cbSoapworks

GUYS! y'all were 100% right. I can't believe what I'm about to tell everyone but I messed up.... Big time and its so stupid. I guess when I was ordering my Lye, I didn't pay attention and I actually ordered Potassium Hydroxide Flakes instead of Sodium Hydroxide Flakes. They come in the exact same containers and I just never took the time to read the container. I feel like a moron. But you live and you learn. Took me over 384oz of failed soap and this post before it was figured out and Y'all helped massively by making me check all components of my cook. Thank You so much

The lye is from the same company. But they are smaller containers and I've opened two containers fresh broken seals for the cooks that went bad. As far as the super fat, Im not adding anything to the cook afterwards except the fragrance. But by the looks of it being SOOOOO oily it may just be an accumulation of weak lye, too much of a super fat to begin with and additional fragrance. I have tried two different fragrances one was thicker then the other. But both had the same reaction.

Yes, Ive always used 10% Castor Oil for the previous bars. The lye is also Crafters Choice. Every oil is separate and mixed fresh every time. Sorry, I uploaded the wrong recipe... Its 10% castor. Ill correct that

Hello there fellow soap makers!Im brand new to this forum and hope to gain some knowledge and share some knowledge.Ive been making hot process soap for about six months. Learned a lot, started making money out of a hobby. Ive had hundreds of successful bars with different recipes since Ive started. But as luck would have it, Ive stumped myself and for the life of me cannot figure out what is going wrong with my most recent batches.First off, Ive been using this exact recipe for many many batches now. Ive done all my cleaning and prep work the same way every time since I started making soap. Ive been using Crafters Choice raw materials since I started. My first few batch was made with Walmart Shorting which contains Tallow. The following batches were made without, replacing the shortening ingredient with a vegan option.Attached are the recipes Ive been using for both style soaps (Vegan and NON vegan) In PDF form.Also Attached are pictures of finished bars as well as the problem batches.To rule out the major stuff, Ive used two different scales side by side and both were accurate with the readings. I measure all ingredients using Grams btw. Simply, the only difference between recent successful batches and the new batches were the raw ingredients.... with all my successful batches I used 8lb tubs of raw material and gallon containers of oils. For cost savings, I recently bumped up to the 28lb containers of raw materials. Since I received these materials, Ive been unsuccessful with 5 different cooks.Every batch comes out super oily and will never harden...... EVER. weeks and weeks and weeks laterWhich would make me think improper Lye or too much oil. So, batch after batch, double and triple checking all ingredients with different scales.... Ive had this problem over and over.My final suspicion was bad Palm oil. The 8lb container was smooth and thick and creamy... this 28lb container was more gritty, yellow, oily and just didn't match prior supplies of palm oil. I melted down the entire 28lb container to a liquid, mixed really well and broke down into smaller containers for ease of use, thinking the stearic acid separated from the palm oil. After this was done.... I had the same problem. So after the multiple fails with this bad palm theory, I took out the palm and went back to the shortening.... SAME PROBLEM! so that rules out bad palm oil? What else could it be?Im at a complete loss with what my issues are... Ive used soapcalc since day one and it was never wrong before... Please see attached pictures and let me know what y'all think my problem is.Ive lost a decent amount of money on lost sales and garbage product and want to me able to fulfill orders as soon as possible. Thank Y'all so much in advance.