I think I know what I did wrong

[gippersmom]

I have always used liquid colors...I bought the powdered micas and oxides. I made one of my regular recipes, and gosh it sure was beeeee-utiful right at swirl...FO was awesome...I just knew I had a winner...but 24 hours later, the tops of the soap (where most of the swirl was) was like powder and the edges were crumbly....did I use too much color? (I would say, that to 1 cup of soap, I used 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of color powder) Yeah....that's what I thought.

[Grumpy Girl]

Sounds like it's lye heavy. I'm not sure I'd even want to zap test that with powder on top and crumbling. I'd scrap it and try again.

I usually use lots of color and never have seen that with my own soaps, however, colored bubbles by the plenty... yes.

[gippersmom]

Grumpy Girl, I suspected lye heavy initially, but the strange part about it is, the crumbly stuff is only on the top where the swirling took place...the entire bottom half of the soap, is normal...that's why I was thinking maybe I used too much color. How much color do you use, GG when you use the powdered micas and oxides? Say, for a 2 cup container of soap, what would you add for color?

[CareBear]

I don't have the problem from colorants, but every so often I get really weird ash - up to half an inch thick on the edges and along swirls. It's crumbly, soft, and sticky. It happens most often with some particular FOs, and if I spray too much alcohol on the soap and it pools in those areas then it's def. going to happen. But then again, once in a while it happens with other FOs and when I don't use alcohol. There seems to be no predicting.

ETA: I got it a lot when using store brand "Crisco" but not when using the real deal.

[Carriegsxr6]

just make sure you insulate it very well to reach full gel and use suran wrap on top.