Teach Soap

I attempted to make an extra sensitive skin soap last Sunday (so 8 days ago today), and it turned out a bit of a mess. I think I know where I went wrong, but I was hoping someone could advise if this has ever happened to you, and if there's any chance of it being saved? First, I did run the recipe through a lye calc, with a 7% superfat, which I've never gone that high before, the most I've ever done is 5%. Second, I substituted about half my olive oil with canola, and I've also never used canola before. Thirdly, I used a calendula tea (completely cooled) for my lye water, also never done before. My recipe: 17.56 oz olive, 9.46 oz canola, 6 oz coconut, 4 oz palm, 3 oz cocoa butter, 2 oz shea butter, 2 oz castor oil, 1 oz rosemary EO, 16.72 oz tea, 5.79 oz lye. The batch traced pretty quickly, but was kinda chunky and separated, like melted butter that's come back to room temperature partially. I think my main problem was that I waffled between the standard method of heating oils/mixing lye water/getting them to roughly the same temp, and using the RTCP method, which I've used successfully in the past. What happened was my lye water cooled too much to melt my butters, but in my haste I went ahead and combined them anyway, and when I saw it wasn't melting I quick put the whole batch back on the stove on low to finish melting my solids. My final batch did harden up surprisingly, but the outside layer on the top and part of the sides is like a chunky vaseline that wipes off. I let it set in the mold for about 6 days, and it's been out of the mold for 2 days, still slightly gooey on the top. Will it harden up completely with a longer cure than normal? Or should I scrape off the goo and let the remainder cure? Or should I just rebatch the whole thing? Was the problem likely just my mixing temperature, or could it have been my recipe? I'd like to rescue this batch if possible. Thanks!

I would rebatch the whole thing. I always superfat at 7-8%. My skin would find 5% superfat drying. Cocoa butter has a higher melting temperature. I would not use it for the room temp method.
When not all the butters melt, there is a chance that the lye cannot interact with the solid butter. That's why you end up with chunky batter. Next time, melt all of it. I normally soap at about 110 degrees (US). I used to use a thermometer, but now I go by the feel of my hands on the soap pot and the lye pitcher. If both are just warmer then the temp of my hands, I go ahead and soap.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Thanks, Irena! This would be my first rebatch, and I knew I'd have to get one under my belt at some point. I am actually looking forward to experimenting. If this were yours, would you add anything to it? Additional oil, soap scraps, etc.? I had already added EO to my original batch, so I won't be adding any more of that. However, as this was intended to be a sensitive skin bar, I was thinking of adding a couple of the things I didn't get to add the first time around: colloidal oatmeal, evening primrose extract, maybe calendula petals. However, I don't want to get too complex, since I already messed it up once lol! Less is usually more, I know... But as it's already a bit of a science project, I wondered if there was much I could do to hurt it?

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Thanks again! I'll have a go at it then!