bad news soap blues

[Jeana]

I guess it was bound to happen sometime, I got my first bad batch of soap. I don't know what went wrong, and what to do with it now. I have heard that there aren't many things that can't be corrected with rebatching. I hope this is the case with this one.

In case anyone could tell me what went wrong I'll give the recipe as well as the picture of the poor hideous results.

first the recipe -

castor 6oz

cocoa butter 2oz

palm 6oz

jojoba 2oz

olive 11oz

palm kernel 7oz

sunflower 8oz

5.2 goats milk

9.8 water

5.4 lye

I had the water and milk together and slowly add the lye as it sat in an ice bowl at about 100 or 110 I put it in with oils. I added rose clay and jasmine/ylang ylang fo and eo. everything looked find going in and seemed to be gelling fine. By morning it was very oily. I gave it an extra 12 or so hours in the mold. Cut it today and discovered it didn't turn out.

For some reason I can't upload the picture, it says it is too big. So I will tell you what it is like. It is oily and if you squeeze it oil oozes out.

I tested it to see if it lathers and it is fine with that.

This is my first attempt with using any kinds of milk. I'm open to solutions and critical reviews. Thanks

[Jcandleattic]

Is the oil that oozes out lye? If not, and it's just oil, then it may just need some more cure time and will probably just absorb back in and be fine. If it's lye however, you may want to either rebatch, make laundry soap, or pitch it.

HTH

[Jeana]

I don't think it is lye because I tried it - see if it would lather - and it didn't bother my hands or make them feel rough. How can I tell for sure? If I let it cure longer do I cut it. Should I wait the entire 4 weeks to see if the oil reabsorbs? And should I just rebatch it anyway?

[Jcandleattic]

I don't think it is lye because I tried it - see if it would lather - and it didn't bother my hands or make them feel rough. How can I tell for sure? If I let it cure longer do I cut it. Should I wait the entire 4 weeks to see if the oil reabsorbs? And should I just rebatch it anyway?

I would probably wait a day or 2 to cut it. One way to test for lye is to do the tongue test. Actually "taste" the soap, and if it zaps your tongue then you have a lye heavy soap. If not, it probably is just oils and if you have enough lye in there, it should all absorb back in over time and be fine..

I can't help you with any advice on rebatching, as I've only done it once, and it was a disaster!! lol

[Jeana]

ya, I'm not good at rebatching either, I don't even like it. But if it saves the day I'll do it. Ok I tasted it, Yuck! I didn't get a zap at all,but I did get some very strong fragrance. I'll cut in a couple days.

[Rebecca_IA]

The only rebatch I ever did successfully was when I shredded the soap, sprinkled the top with coconut milk and let it sit over night. Then put it in the oven and let it melt slowly all day long, stirring as needed very carefully. All others, they were flops. The amount of coconut milk to add depends on how fresh the soap is and how much of a discount you took.

[eugenia]

ya, I'm not good at rebatching either, I don't even like it. But if it saves the day I'll do it. Ok I tasted it, Yuck! I didn't get a zap at all,but I did get some very strong fragrance. I'll cut in a couple days.

Jeana, I ran the recipe through soap calc and MMS and you're a hair short in lye for both, MMS says 5.51, soap calc 5.53. I'm not sure if that tiny amount would make a difference. Perhaps your FO was not sufficiently mixed. Who knows? These things happen.

I've been very successful in rebatching. Even batches that were horrible rebatched just fine. I like the crockpot on low, or the microwave with 5 minutes at a time until melted. Whatever you do, do not add any additional fluids.

e

[Meridith]

Eugenia,

If you rebatch a batch of soap that is short on lye such as Jeana's, would you at that time of rebatch make up the lye difference? Or just leave it alone and go ahead with the rebatch adding nothing else? Would leaving it alone result in a superfatted soap? And could that minute amount of lye that is left out really make that much of a difference?

Jeana - Sorry to hijack this thread but this just got me to thinking and wondering about this.

[Rebecca_IA]

The amount of lye in this recipe puts it at roughly a 6% excess fat range, which is very acceptable for soap, I would not add a smidge more of lye when rebatching, because it would be such a small amount that you would never get it right, unless you've got an excellent scale that measures at very small amounts.

IMO I would not mess with the lye amount. I know soapers that make their soap regularly with a 7% or 9% excess fat without any issues at all and they are great bars of soap.

One thing I didn't think of earlier is, what's the history of this FO, the jasmine? Do you know that it is an FO that works in CP? Just because it's skin safe doesn't mean it works well in soap.

If it is a FO that acts up, particularly overheats, and you've got goats milk in there, it's a good chance that your batch overheated and seperated. This happens and if that is it, a rebatch should fix it.

Because goats milk is a known overheater, it's wise to to use a FO that also is an overheater and to either prevent gel altogether or keep an eye on it and if it's getting too hot, remove some of the insulation.

[Jeana]

Rebecca you have a good point about overheating. I don't know if the FO had anything to do with it but I did cover it, oops! I forgot about that, seeing how I don't use milk typically. I think it has enough lye because it suprisingly has a nice lather. I rebatched a bar of it. I totally stink at rebatching though. I can't stop it from being gloppy. I would expect having a consistency that can flow into a mold would be better than glopping. I didn't want to add more liquid so I just did put it in thick. After popping it out of the mold, I found it did much better. It is not excesively oily anymore, just rough and ugly. And I can tell it would be a nice soap, if I can rebatch the whole thing.

Can anyone suggest how I could get it to a consistency that I could pour it and not have it so chunky? I have enough oil, so should I add water to it? Maybe I'm not getting it hot enough to make it thinner, could this be an answer?

This must be "do over" week for me, almost everthing I have made has needed to be redone, or it didn't turn out the way I wanted. I sure am learning how to troubleshoot stuff.

[Rebecca_IA]

Jeana, when you say it's oily, how much oil is on top?

I'm only asking because, if you are getting a good lather from it and it's not lye heavy (no zap) then I am going to go out on a limb and say it's the FO that is seeping out. When you rebatch, you sometimes burn off all to almost all of the FO, but I've found with some it can only be about half of the FO you burn off.

If it was some of the oils/butters seeping out, the hard part of the soap I would expect to be lye heavy until the remaining oils/butters soak back in.

Another possibility is glycerine seeping out. I can not tell you the circumstances that this happens under, but it did happen one time to a batch of mine.

RE: rebatching, I've never gotten a smooth pourable soap when rebatching. I have never heard of anythign to add that makes it pourable, not to say there isn't. Best luck I've ever had was with coconut milk.

[Jeana]

I wish my pictures could be attached but it keeps telling me they are too large of a file to attach.

If you squeeze the soap the oil comes out. And the top has a thin layer of oil that looks like what you would find on cold meat. I didn't add glycerin. I may try the coconut milk. Was this canned or was it fresh from a coconut?

[Rebecca_IA]

Canned on the coconut milk.

RE: the glycerine, you don't need to add it to handmade soap, it's a natural by-product of the process. In commercial soap making, they remove the glycerine because they can sell it off for more money than they make if they leave it in the bar of soap. One more reason why handmade soap is better for your skin.

Someone that knows more about this than I would have to say what causes the glycerine to seep out of the bar of soap. Of all the batches I've done, I only had it happen once and I never did research to find out why (because the recipe was using up odds and ends of oils so I would never make it again - nothing to improve upon)

[annareeb]

Jeana, I ran the recipe through soap calc and MMS and you're a hair short in lye for both, MMS says 5.51, soap calc 5.53. I'm not sure if that tiny amount would make a difference. Perhaps your FO was not sufficiently mixed. Who knows? These things happen.

I've been very successful in rebatching. Even batches that were horrible rebatched just fine. I like the crockpot on low, or the microwave with 5 minutes at a time until melted. Whatever you do, do not add any additional fluids.

e

what is this ? soap calc and MMS?.. sounds like something I could use...

[Purple Lilac]

MMS has lye calculator that helps you calculate the amount of lye you need in a particular soap recipe -

http://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php

Just punch in the numbers and it does all the work for you.

HTH

[Rebecca_IA]

I think this is the other soap calculator she was referring to.

http://www.soapcalc.com/calc/SoapCalc.asp

You can also find a list of them under the FAQ for soapmaking, here in this forum.

[Jeana]

when i have recipe I want to make up, change, or modify, I run it through two or three lye calculators. Is this a good idea? Some of them seem to recommend a lot of water. Or a large range to choose from - like use between 13 an 17ounces of water. I have been taking a middle range of what various calculators recommend. Is this what other soapers do too?

Plus my scale doesn't register to the hundreds place, I can only do 5.5 period.

[eugenia]

Jeana, they should all pretty much give the same lye amount, it's the water that varies. An easy rule is lye x 2.5 for a new recipe/FO, or lye x 2.1 if you want a good water discount.

e