponification value as coconut oil and this will not be the case. You cannot simply substitute one oil for another without recalculating a recipe. Also, coconut oil performs a specific function in a soap recipe. There are only two other oils that will perform the same way Babassu oil and palm kernel oil.
You can still make a soap without these oils but the same bubbling action will not be present in the final bar. As to why your soap seperated The recipe could have inaccurate amounts of sodium hydroxide for the amount of oils used. I would check it for you but with the measurements being in milliliters, it is impossible for me to do so.
Insufficient stirring. Sometimes when mixing the oils to a trace we reach what is called a 'false trace'. This can often happen when mixing with a stick blender. Everything looks good and thick but with a little hand stirring, the mixture becomes more liquid again.
It can also be heat related. If the soap gets really hot, it can separate and cause that oil to leak out. Can you tell me more about your soap, including your recipe and any additives?
Also, how did you store the soap, and how long did you stick blend? Thanks, Kelsey. I should have mentioned this earlier. So, I was swirling it with a bamboo skewer trying to make designs on top of the soap with the skewer. I was picking at it. I tested the soap after I took it out of the mold and the pH was 8. I tested it again today and it was the same. Could it actually be the paprika that is sticking up because of all the pricking? After 48 hours, what looked like white crystals is now red crystals?
Would you mind sending me a picture? Thanks so much. Where do you buy the funnel nosed beakers that you pour your soap into molds with?
I would love to purchase some of these, please reply thanks. They are so handy to have. What ingredients did you use, and how long did you stick blend for? I made a batch of soap about a month ago that turned pink. I have made the same recipe and did everything the same for at least 4 other batches of this recipe.
It is split in half, the bottom layer has no color added but does have lavender buds and ground oatmeal and the top layer has a purple clay swirl. I used lavender and lemon essential oils to scent it. Only the bottom layer turned pink, the top layer looks like it should. Each other time I have made this recipe it stayed white on the bottom layer. I purchase the lavender buds from Brambleberry and also the essential oils.
The liquid is distilled water and none of my other batches of anything have turned pink. Any ideas? Would you mind emailing a picture to me? Then I can help you troubleshoot from there.
Thank you! Great article. My problem is that I used the same recipe in the past with great results. But, this time I used paprika as an additive. And, my lye water was at a temperature of 85 F degrees and my oils at 98 F degrees. My soap came out with lye crystals on top. Is this because of the temperature of the lye water and oils? Or, is it because of adding the paprika? I really learn a lot from this website.
For your soap, I would recommend pH testing the soap make sure to wait until the soap is at least 5 days old. The crystals on top may not be lye, so pH testing the soap can help you make sure.
If your soap is around pH, let me know. We can troubleshoot the causes of the crystallization from there. If it is lye heavy, my guess is it may be false trace. That can leave bits of oil and bits of unsaponified lye in the batch.
To prevent false trace in the future, you can up your temperatures to F. That ensures everything stays nice and melted. I have been doing CP and hot P for a while now, with no problems. Today I was in a non-intelligent mood, and forgot two things…first of all, I was using a drizzle of beet powder mixed with water to make a change of color in the soap.
As I poured it, I realized it was no longer warm, and way too watery. Second problem…after it was all molded, I realized I had forgotten my essential oils. I added them quickly, and stirred it all in the mold. I ruined my pattern, but other than that, I hoped it would be ok. Have you ever done this?
Did the soap just eventually absorb the excess oil or water and should I just wait another day or two longer than usual to cut it? I have definitely forgotten my oils until the very end too!
I think almost every soaper can relate. As long as those essential oils were mixed in well, your soap should be just fine! It may just need a couple extra weeks of curing. I would recommend letting that soap dry and cure for at least 6 weeks. Rebatching involves grating the soap and heating it up over gentle heat.
That heat can help emulsify the soap, and will help cook off any extra water. Hi there. I am facing an issue of my soap reaching trace perhaps false trace— not sure too quickly. I made a small batch today g and as soon as I added the lye water solution to my oils it started to turn cloudy. Although I still blended it with a stick blender a little. This is the third time this is happening and am not sure what the issue is. Lye temp was at about f and oils were at f.
Should I up the temprature? It is normal for your batter to change colors when the lye is added, as that lye is starting to react with the oils. With stick blending, it can only take 30 seconds of stirring and pulsing to get your soap to thin trace.
How long are you stirring and stick blending the oils for? Hi Kelsey I stirred for about 30 seconds and used the stick blender for 3 10 second bursts. I am thinking it might be: -That I am soaping too cold and should up the temprature -Perhaps my coconut oil is 96f and not 76g. The lady at the store told me its 76f but does not say on the bottle.
I bought it from a chemical store a batch of 3 kg. I store in plastic bags and then in a container. By the way I live in kenya. Thanks once again. Upping those temperatures may help! I would recommend soaping right around F. That keeps everything nice and melted. You may want to contact the manufacturer to check on the purity. I have made about 8 batches of soap using the same recipe with variations same base recipe but have changed around EOs, different brazilian clays, calendula, lavender buds, etc.
This is the base recipe:. I made it one month ago today and tested a bar earlier this morning. It lathers wonderfully but where the bar was touching the bathroom counter it got a little gooey after a few hours.
The bars were hard when I cut them the day after making it and even harder after a month of curing. Please let me know what you think about the goo! I think your recipe is just fine! We recommend a draining soap dish for handmade products. That way they stay a little more dry and prevent a little bit of that gooey feeling. You can also add 1 teaspoon of sodium lactate per pound of oils to your cooled lye water.
The increase in harder oils and the sodium lactate make your bars a bit more firm. That can help prevent some of the soft feeling in the shower. Curing the soap a full 6 weeks can help slightly as well. However, even with a harder recipe, your soaps will have a softness in the bathroom.
Soap dishes are very helpful for that reason. Thanks so much for your quick response! It turns out the soap is not so melty after all. I have been using it and after the first two uses or so it has not had that same gooey feeling and is drying better in between uses. Hi, I tried to make a bath of oatmeal and honey soap this weekend.
I mixed it to trace and added my ground oatmeal and when I added the diluted honey and blended it together, the first thing to happen was a bright orange swirl came up from the bottom of the bowl then within a few seconds, the entire mixture seemed to separate with a clear oily layer on top and a rice like glop of dark orange gunk on the bottom.
Do you think that my oil and lye were too hot and caused the oatmeal and honey to cook together and burn? I wish I would have found this first. What was it diluted with? Sometimes certain ingredients can do weird things in soap. The temperature of the honey may be it as well. If it was on the colder side, it may have started to solidify in your soap, causing the weird separation. Hi Mike, Exactly the same thing just happened to me! I quickly scooped it into the mold and left it uncovered. Did your soap turn out be to OK to use?
Thanks, Helen. Honey has natural sugars in it that can cause the soap to overheat and do some odd things. We usually recommend popping it in the freezer, so that was good thinking on your part! Even if the recipe separates, you can rebatch the soap to save that batch. I had some sodium hydroxide left over from an experiment, and decided to make lye soap with lard.
It smells like soap, but after two weeks, it is still really soft, not getting hard at all, and leaches oil into all of the cardboard changed regularly I put it on. Was the lye not strong enough? Hmm, it may be the lye. If the lye is a couple years old, or not very strong, it may not be able to turn all the oil into soap.
You may try rebatching the soap and adding equal amounts of a harder soap one with hard oils like coconut and palm. Mixing the two soaps together may create a more firm bar. I have a couple of questions. I am fairly new to soap making but I have made 5 batches already. The last one however when i was cutting the soap it started crumbling and I was not able to get even one decent bar out of it.
What could have happened? I tested the recipe in the brambleberry calculator. Soap can fall apart for a couple of reasons, including too much lye. It can also be a bit too much sodium lactate. Also, if your recipe has a lot of soft oils, it can take awhile to reach trace.
Can you tell me more about your recipe, including the oils you used and any additives like sodium lactate? Also, what type of blender are you using? I made a batch last night. I checked it when I came home from work. The soap has a layer of soda ash and on top of that are lots of drops of lye heavy water.
I leave them in the garage over night. Any thoughts as to what might have gone wrong? Canola All measurements in ounces. Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Sometimes with very thin trace, it does want to separate out on you. You can use the Hot Process Hero method to help emulsify that soap though! Hi, I made soap for the first time a few weeks ago. I followed the tea tree shampoo bar recipe. It has formed a harder creamier later on top but underneath it is still paste like and very soft with a more golden gel colour.
There are 2 distinct colours and textures… Does this mean my soap has separated and needs to be thrown away?! Thank you, Elle. We recommend leaving the soap in the mold for days, then cutting and letting curing for weeks.
That makes excess water evaporate, creating harder, milder bars that last longer in the shower. I think letting the bottom of the soap cure for another weeks will help it harden up.
That usually takes days, or up to a week or so if your recipe is on the softer side. To help your soap unmold faster, we recommend adding 1 teaspoon of sodium lactate per pound of oils to your cooled lye water. What I did wrong was that I added a few ounces of coconut milk little before finishing and put into mold.
What can I do? Can I rebatch it? Can I save it some how? That can make the soap a bit softer. Rebatching can help cook some of the excess liquid off and help harden the soap, so I would recommend giving that a try! I am having an issue with my rosemary CP soap. It smells wonderful at first, then after I use it a couple times, the smell gets odd; as if the water changes the smell, like a rancid smell. I cure it for 4- 6 weeks on a rack.
Is there anything that could cause this problem? Out of the bottle, the essential oil will smell different than after it has cured, and after it has been used a couple times. As you continue to smell the scent, it is normal to notice different notes. You can blend the essential oil if you like! That adds a different note and can help bring out different scents in the essential oil. Does it have a sharp, unpleasant smell?
That happens when the oils in your batch go rancid, or there is a lot of humidity in your environment. It may also be one of the oils in your batch. For instance, tamanu oil has a distinct earthy smell. Also, are you using any fragrance or essential oils? Hi Kelsey! The Avocado Oil Soap — Palm Free Reading your response, it made me think that this problem can me linked to the humidity… I store my soap in the basement.
I usually mix the two at F. Any other ideas? When you checked it, was there still oil on the top? It could be going rancid in the humidity. Let me know! Yes the surface of the soap is a little bit oily. Why is that? And another way or place I could store my curing soap? For the soap I did already, I guess I could just wash off its surface?
Thank you so much for your help! Separation can be caused by a number of factors, such as the time spent stick blending. Depending on the recipe, this can take as little as 30 seconds, or at least 10 minutes! Another thing that can cause separation is extreme heat. If the soap gets overheated, the oils can separate and pool on top of your soap. For the soap now, I would recommend letting it cure the full weeks.
It may help to run a fan over the soap or use a dehumidifier to try and dry the soap out. You can wipe it with a paper towel every once and awhile too. I just made a batch of soap which decided to act a bit funny. I used a pretty standard recipe I have made several times now without any problems.
The soap was going to be three different colours. I just poured the soap about an hour ago and when I look through the sides of the mold, I am noticing some oil seeping out of the soap.
I wont know what condition it is really in until I try to cut it tomorrow, but I am wondering if it will be safe to use if it had the oil seeping out of it. Some fragrances can have a slight color to them, which can affect the colors of your soap. If the fragrance has vanilla in it, it can discolor the soap brown as well.
Also, some micas can morph in cold process soap. I would recommend checking that soap tomorrow and seeing what happens. It may also help to contact the manufacturer of the colors and fragrance to see if they know more.
If the temperature of lye solution is too low, can that make the soap soft? What happens if I do not have any solid oil in my recipe? For how long can I keep my cold process in mold to harden?
Does canola oil make soft soap? As a general rule, the more soft oils in your soap, the softer it will be. Recipes with no hard oils still feel great, they will just take longer to unmold and cure. As for how long your soap stays in your mold, it depends on the recipe!
Soap made with all soft oils may need to stay in the mold for several weeks. To speed that process up, you can add 1 tsp. Hi, my soap certainly behaved badly today. I was making a Doggie Shampoo hot process soap today — made HP many times before — but the soap was ricing as it got hotter and hotter. I stirred a lot, and finally, in desperation I stick-blended that hot mess. Well that seemed to save the batch. However I have a suspicion of what may have gone wrong: the oils were app.
The recipe was Olive, Palm, Coconut plus 3 oz of Neem Oil- ran through lye calc and all seemed fine. Oh I also added Sod Lactate 1oz to the lye water.
Any suggestions what else could have been the culprit? Typically, ricing is caused by a tricky fragrance oil. Did you add any to your batch? Also, how long did you stick blend that soap before cooking it? It could be that it wanted to separate a bit. The ricing started after the mixture had reached medium trace — that was at around degrees — then, as the mix started to heat, there seemed more and more separation.
I stick blended for about 3 -4 minutes with repeated interruptions and did not see much change. I waited a bit to let it cool, added my essential oils and globbed it into the mold. Unmolded about 20 hours later — then cut and left to dry — pH 8 Now drying ok but remains rather soft. I do hope you have an answer for this strange behavior, thanks Kelsey. That way all the oils are fully blended before they start cooking. In that case, more stick blending at the beginning should help.
I make CP soap. How do I prevent that from happening again? My recipe is: 33 ounces coconut oil 9. Air bubbles can form if any extra air gets trapped in the soap. To help prevent those bubbles, pour your lye water slowly down the shaft of your stick blender. Then, tap the stick blender on the bottom of the bowl before turning it on. Then, when the soap is in the mold, tap it firmly on the counter.
That will bring those bubbles to the surface and pop them. Hi, I had a batch of soap made with a fragrance called Birthday Cake that had a high vanilla content?? It came to trace nicely and never got too thick or rice looking but it came out a dark chocolate brown all the way through. Did something go wrong or is this normal when using a fragrance high in vanilla? Also, the brown comes off on my washcloth when I use it.
Is this normal? That is normal! Fragrances with a vanilla content will discolor various shades of brown. The soap will also come off brown on wash cloths. The good news is I find it always washes off easily. However, you can embrace the brown in your design! I personally love how it looks. I made a batch of soap and my soap never got hard. It stayed like a jello texture.
You may try rebatching the soap before throwing it out.
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