Teach Soap

I'm new here, so i guess i should introduce myself. I got interested in soapmaking from a website about hand-laundering clothes, but since me and my husband were about to move to a new apartment, it was nearly a month before i could buy any soapmaking equipment! So i've had about a month to read, research, and contemplate the hell out of it until finally last night we got all the stuff together and made our first soap batch: oven hot process! It was a disaster!! lol

Actually, things were going great until it was time to put it in our oven. We observed all the safety precautions for handling lye and measured everything perfectly. We even recognized trace as soon as it happened, and danced with joy.

But we made one fatal mistake: we foolishly assumed everything in our new apartment would be working! There was smoke and fumes and we eventually realized the temperature regulator was completely fried. This was confirmed by the stench of burnt soap on the sides of our pot. It was supposed to warm the pot at less than 200 degrees, but the heat was overwhelming! I had to stir down a couple of soap explosions as we tried to figure out how to make oven hot process soap without an oven. Eventually, we plopped the half-baked soap into a wax paper lined pyrex brownie pan and went for an impromptu in-the-mold hot process. We turned the oven off, put the pan in, and went to bed, figuring our first batch would probably be a loss.

When i woke up... soap! It lathered when i tried out a bit, with no tingling! I even touched it with the tip of my tongue. I was never dumb or curious enough to go around licking batteries, so i don't know what this 9-volt sensation is that i was supposed to be testing for, but all i got was the awful taste of soap. Success?

I'd show pictures, but it's really nothing remarkable. It's got the gloppy surface of a sloppy hot process plus a crust from in-the-mold hot process with a dubious oven. Since we had enough to worry about, we didn't put any scents or colors in. I'm just glad it's functional! And i can't wait to try my next batch!

Nice to meet you all!

Welcome!
I hope you can get your oven fixed. If you have a crock pot, you can make hot process in there.

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

Welcome to the Forum! Glad you were able to save the batch!

Tee hee hee....you sound like me and *my* misadventures! Welcome!

Thanks!

I don't have a crockpot, but i'll be getting replacement oven parts today. Looking forward to another batch tonight!

Do you have a thermometer? If you have one that goes high enough, you can test your oven's temp with it.
I wouldn't want you to spill any more precious soap.

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

Okay! Oven repairs were later than expected, but i finally have a working oven and another batch of soap! This one was... less successful than the last, lol! It looked successful until it puffed out to double its size... not a volcano, it looked more like pudding in the pot. I stirred it, and it looked like applesauce, so i let it cook... and cook, and cook! It was in there for like 2 hours, and every time we checked, it tasted of lye... speaking of which, now i know why i don't go around licking batteries! Ouch and eww!

So i figured it just needed more time to cook, and left it in for longer... and eventually it got all dry and crumbly like cookie dough that has too much flour. It was a bust! I guess i should've known something was up when only 1 pound of soap was taking more than an hour to cook. I tried to cram the crumbs into a mold and hoped they'd solidify overnight, but no such luck. They just crumbled right out the next morning. Failure!

But this was a great opportunity to try out my first rebatch! I figured i'd rebatch half of the crumbly mess to experiment with it, so that if i messed it up, i'd still have the other half to play with. I did an oven rebatch at about 200 degrees and, since it was still lye heavy, added an ounce of castor oil to the mix. Since it was so dry, i was liberal with the water, too. It seemed to take forever to melt! I thought the pieces were pretty tiny, since they were already crumbs to begin with. They were too small to grate, so i crushed them into dust with my mortar and pestle.

When they finally melted, i added 8 drops of green food coloring and 16 drops of lemongrass essential oil. Since i wasn't sure if it was a lye zap or the awful taste of soap with essential oils, i greased the mold with castor oil and wrapped it up tight in a towel just to be safe.

It smells pretty strong! Almost like froot loops kinda. o_O I had half an ounce of essential oil, i'm glad i didn't dump half the bottle in! It doesn't look half bad, either. I used a steel can for the mold, and i'm giving it plenty of time to dry and harden, since i think i did go a little nuts with the water.

Here's a picture of the finished soaps! On top is my first batch, looking pretty uninteresting. To the left is the remains of the crumbly second batch (I don't know if you can see the red specks in it, but that was an attempt at mixing in green food coloring after the first cook... it was impossible to stir in because it was too dry, so i gave up. It also turned red!!) And to the right, my first rebatch! Ta-da! Hehehe.

I guess i rambled on a bit. Well, even if it wasn't informative, i hope it was at least amusing!

When I use a crock pot or the oven, my soap is done in about 45 minutes. Next time take it out as soon as it reaches the apple sauce stage. If you overcook it, the soap will be dry and crumbly and might be drying on your skin too.
If you are making a fairly small recipe, I would convert it to grams. You'll get more accurate measurements that way.

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

Oo, good idea. I'll have to try using grams next time. Thanks!

I should be getting a proper digital scale in the mail soon, i can't wait! This analog one just isn't cutting it.