Ghoulies and Ghosties

[Sponiebr]

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

 

Now, maybe I can lure and catch a long leggedy with this soap...

 

Seriously, Auntie Clara's Ghost Swirl is bloody INSPIRED! I'm going to have to play with this A LOT more. I can't wait to cut this.   

 

Honey aloe with Ginger Red Saffron FO Ghost swirl.

[Trappeur]

Pretty soap and beautiful swirls!

 

Trappeur

[Sponiebr]

45 minutes ago, Trappeur said:

Pretty soap and beautiful swirls!

 

Trappeur

Thanky! 

[Jcandleattic]

Nice

[GoldieMN]

Love it!  I give all of you who make soap credit.  Seems like there are so many variables in the process.  And to come up with something so beautiful, each "loaf" so unique, takes true talent.

Goldie

[Jcandleattic]

Just now, GoldieMN said:

Love it!  I give all of you who make soap credit.  Seems like there are so many variables in the process.  And to come up with something so beautiful, each "loaf" so unique, takes true talent.

Goldie

It's so fun and addicting though. 

[Trappeur]

1 hour ago, GoldieMN said:

Love it!  I give all of you who make soap credit.  Seems like there are so many variables in the process.  And to come up with something so beautiful, each "loaf" so unique, takes true talent.

Goldie

Me tooo!!! I once in a while look at the threads about soaping and it is so greek to me....I haven't the foggiest clue what any of the ingredients are no less understand what anyone is even talking about!  But I LOVE to look at all the gorgeous pictures and I'll order them but that is the extent of soap for me.  There sure are real artisans here on this board who design and make all these creations that is for sure.

 

Trappeur

[cindym]

Looks pretty,  we want to see it cut please

[Sponiebr]

10 hours ago, cindym said:

Looks pretty,  we want to see it cut please

Oh... No you don't... You THINK you want to see the carnage... But you don't... Trust me. (sigh) Photos to follow soon. 

 

[Sponiebr]

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... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[KrazeKelly]

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. 

[Sponiebr]

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. 

 

 

 

[KrazeKelly]

LOL!! Ok, I see! I haven't done any research about the whole ghost swirls thing. I have seen a few threads but didn't pay much attention. ? 

[Sponiebr]

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.  

[Jcandleattic]

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. 

[Sponiebr]

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? 

[KrazeKelly]

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 

[Jcandleattic]

9 hours ago, Sponiebr said:

 

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? 

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. 

[Sponiebr]

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...)
 

[Sponiebr]

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

 

[Jcandleattic]

3 minutes ago, Sponiebr said:

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) 

Yes, that is a LOT of honey, however it shouldn't effect the superfat, only how the soap itself reacts. Also, I think what Kelly meant, is not that she's suprised you didn't get a volcano in your lye solution, but in the soap itself. Honey heats up much more than milk does in a soap, even at low levels, and the amount you used, really could have erupted your soap. LOL Even when soaping cool/cold and keeping it cool during saponification, it's a super duper heater. 

33 minutes ago, Sponiebr said:

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.  

That's because of the sugar content of the honey (which you probably know already. LOL 

 

39 minutes ago, Sponiebr said:

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,

You are talking about 2 separate events, one is reaction, the other is saponification. Yes, lye will react to honey, and other additives, however, if it does not have a SAP value, or a low enough value, this will not effect your superfat. 

 

42 minutes ago, Sponiebr said:

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...

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) 

 

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. 

[KrazeKelly]

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! 

[Sponiebr]

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

[Sponiebr]

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. 

[Sponiebr]

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...