Teach Soap

Good day all,
I made the most gorgeous Oatmeal and Honey soap. I added 1 teasp. titanium dioxide to the lye mix and strained it. This would be my white/oatmeal layer. Well!! The lye mix turned a lovely white, but on the bottom of the lye mix jug was quite a substantial amount of this white chalk. So I scraped it off and added it to the base oil/lye mix mixture.
After 24 hours I had this gorgeous soap but with white swirls in the white area of the mix which I thought should have been incorporated with the rest of the mix without being so evident.
What did I do wrong? Please advise.
Thanks
Kind regards
Carol-Ann Blakeway

Carolann I too have been using TD with some difficulty. I'm sure I ordered mine from bb and it come with no instructions. I do primarily HP but I find that when I add td to the warm oils and stickblend after I add the lye water, it incoprporates nicely IF I were making cp, BUT once I set the batch to cook in my crock pot, I get a nice whiteness but upon close inspection you see small bits of unincorporated td.

Looking forward to more responses, and there seems to be another recent thread about TD.

Was your TD oil or water soluble? If it didn't dissolve in your lye, it's most likely oil soluble. If that's the case, you would add it to your soapmaking oils.

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

Good question,
On the lable on the packet it says 'Water Dispersible'. So I take it it should have dissolved completely in the lye mix! But maybe it is labelled incorrectly - will try it with a bit of oil and see what happens.
Thanks for your reply.
Carol-Ann

That would be my question too - water soluble or oil soluble.

I am about to purchase some, and not sure which kind blends easier - the oil or the water soluble one. Anyone has any preferences?

I mix the titanium dioxide with a little bit of glycerin then I blend it into the oils prior to mixing the lye. You've got to stick blend the heck out of it tho before adding the lye. That seems to work best for me. I have tried mixing into the lye water, but I too get some residue left over so switched to adding to the oils first. I bought my titanium dioxide from BB, isn't their's for both water & oil?

I think TD is the crankiest of all the colorants when it comes to mixing evenly. I generally put mine in a small cup, and add either water or oil (i have both kinds of td and i hate them both, lol). Then I squish the soap out of it with a spoon to try and de-lump it. I just avoid adding the stuff at the bottom of the cup to the actual soap.

I want a frother like soapbuddy has now.

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My last batch where I used the water soluble TD, squished it in a baggie, then strained it and added at light trace turned out nicely. The TD mixed in smoothly. Not the colors I was going for, considering I used half Cranberry Realistic and half Cranberry Sweet FO's. Not enough TD for this batch. I couldn't have asked for prettier pastels though. (I also used some red soap dye in part of it.) I have buttery yellow and pastel pink. I'm calling it Buttercream Berry. If you can't beat it, think of a new name.

Thank you all for your replies.
My Titanium Dioxide is definitely water soluble and not oil soluble. I tested it.
I think doing what Justkate did is probably what I will try today. You are right, I did add the chalky residue at the bottom of the cup.
The soap is beautiful though with white swirls.
Thank you
Carl-Ann

Dumb question-what are y'all using as a strainer?

I can't speak for anyone else but when I have finely ground substances that I don't want in my soap I use coffee filters. You can line a large funnel with them and slowly pour through... changing the filter as needed.

I also infused some oils with calendula using coffee filters (made a sort of tea bag using 2 filters) and it worked great. Saved me from having to strain the oil.

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- Mickey!

Yes, I do the same thing with infused oils but didn't know if coffee filter was too thick for the amount of "batter" . . ..

Good day,
I use an old, clean handkerchief or thin muslin that we used to use for sieves for straining milk in the dairy in the good old days.
I have not used coffee fulters, but it should work well.
Kind regards
Carol-Ann

I got the oil dispersible TD and used it in 2 batches last night. It is SO much easier to work with than the water dispersible TD, IMO. I mixed it with a little oil, smooshed it with the back of the spoon, stirred it, added it to my cooled down oils ( before the lye water) and stickblended for a couple of minutes. No straining, little fuss or muss This morning I have lovely white soap. Whew! It's oil dispersible TD for me from now on although I still wouldn't mind having that cool frother like Soapbuddy's.