Teach Soap

I have made 3 batches of soap...non of them smell like the oils I have used. What am I doing wrong? They all stink like lye. My goats milk soap smelt of burnt milk. Can anyone help or give suggestions... thanks...T

What was your recipe, method, temp and superfat? Did you run it through a lye calc?

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

Most of the time soap doesn't smell like the oils unless it's a really strong oil like neem.
If your goats milk soap smelled like burnt milk, it could have overheated. Milk soaps will usually smell like ammonia for a bit and then it goes away as the soap cures.

But, without knowing your recipe and method, it's hard to troubleshoot.

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

I used a basic recipe giving the amount of lye and oils to use. Just didn't seem like enough oils and the smell was more like something burnt. My MP batch turned out great..

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

I got the recipe off of soap making resource but did not run it through a lye calculator. Assumed the amounts were correct according to the given recipe.

Never assume that the calculations were correct. Mistakes happen, even in books. Always run any recipe from anywhere through a lye calculator.

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

Plus...if you use SoapCalc, you get a nifty PDF file of your recipe. Why pass that up? Once I figured out that SoapCalc saved you the effort of having to re-write your recipes over and over - I plugged in all the interesting recipes from the library books I had - then returned them. Before I made my first batch I had a few book's worth of recipes ready to go - for free!