Sponiebr

8 hours ago, Gsmakinsoap said:

I was just looking at that particular advice! So, was it just too much water that ended up being a soup you had to take 7 hours to bake? Would it have worked with less water?

 

There was a plethora of missteps and inexperience that led to the 7 hour crucible affair. 

1. MANY different interpretations on HOW to rebatch soap.

The majority seem to like: 1. Grate the soap finely. 2. Only a couple of Tblsps of water or other liquid. 3. Cook to varying degrees of either gel like Vaseline or mashed potatoes.   

2. I used a method that called for 1 c of liquid per pound, (That's a bit more than a couple of tblsps), and then let the stuff "soak" overnight to get a very smooth mixture. And it DID do a pretty good job of getting everybody in chopped up soap world involved with each other.

3. Temperature. I followed some suggestions that I just put the cooker on low and leave it be for a couple of hours. Well, it got things moving in the right direction and caused it to smooth together well enough but I was getting that separation when I stirred it. So after about 4 hours of this I cranked up the heat to high. Things changed, but it wasn't doing what I had understood rebatched soap should do, namely turn into mashed potatoes. DAMMIT I'M HUNGRY and I haven't got the time for this! (wait... It's NOT mashed potatoes?) That honey stuff? I tasted it, It was VERY MUCH SOAP.  So I'm wondering what the hell am I supposed to do, and out came the stick blender, which caused ALL SORTS of bubbles to form even when there wasn't any air trapped down in the end of the blender. It also eventually snagged the plastic cooking bag I had lined the crock pot with, and well, the bag left the party soon after that. 

So, I've SB'd the mess and it still reverted back to the honey on the bottom and the mashed potatoes on top. Now I'm analyzing this issue. I'm also waiting to hear back from all y'all on what scorched soap looks like. I'm seeing steam coming off the pot too... Hum... So I left it alone for a few minutes and went back to stir it. The batch had improved with less of the honey stuff. AH HA!!! WATER! THAT'S the problem. So I keep this reduction process going and eventually I'm getting little brown globs here and there of gelatinous brown stuff coming off the sides of the crock in the hot zones (burnt soap? I couldn't tell ya)... I stir more frequently. I try molding a few individual cup molds to see what it does and finally it all seems to be behaving sorta well. So after 7 hours I pull  the plug and into the loaf mold it glops. The consistency was like heavy mashed potatoes.  I'll probably get to cut that loaf tomorrow after Church. 

Rebatching is a little problematic for me as I don't have regular access to a crock pot, and I have NO access to a stove. I have a microwave oven, a convection oven, and an electric skillet. I guess I could get a can of sterno to cook the stuff in but that seems kinda nuts. 

So to answer your question gsmakinsoap, I have NO idea, but I wouldn't try that over night "soak" in tons of liquid again, at least not without fully accepting that what I was endeavoring to do was likely NOT going to work the way that I was looking for it to work.  The method worked, but not like I thought it was going to work. Also 200 F for a couple of hours seems a tad light on time to me. But... I didn't put mine in an oven. I dunno... I just don't know... 

20 minutes ago, KrazeKelly said:

 

Thanks!! No, this one is unscented and yes, it's 100% olive oil but I used coconut milk for the majority of my water. My last Castile cured for a year and it was not slimy to me. ?

What do you SF at Kelly? 

3 hours ago, TallTayl said:

Sounds like your soap is very, very dry in the crock pot. You want to heat gently and keep covered to prevent too much water loss. Often I add a bit more liquid (coconut milk for instance) too keep it from getting too dry. A sealed bag, like those used to boil meals, works well in a pot of hot water too. 

 

 

I tried the plastic bag in the crock pot and well when a stick blender got involved things devolved rapidly. The batch was definitely wet.  That honey like fluid eventually disappeared and the batch got to that mashed potatoes stage but not until a lot of the water had cooked off. I followed something that I had seen on SoapQueen where one adds 1 cup of liquid per pound and lets it sit over night. THen you bake it for a few hours at 200F. Yeah. Not happening again. It took me almost 7 hours to rebatch that soap.  

2 hours ago, Jcandleattic said:

I figured something like that might happen, so I was happy to be able to find the plain white kind. Works perfect. I love it. 

Yep! And those signs make really nice dividers for doing sectional pours  with swirls and such. 

On 10/13/2016 at 7:12 PM, WanderlustSoaps said:

Sorry all, we had a bit of a storm blow in, some of you may have heard of it, they even named it... Matthew, and so I didnt get around to fiddling with this press, but I still intend on it, it may just have to wait another week or so.  Ill post here when I get around to it.

Just a note about pressing aggregated materials, incremental pressing works much better than bulk pressing for consistency, but I can't really see how to do incremental pressing on a sphere. If I had to take a solid guess I would think that the die would have to be a sort of pill shape, and then pressed until the middle of the pill disappeared into the equator... interesting. 

So, I've been doing some in depth web poking and I can't seem to find ANYTHING as to what scorched soap looks like. I'm attempting to rebatch those Red Ginger and Saffron ghost swirl batches in a crock pot but I really have no idea what I'm looking at. I keep getting a dark honey colored liquid at the bottom of the crock with very pretty creamy soap looking stuff on top. When I stir it together it looks riced. 

Thorts?

Sponie "We bring bad ideas to life." 

On 10/19/2016 at 9:29 AM, TallTayl said:

Since get the witch hazel, alcohol free, from essential wholesale  

 

like Shari I avoid coconut and try to avoid comedogenic oils in facial soap.

 

Hope you love using BOTH of them! You're really coming along with your soap making.

Weeeeaaaalll.... TT has a point about comedogenic fats... But, (oh there is a but, there is always a but) generally speaking these oils are only comedone forming when used as a stand alone oil or as an emollient and these fats do not cause zits when turned into CP soap. Most of the problems in using CO in facial soaps is that even when superfated to 20% it is extremely drying to the skin. Having said that, these oils CAN be comedone forming when used as a "specific" and high super fat in a HP soap. I think the upshot of what I'm getting at is don't sweat comedone ratings for oils that you are intending to use in soap making just yet. I'm only talking about soap here and not any of the other B&B schtuffs. You know then there is the whole everybody's different thing where "X" causes acne in Subject 0 but does not affect Mr. Dude, and what affects Mr. Dude does nothing to Subject 0. Your mileage WILL vary.  

On 10/19/2016 at 2:34 PM, WanderlustSoaps said:

 

Thank You for the kind comments, the CO was a concern for me but I was using it to try and offset some of the softer oils, I needed hardness and bubbly lather, have not found a good substitute yet, but I am working on it.

 

 

I could not source alcohol free locally but I wanted to incorporate it so I was able to find a low alcohol version at an apothocary store nearby that is only 4% alcohol, still a pain to work with but I think it was a combination of all three the witch hazel, charcoal, and salt.  Ill report in a month how they do it application, but man, Im itchin to try them out, I think my lack of patience will be the real test of me succeeding as a soaper or not lol.

 

I had to google what a comedogenic oil was, now I know and will add that to my arsenal of things to look for when creating facial bars.  So much to learn about this "hobby".

Just for your future reference (way down the line future reference bubba...) here's a site I use to look up comedone ratings for oils. https://www.beneficialbotanicals.com/facts-figures/comedogenic-rating.html

Interestingly enough, it seems that any oil which would normally lend itself to being an excellent emollient becomes very drying when turned into a soap. CO is so very frequently used in B&B products as an emollient as is shea butter, but when either of these is turned into a soap they are very aggressive soaps and generally very drying to the skin. 

Well, back to my bad idea management... -Sponie 

16 hours ago, Candybee said:

 

You must be my twin! I did the same thing. Learned from Millers and used AJ's basic lard soap recipe to start out.

 

Also my first year I just made basic soap and didn't spend a whole lot on exotic oil, ingredients, additives, molds, equipment, etc. As my soaping skills improved and I needed to make soap faster I started buying professional molds and equipment and buying in larger bulk quatities. Also, as the years go buy I continue to learn to stick to basic recipes. For me, less is more and this equates to fewer oils in my basic bath soaps. I keep narrowing down the list of oils I use and only buy other oils I need for my specialty soaps.

 

 

Oh Kathy's BRILLIANT! I still go to her site from time to time. That was the first place that my soap dealer (I mean my (cough) friend who makes soap...) sent me to learn more "modern" methods of soap making.  

13 hours ago, WanderlustSoaps said:

If you haven't check out Kathy Miller's soap page it is a gold mine of information. http://www.millersoap.com/

On 10/18/2016 at 6:42 PM, WanderlustSoaps said:

First batch should have been simple it was to be a test of what I was hoping (and might still hope, we'll see) to be my base recipe and then for a challenge I was also going to attempt an acne-ish soap for my daughter that has both witch hazel and activated charcoal. 

We've been over this already. Alcohol BAD! Alcohol make BAD PITA mess. Alcohol belongs in soap maker not soap making.   

Quote

  On the first batch I dont know what was going on, I guess my head was just not in a happy place and what I intended to do was soap at near room temperature, an nice cool ~70F. Got all my oils mixed and let them cool on the counter.  Got my lye into the water and was amazed when after two minutes the thermometer said it was down to 70, the

 

70F should be decidedly cool. I would be surprised if your CO and Soy Shortening would stay clear at that temperature to be honest. The CO alone has a melting point of 76F. When I was using Criso I was in the 112F range. to get everything nice and melted. I generally like to keep it below 100F if I can, but I'll be honest, I haven't used a thermometer on a batch of soap in probably 2 years.   
 

glass bowl still felt warm but I figured it was glass and had just trapped some heat and would cool as well.

 

Stahp! Hold it! You're mixing your lye in a glass container? Ok, now I know some will disagree with me, but I was taught, and have heard it from other sources as well that it was bad mojo to mix lye in a glass container (even Pyrex). I was implicitly told to get a cheap clear polyethylene pitcher (that's the soft waxy plastic stuff that feels like a milk jug but heavier) and mix my lye in that. Apparently lye will cause little micro cracks in glass and might eventually fail on you. The worst that a poly pitcher will do is melt on you, and it won't do that because the water will boil out in an eruption before the plastic melts.  I'm not saying at all that you can't mix your soap in an oven safe glass bowl, just not the lye solution.  

 

I sure as hello wasnt gonna stick a finger into the solution to verify the temp but let it go. Did you now? You just skipped the whole finger test in the near boiling caustic eat the end off your digit solution? No merit badge for you!  

Then I checked the oils temp and they were way low, didnt know what was going on, maybe the ac had kicked on and them being near the vent they cooled some, so quick trip to the nuker I just LOVE those things and how conveniently they warm up my oils!  and they were back up to the same temp as the lye solution, cool, lets do this.

 

  And here the fail shows itself, almost as soon as the lye solution hit the oils it came to a light trace, quickly I added 0.5oz fragrance oil (low for 2.5ish pounds of soap but it was just for experimentations sake) and then mixed with a spatula to make sure it was incorporated.  Just in case I hit it with the stick blender two or three times for about 3 seconds and wow, (Stick blender!? WOW IS RIGHT!!! Man I feel my pulse racing just reading about YOU doing this! How EXCITING!!! Generally speaking if your soap is kicking a stick blender is going to make the situation worse, (there are exceptions).

now I have thick pudding, crap lets get this to the mold.  Ok got it in the mold, tapped it on the counter a lot, I think I got the air out, smoothed the top down and put a nice design in it, ok good to go, now into the oven that was cool and only had a light on for the last ten minutes. 

 

Twenty minutes in the oven with the light on (sitting at around 85F) and the top develops what looks like wax with a giant crack down the middle, Yep full on gel phase! That waxy looking stuff? If it is white is soda ash and if it is translucent is just the gel phase. It looks just like Vaseline  the center and all the way up to the top 1/4 inch is in full blown gel phase.  Stupid me thinks maybe I can mix the waxy looking layer back into the gell and it will all be ok, hahahaha frell no that didnt work. This is gold  So ok, I have seen this HP a couple hundred hours or so on youtube, guess we can try to rebatch / HP some CP soap that is going into a satanic hellish gel phase.  So I scooped it all out of my mold and into a stainless steel pot (thank you emiril legassi for making good stuff) added a little water and whipped the crap out of it, ended up adding a touch of oil and continuing to whip.  After 15 minutes or so it all looked nice and uniform again and did not look like it was gellin any longer, molded it and cut it the next day.  After 24 hours it was still pretty soft but I cut it anyway, after another 24 hours on a drying rack it still feels about like modeling clay, I hope it sets but if not, chalk it up to other lessons learned.  Gel phase freaked me out too. It CAN become problematic BUT it isn't necessarily a bad thing at all. A fully gelled soap is harder, and colors are brighter, and (at least for me) it's good to go as soon as you cut it.  If I had to guess, I'd say that the alcohol in your witch hazel probably contributed to it going into gel, those high temperatures tho... Yeah. Another thing is that crack unless it splits more than maybe 1/4 inch deep will pretty much close back up as the soap cools back down. You'll have most likely noticed a hump forming around that crack? That hump will usually shrink back down again. That crack is actually cooling the soap down so that it doesn't volcano on you. 

Maybe next time, just let it do it's thing and see what happens? I'm willing to bet you'd get a pretty darn nice batch if all it did was go through gel. 
 

  Oh speaking of lessons learned, any idea what happened... You guessed it, Im an idiot (nope you're not! It just happens sometimes. Idiots don't make soap, they make trips to the ER.) and was looking at the C side of the thermo not the F side so instead of soaping at the 70 I was thinking I was actually going at the 150ish range. (ouch!)  Lets not try to recreate this.  So unfortunately I didnt get any pics when I was freaking out and trying to save my soap, however here is the pics I took once it was cut.

 

Ken

Cool post man! I was in your shoes not very long ago... Actually... Thinking of the Ghost swirl, I'm still wearing those shoes pretty regularly. 

Welcome Lora! I make soap but I find it fascinating to read all of the candle makers posts in numbers and all of this talk about throwing stuff... it's just AWESOME!!!   

There's a ton of really in depth info on these boards and a lot of sincerely helpful and talented people. Glad to have ya! 

Slainte,

Sponie the Executor of Bad Ideas

Amen! Oh this is GOOD STUFF!!! Yeah Candle Science had a $.99 1 oz sample sale and I bought 26 flip'n FO's. (Most of which I have been extremely happy with) It has given me a variety of FO'S that I can mix if I want and didn't break the bank. 

Anyway... MOLDS: So I made one of those hinged adjustable molds where the 2 long sides fold down and the ends are held together with a single carriage bolt and wing nut on the ends. My end pieces are just blocks of wood cut and finished to the width and height of the inside dimensions of the mold. When I line this mold with freezer paper all I do is take out the end pieces and lay down the freezer paper across the open mold (sides laying down) I tape the paper to the outside long edges and then fold them up applying a crease as I flip up the sides. At this point I have a perfectly taught and neat freezer paper lined channel. I then wrap the ends like little presents making sure all the seams and taping is on only one side of the block. Then I just drop those little wrapped ends down into the mold at the length I want them set at and tighten up the end bolts. I get very, very little leaks at the very ends and not for nothing, but I really don't even have to re-wrap the end pieces every time, as long as they come out in clean and undamaged condition I just used them again in the same end and same orientation(the little soap seepage has made a gasket for me).

And yeah... Just some basic oils. That Great Value Shortening really is some of the most awesome and cheapest soaping fat on the planet.

Chefmom, I dunno about the single oil thing... All of my soaps in the beginning (my recent beginning) were single oil soaps. Truth be told, I had never even considered olive oil for making soap until I think it was earlier this year.  I just could not fathom using something so dear as olive oil for soap making. When I tell you I grew up in the middle of nowhere I'm not joking, I had never even tasted OO until I was a Junior in college. Soaping fat for me growing up was usually whatever the butcher would give me in a sack and I had to wet render it outside in Florida summer heat over a Coleman dual fuel camp stove set down on a wooded cable spoon that was set amid the chicken coops, burn barrel, compost bin, and the ash leaching crib made from half a plastic 55 gal drum (I hated that damned thing). Sometimes I'd get a treat and mom would buy a bucket of Armour Lard and a can of Red Devil Lye (we eventually used both of these exclusively, much to my relief).  My aversion to the smell of lard and lard based soaps stems directly from my childhood, and yet there is NOTHING that smells more like soap or "clean" to me than lard based soap... Oh and we never had a soap mold, not once, not ever. I used the largest pyrex rectangular baking "pans" we had and lined them with black visqueen or a black trash bag.

I have dedicated molds, and I buy, (in a STORE) my fats and lye for making soap now... Life is SO much easier. 

Cheers,

Sponie the (meh you KNOW, you know...) 

3 hours ago, WanderlustSoaps said:

I still have quite a bit of wood lying around and was wondering if anyone has wooden soap cutters and if they would be willing to take some pictures for me so I can maybe get some design ideas.  Thinking of probably going with wire cutters as there is a nice guitar store nearby and I can pick up some tensioners there.  Let me see what yall got please, if I do get to make one Ill try and take pics along the way to make a tutorial.  Thanks all.

 

Ken

For what it's worth I use #08 stainless steel leader wire, (Tooth Proof by American Fishing Wire @ Walmart) because it's ~$2 for 30 feet in my beveler. It's rated at 86#'s... I don't have a gang cutter yet though.  Also tuning machines can be pretty pricey, Stewart MacDonald has a couple of good deals right now: http://www.stewmac.com/Hardware_and_Parts/Tuning_Machines/Solid_Peghead_Guitar_Tuning_Machines/Economy_Covered_Gear_6-In-Line_Tuners.html  

Cheers,

Sponie  The Executor  of, (ya know, just watch from a distance... preferably behind a blast shield. I'm just say'n... ) 

2 hours ago, WanderlustSoaps said:

 

Sponie, Thanks for the kind words, for my first "artistic bars" I am pretty happy.  I love the anti-embossed top and will play with that more.  I am worried about both the things you brought up, I tried to do plenty of research first but in a month I will know for sure.  I knew the witch hazel would speed trace but damn it was fast, I got the blender out in time but by the end of the "pour" I was definitely scooping it out.  The charcoal seems on par with the dozen or so other recipes I found, this batch was about 2.5 lbs total weight.

 

YEah the charcoal, isn't going to hurt anything it just might stain a washcloth or some grouting if there is too much. For what it's worth I've put a TBLSP of bronze mica in a batch (normal dark coloring would be around 1/4 tsp.) and the soap turned out usable. It was really just a note for your future reference to maybe help save you a little product. 

The TRACE though... Oh boy. Sounds like you had a NPE... (near pinetar experience) NPE's are never a pleasant thing to have lived through. I feel your pain man... I was wondering what the little white flecks were, and now we know how they happened  

I don't know this for a fact, because I haven't tried it or actually ever hear of anyone trying it, but if you can find hamamelis virginiana (witch hazel) bark and twigs either from a herbal supply or in your woods, you could brew your own and use that without the alcohol and see if that behaves more reasonably. Alternatively you might be able to find a concentrated tincture of witch hazel and add that to your soap. Some companies that offer alcohol based tinctures and extracts also offer some in a glycerin base for children and hepatically compromised users. When I was over in East Europe witch hazel could be bought in little compressed wafers that looked like Pu-Ehr tea cakes to add to a sitz bath, but there was NO WHERE that you could find a witch hazel tonic like we have here in the States. You can get the dried bark and leaf from Mountain Rose Herbs (I just LOVE those guys, even if they are a tad pricey! ) https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/search?page=1&q=witch&utf8=✓   You can also get alcohol free witch hazel products already prepared, Thayers makes several https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/thayers-alcohol-free-witch-hazel-with-organic-aloe-vera-formula-toner-lavender/ID=prod6161180-product   

Anyway dude awesome job, sounds like an awesome save as well! Keep on do'n yer thang! 

Slainte,

Sponie the Executor of Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ideas and Sundry Services. 

Those are nice looking bars! My only thoughts would be to be careful about the witch hazel, because alcohol can accelerate the trace and give you a bad case of soap on a stick blender.  I don't know how big your batch was but I think you'll find that just a smidge of charcoal (powdered) will carry you a very LONG way. You don't want the charcoal to end up coming out in the lather. If the charcoal bar ends up being too drying for you, you might dial back the coconut oil and bump up the olive oil, maybe something more in line with your basic formula. Looks really good though dude! 

That Red Ginger and Saffron (the top 2 photos) gave me similar results as last time. I tasted the exudate and it's the FO. I'll try another batch with a known well behaved FO and see what happens. 

I guess I'm gonna be rebatching some soap. (HIGHLY irritated, nay, not irritated, I'm PISSED OFF...) 

2nd attempt at the Honey Aloe Ghost Swirl. I cut the honey WAY back from the 25g PPO to 10g PPO and I actually mixed the honey in with the fat instead of "cooking" it in the lye water before hand. The second set is some CO & lard 60/40 with 5% SF and Florida Water FO (Save on Scents) made with a drop-pour ghost swirl.  I made this log up for that Church in West Palm Beach asking for soap donations to send to Haiti. Slainte!

P.S.: I can STILL smell the lard. I can always smell the lard. This batch wasn't nearly as disagreeable to me nose as normal though... 

I soap so my choices are a little more limited, BUT... These are the ones I have to have on hand: 

Pomegranate Cider

Red Current 

Jamaica Me Crazy

Cucumber Mint

Himalayan Bamboo

Citron and Mandarin

Ginger and Red Saffron

I also really like:

Pumpkin Pie

Snickerdoodle 

Black Sea

Strawberry Shortcake

Ocean Breeze

Coconut

Pine Cone

Blue Spruce

Mistletoe

Frasier Fir

Sea Mist

Vetiver (This one may end up in my stock list)

Mediterranean Fig

Fig and Brown Sugar

Holly Berry

Juniper Breeze

Christmas Tree

I love the smell of Christmas Hearth, but I can't use it in soap... (Which SUCKS) 

Their Plumeria and Bayberry are nice as well... 

4 hours ago, KrazeKelly said:

I think you are making things way to difficult for yourself. LOL or maybe it's too early and I should wake up first before reading all that! ? Ha! 

No... You got it right... I do that kinda regularly, really. 

4 hours ago, Jcandleattic said:

 

Again, yes, the sugars react. Even water and lye have a reaction. Reacted lye is not the same thing as less lye, you still have the same amount of lye in your solution, and unless it has saponified some of what you added into your solution (such as the fats in milk) then your lye solution will not be weakened, so it will not up your superfat. 

Lye doesn't care what it saponifies. If there is an SAP and lye mixture, it will just do it's thing, regardless of when the oils were added. The only time I think this is not true, is in cases of HP when you add your oils in after the cook (essentially, after saponification has taken place) 

OOOOOOH!!!!! Ok! I thought that lye might work kind of like an acid where it eventually works itself to death. Your comment about water and lye having a reaction drives this point home. Water and lye DO get hot and we make soap from that... So the sugars are using up VERY, VERY, little of the lye. 

4 hours ago, Jcandleattic said:

I hope I'm making sense. I know I'm not as technical as someone like TallTayl, I talk in laymen's terms. It's easier for me. 

It all makes SENSE NOW!!!! I can see it all so clearly now... (crap... this looks exactly like the same place I was before I read this. Yep I'm still in my room...) 

Slainte, 

Sponie

6 minutes ago, Jcandleattic said:

I agree with Kelly, adding additives does not activate the lye unless it has a SAP value, and can saponify - and will not effect your SF unless there are fats in it (such as goat's milk) but even then, it is such a small amount it still will not matter much to the SF. 

I also agree that it doesn't matter in which order, or which oil you try to super fat with (in CP - HP is a different story if added after the cook) because the lye is going to react with whichever oil it gets too. There is no certain one you can be sure is going to remain after saponification is complete. 

 

And yes, honey will heat up soap in a New York Minute! LOL It is what I call a super heater, and when I use it in my oats, goats, and bees (my honey, oatmeal, & goats milk soap) I never insulate, soap as cool as I can and try to shove that sucker in the freezer as soon as it's in the mold, and I still sometimes get a partial gel. 

Another thought just occurred to me... At LOW levels of additives this is a non issue. 1 Tsp of honey PPO or something like that, not an issue. I'm at almost 1 oz PPO of honey though... THAT'S A LOT. This ghost swirl was an experiment, and I knew going in that I might lose the batch just because it was completely dark territory for me... Oh... but the REALITY of losing a batch is so PAINFUL, I can't have this happen again!!!  I MUST KNOW how to stop this evil from happening!!!! 

(yeah) 

Jcandleattic I'm totally feel'n you on the freezer thing. I do the same thing with my OHM soap. I react the milk and the honey before hand, and then re-chill the solution and I soap as cold as I can get everything and I even chill my wood box that holds my silicone mold. As soon as it's poured it goes into the freezer. I use a cookie sheet under the box so I can move it quickly and keep it all level. Then I freeze it solid, and after that it goes into the fridge to defrost and then finally out to room temp. This takes almost 2 days BUT, when I do it that way, not a trace of gel happens, and I get a beautiful light colored OHM soap. I haven't made a batch in my big loaf mold yet because I don't have a freezer big enough to accommodate the mold, which really sucks because that's the ONE soap people keep asking me for. 

Maybe I'll find me a freezer on the side of the road and gut it and wrap the guts around a soap mold and have me a cryo-saponification unit. LOL! ( I totally WOULD do something like that...)  

-Sponie the Executor of Bad Ideas

6 hours ago, KrazeKelly said:

I'm no expert by any means but you are not completely activating the lye just by using additives. You won't get full activation or saponification until you add the rest of your oils and butters. I think you basically burned your honey by adding full strength lye to it since honey is a sugar and lye reacts to fats. I'm really surprised it didn't volcano but since it was frozen in aloe juice that may have helped it. I also think it makes no difference on the SF. I believe it will remain the same no matter what order you add your ingredients. I could completely be wrong though. Lol 

You bring up a REALLY important point Kelly. WHEN I add in stuff that's going to heat up, (actually strike that)... I ALWAYS start with ice cold lye water before I go to any other steps.

If I had added honey to hot or (maybe even room temp) lye water, I'm certain it would have volcanoed out of my lye pitcher.   I always start as cold as I can with everything and that allows me to manipulate the heat to what "I" decide it will be instead of my soap deciding what "I" will have to deal with. It's a small thing but REALLY important when dealing with super heating ingredients. Even when I just add* honey* to the nearly frozen lye water it gets incredibly hot. 

I have burnt honey before (I didn't with this batch) and let me tell you, it smells BURNT, oh, and it's almost black. Burnt honey has a very caramelized look and smell to it.  

The ice cube liquid content thing works well with liquid milk soaps as well. 

As far as things staying the same across the board with regards to additives, the lye has to be using up some of it's "lyeness" or else nothing would happen at all. I guess the real question is how much of the lye is getting used up in these separated event reactions like adding the milk and honey into the lye BEFORE adding the lye solution to the fats, AND is there an order of precedence as to reactions for the lye when you just dump it all together unreacted. I'd have to think that because sugars heat up soaps so quickly and that CP soaps take at least 24 hours to saponify that the sugars react before the fats  in a combined ingredients reaction. Reacted lye is the same thing as less lye and that would be the same thing as a lye discount... Again the issue would have to be how much are we actually losing? If it bumps up my SF by a couple of percents, no biggy, but if it's a big jump and I've already calulated in 10%SF and I actually end up with 18%> (or whatever) that's a problem. There also might be some tweak like water discounting that might speed up the saponification to meet with the sugar lye reaction speed...

I dunno...   

(*I swear I just typed ass hiney. I'm so frigg'n tired...)
 

14 hours ago, Jcandleattic said:

No need to cook to get definitions in color for ghost swirls. It helps, but there is no need. Especially with honey soaps. Honey is a super heater, and with that much, it will gel. The only thing CPOP does is ensure the soaps go through gel phase. Those soaps look like they overheated, then separated a bit, which is why it squished when you cut. 

So honey will heat up your soap even after you have reacted it with the lye before hand? Which brings up another question, that if I'm burning up lye with additives should I reduce my SF% to compensate for the lye lost in the additives reactions?  If so, then by how much? 

My Gawd Kelly! LOOK AT THIS STUFF!!!! It's BLEEDING OUT ALL OVER THE PLACE!!!! What THE HELL!!!!?

It's NOT a Ghost Swirl, it's a ZOMBIE fart.  

56 minutes ago, KrazeKelly said:

My first thought is way too much honey and my 2nd thought is, why would you cook it? Ha! I would think with that much honey it would gel all on it own. I normally use 1 tsp honey per lb and I don't use it as part of my oils or water. I just warm it in the microwave with a tiny bit of water to thin it down and mix with my weighed oils and butters before I add the lye. I also never mix my lye with anything but water unless I'm making a full goats milk soap. I use just enough water to dissolve the lye and the rest of my water amount is normally milks or other juices mixed directly into the oils. 

Yeah the honey is rather high, but, (and I DON'T understand this) it's very popular with the crazy amount of honey. 

Why would I cook it? It's a ghost swirl it needs to go through gel to get the differentiations in tint. The way I make honey, and milk, and anything that will burn is to get it and the lye together  so they can get their naughty business on in private and be all chilled for the main event. I'm proactive like that. My OHM soap doesn't get hot at all when I make it, it just barely sits there all luke warm. 

 I dunno, maybe it was too much honey... maybe when I use additives that burn up lye I need to knock down the superfat to compensate. You know this stuff reminds me of a re-hydrated shrinky-dink, cold and wet. 

Okay. Here's the carnage: The little individual molds got a ghost swirl in them too, but they were left at room temp so i could see what would be the difference between the CPOP and the regular CP. Here's what I've got in this mess.:

Water replaced 100% with Aloe Vera Juice. 

Honey 50g. (It's about 1 oz PPO.---ish)

1.5 tsp Ginger and Red Saffron FO from CS. 

Over all batch was 52 oz at initial mix and 54 oz at final cast. 

Aloe vera juice and honey mixed together and then frozen into cubes. Then I added the lye to the mix and chilled it all back down and strained it for good measure. 

The formula for the soap is my standard:

40% GV Shortening

35% OO 

20% CO

5%   Castor

Ghost swirl water discounts:

66% of the batch was made at 33% water to oils. 33% was made at 38% water to oils. 

I made up the entire batch at 33% water to oils and then I took 33% of the batter and mixed in my 50 g distilled water to get the 38% water to oil for the center pour.  

The 38% is the center or dark swirls and it's what's giving me the most trouble. There is this weird red brown ooze coming out of the soap (It SQUISHED OUT WHEN I CUT IT!!! IT FRIGG'N SQUISHED WHEN I CUT IT!!!!!) There's also these weird little conchoidal fractures of the low water soap... 

I cooked it for about 1.5 hrs at around 140-ish F. Then I took it out and let it set on the counter at room temp until the next day. I also cast the loaf in a silicone mold. 

OVERALL softish soap: The room temp stuff is VERY soft (like a little harder than cold shortening), and the CPOP is harder (more like a soap) but more "squishy" (there's that word again) in the high % water. There is no zap, and the lather is a weak "meh". Hand feel is very emollient rich. I'm wondering if I "burnt up" all of my lye in the honey and aloe juice. Anyone know what might have happened?  

Here are the photos: (viewer discretion is advised) 

The goo at the bottom of the purple mold...