Teach Soap

Hi everyone. I have been "lurking" and reading lots here while doing research, and I finally did my first batch of soap last night. I didn't expect to be asking for help so soon, but I think I might have ruined my first one.

I put it into the mold last night about 10pm and wrapped it in a towel. I just checked on it right now (so it's been about 12 hours), and there is a layer of oil on top. Is it ruined?

My recipe was checked through soapcalc, it's Olive, Coconut , Palm (those three roughly equal percentages, I don't have my recipe in front of me right now), Castor 7%. I used a stick blender and added Chai Tea FO at what I thought was medium trace. I stirred by hand for a while, then stick blended again. It was pretty thick when I put it into the mold (a homemade wooden log mold), I could have formed the top into the rounded top like some people do. But I just kind of flattened it out and covered with plastic wrap before wrapping in the towel. Can you see anything I did wrong?

What was the temp of the oils and lye when you combined them? Did you reach true trace? Did the soap completely gel? Is it possible that the soap overheated?

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

They were at about 125 when I combined the lye water and oils. (I was following the soap queen videos). I do not know if it gelled, I didn't look at it after I wrapped it in the towel until now. As far as true trace goes...I think so, I blended for about 6-7 minutes and I could see the trails left on top pretty distinctly before I added the FO, then I blended some more and it got to look like thick rice pudding or something. It was not as smooth as I have seen some soaps look on videos, but I was afraid it was on its way to being too thick to mold so I dumped it in right then.

Edit: I should add that I did blend in short bursts, not 6-7 minutes continuously. Also, it was Chai Tea Cybilla from BB.

Thick trace should look like smooth pudding. If it looked like rice pudding, something went wrong. For right now, I would leave it alone and see if the oil absorbs back in. If it doesn't, I would rebatch.

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

Thanks for the advice, soapbuddy. I really appreciate it. I have been reading my book and online about rebatching just in case. Hopefully I won't need to, but it will still work as soap if I do, right?

I've had a layer of oil on my soap too, when my soap overheated. Sometimes it will absorb back in and sometimes it won't. You should be able to rebatch if it doesn't.

was your soap smooth before you added the fragrance? If so, it could have been the fragrance that caused it to end up looking like rice pudding (it's called ricing, by the way!) Also, some fragrances and essential oils will cause the soap to heat up. I had one that started to gel as soon as I poured it into my mold!

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Give it a couple of days in the mold. Then with gloves on, shred it (or chunk) it and add this to your crockpot and cook til it looks like applesauce or mashed potatoes. Then glop back into your mold.

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

It's looking less puddle-y already. I hope that's a sign it will reabsorb. I just made a second batch with the same recipe and same methods, but with no FO as a test. I am not making soap as a hobby, really--my daughter has to use it for her skin (commercial soaps aggravate her excema) and it's getting expensive buying from etsy all the time. I just want a good, basic recipe that I can make over and over when we need soap. Hopefully I can save the first batch, too, but at least this way I'll know if I need to try again with the recipe. The unscented batch traced well and poured very nicely. I am going to check for gel in a few minutes.

Thanks for your help, both of you. I will post and update when I know what's happening with the Chai Tea batch.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

BB does say Chai Tea Cybilla will discolor (which I like), but nothing about ricing. I weighed it instead of measuring fluid oz, is that right?

Edit: PS, the second batch just reached full gel. Yay!

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

Oh my. I realized that I had to get that soap out of the mold before it got much harder, unless I wanted to chip it out with a screw driver, because the top was ever so slightly smaller than the bottom of the mold. So, I pulled the loaf out and it was SWIMMING in oil, all around. There was this weird bumpy texture on the bottom, and it was two colors. Bright orange on the bottom 3/4 and brownish on the top 1/4. No clue where the orange came from. Once I sliced it open, there was a separation between the two colored layers and MORE oil spilling out. Slippery, slippery bars. CLEARLY, I did something wrong. Any guesses what? And can I still salvage it? I'll go ahead and post my recipe too. All oils are newly purchased.

Palm Oil 30% 10.8 oz
Olive Oil pomace 33% 11.88 oz (I had to round to 11.9 because of my scale)
Coconut Oil 30% 10.8 oz
Castor Oil 7% 2.52 oz (I rounded to 2.5 on this one)
Lye 5.047oz (I converted to g to measure to get a little more exact 143.1g)
Water 13.68 oz (Had to round to 13.7)
Frag. 1.8oz

It is hard to see the color layers in the pics, but it is separated where the holes are.


In this one, you can see the bumpy bottom on the far right hand bar; and this one shows the colors a little better and the separation, as well as the puddles of ooze!

It looks like it overheated. Does the oily substance zap?

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

I just checked for zap and it does not! That's a good sign, right? It is much drier this morning after sitting on brown paper all night. Almost looks like normal fresh soap! Just that weird color and separation. Do I need to HP, or just ride it out?

Here is my pretty soap. Same recipe as above, unscented. I'm so happy!!