cmspath Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I havent made soaps in a few months, trying to get my inventory down for YE.. and made some today.. as soon as I put the oils and lye water together it turned like mush and kept getting mushier and mushier.. I was planning on doing a pretty blue swirl, but just poured the color in along with the FO and stired it.. I didnt even use my stick blender once... I poured real quick into the mold and banged on the counter to try to even it out some... this has never happened to me before, the only thing that I know was different was that my lye water was below 120, because I had to wait for my oils to cool more... but the oils were at 99 when I poured... any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LovelyLathers Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I don't know what you mean by "Mush". But could your lye be outdated or scale be off. I am assuming your soap siezed on you by your description, What FO did you use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmspath Posted February 3, 2008 Author Share Posted February 3, 2008 yea siezed is the word.. does that happen if they lye water is too cool for the oils? I have never had the lye temp off before. This all happeded before the FO was even added.. it was immediatly when I was pouring the lye water into the oils. I am going to try another batch today and not let the lye temp get too low like it did yesterday.. Is it okay to warm up the lye water in the microwave? Didnt know if there would be some sort of reaction or not.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8-GRAN-ONES Posted February 3, 2008 Share Posted February 3, 2008 I don't know for sure what happened...But I would not warm lye in a microwave..if you feel that is needs to be warmed I would put it in warm water...I have not made alot of soap, so I am no expert,,,but I have always used my lye water cool..Hope you can figure it out...I know it is disheartening to loose a batch of soap... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmspath Posted February 3, 2008 Author Share Posted February 3, 2008 Yea the "unknown" about what would happen is what stopped me.. I thought about it though.. I will unmold later today - maybe tomorrow and see if it was distroyed or saved.. hopefully my next batch wont do this.. if it does, then I guess it would be the lye.. it isnt that old, and I have used from this batch before, but maybe something happened with it.... not good when I have to start getting my soaps geared up for a show next month. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LovelyLathers Posted February 3, 2008 Share Posted February 3, 2008 Do not put lye solution in the Microwave! That certainly would be a hazard. Put it in a warm water bath. It would help to know your recipe. I soap with cool solution all the time and never had that happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmspath Posted February 3, 2008 Author Share Posted February 3, 2008 I made up this recipe yesterday to use up some of my oils/butters to lower invenotry, and just keep a pretty basic soap recipe that I really like.The recipe I used is:17% Olive Oil16% Palm Kernal16% Sweet Almond14% Canola13% Kokum Butter13% Coconut Oil 4% Cocoa Butter 4% Shea Butter 3% CasterHardness 38Conditioning 57Bubbly 21Creamy 22 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scented Posted February 3, 2008 Share Posted February 3, 2008 Even though that isn't a 50/50 solution I wouldn't think it would react that way unless this isn't a recipe you've used before. I soap cool all the time too. The only I've had that happen once and never went back to the recipe. Someone here ought to be able to tell you if some of your oils help contribute to it. Could be just a bad batch of lye too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmspath Posted February 3, 2008 Author Share Posted February 3, 2008 dumb question.. what do you mean by a 50/50 solution? No I havent used that recipe before, I just made it up to get rid of some inventory - when I am playing around with oil/butters, I tweek them until I get the hardness/conditioning/bubbly factors that I am looking for.. that has always worked for me in the past.. I made soap out of that batch of lye a couple months ago.. but maybe it went bad in the interm.. I am going to be going out to my shop here shortly to do another batch.. fingers crossed it wont happen again... Another question.. if your oils are at 100 or 99... is there an impact if the lye is cooler than 120. I have always thought the lye needed to be around 120 and have always done my soaps at those temps.. I always wondered how people could premix their lye/water, and have it work.. ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scented Posted February 3, 2008 Share Posted February 3, 2008 50 hard oils/50 soft oils ... I think that recipe was like 48 hard/52 soft ...which isn't that big of a difference typically. I just remember Bunny pressing into my head that it's fine and all to make your own recipes, but go with 50 hard/50 soft till you get used to the oils you're working with. Both my oils and lye are below 100 when I soap. Typically I soap around 90. There are some who soap cooler. I always thought lye at 120 was on the hot side and the hotter it is the less time you have to work/play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmspath Posted February 3, 2008 Author Share Posted February 3, 2008 Thanks Scented for the info.. that goes to show, you learn something new every day.. off to make my next batch of soap.. fingers crossed it doesnt act up again.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tea Posted February 3, 2008 Share Posted February 3, 2008 I had a recipe recently do something very similar to me. Again it was a new recipe, can't remember the % of hard and soft, but when I added the lye it set almost immediately. As I still had conditioning oils and the fragrance to add I quickly added them, and low and behold, it turned to normal thin trace soap again. Didn't want to push things, so I quickly dumped it in the mould. When unmoulded, it had white spots through out, which turned out to be lye.So lesson learnt, if it does that again, I need to spend more time making sure all the lumps of hard soap are gone.Still don't know why it happened, but thought I would share. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmspath Posted February 3, 2008 Author Share Posted February 3, 2008 Well my second batch of soap turned out beautifuly.. I **think** I may have figured out the problem.. maybe... I took the olive oil out of the recipe and increas the canola, used all the other butters and oils but changed the % to get the numbers I was looking for... I think maybe my Olive Oil went bad on me.. I was trying to do a process of elimination.. and maybe that was the answer.. Looks like the other soap turned out okay, but now I am thing maybe it should just be tossed.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scented Posted February 3, 2008 Share Posted February 3, 2008 Is olive oil typically a slow mover? Glad the batch came out. Wondering if next time it does this (which hope it doesn't do it again) if you can keep blending it and maybe it will work itself out? When it happened to me I was using sandalwood rose FO, but that was the only time that the batch moved fast on me. Soap came out fine so I don't know what happened. Always thought if it did it again then I'd just keep beating and stirring it to see what happened. I did have a couple of FOs false trace on me, but they did it in every recipe I had so I blamed the FO, but in this instance, you hadn't added FO yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmspath Posted February 4, 2008 Author Share Posted February 4, 2008 It was really weird, not like any seizing I have experienced with FO.. it was like as soon as I put the two together, it reacted, and almost immediately went *past* the trace stage.. I had to move super fast to even get it in the mold.. got everything mixed will but I am still unsure about it.. Knock on wood it doesnt happen again. I will post pictures of the two different batches when I get them cut. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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