So, today I had the soaping itch...
Bad. It wasn't enough to make a research batch trying soybean oil for the first time. I decided, once I'd cleaned up the kitchen,
let's try hot process! 
YAY!
All
started well. 92% Olive, 5% Castor, 3% Bees Wax, 8% superfat. I put everything in a crock pot
I'd never used before and turned it on high after emulsifying as if it was a CP batch. I was optimistic.
I checked on it to stir occasionally, but all it was doing was setting up more and more to a thicker and thicker trace. Some friends came over and we walked down the street to a local burger joint (Al's French Fries) to eat. I came back and the crock pot was now
cold and the soap thicker than ever.
The crock pot was dead... Just
dead. Well great. I lift the whole ceramic inset out of the electric heater and set it in a dutch oven with some water and pebbles to keep the crock off the bottom.
Three hours have elapsed and I decide to check on my CP batch that I had left under a shoe box. It was overheating, and cracking down the middle with oil leaking out.
This is the
first time I've had overheating in a CP batch. The damn gremlins finally decided to move into my place.
Since the soap was uncolored and unscented I decided to use a whisk to whip up the gelled soap and separating oils in the mold, flattened down the top with a sheet of parchment paper, and put it in the freezer. Now, back to the HP disaster in progress.
Even though the water was boiling merrily I never saw the soap start or even begin to go through
any of the phases that HP is supposed to go through
. It was just like mashed potatoes. It was essentially CP soap that was being stirred too much to set up in the pot. This would not do
. As friends moved out to the porch for a glass of wine and a little Black Cavendish (I enjoy smoking a pipe every now and then as do most of my friends) I put the whole crock into the oven and set the temperature to 210. I kept checking on it every so often but it still would not heat up as much as I needed it too, and continued to zap. I turned the temperature up to 300 and went out to finish the drink I so desperately needed. I came back in to find the soap was slightly burning to the bottom, but had turned ever so slightly translucent, as if in gel phase, and no longer zapped. GOOD ENOUGH! I whipped it out of the oven and started using a potato masher to mix my spirulina and patchouli, tea tree, thyme, mint, and eucalyptus in to the quickly stiffening soap... dough.
Since my silicone soap mold was already full I mashed the hot stuff with my bare hands into a garbage bag lined bread pan. Unfortunately the soap wasn't really sticking to itself that well, and like a piece of clay that has dried out too much, was full of fissures. No matter how much I punched, kneaded, and massaged the massive lump of green soap into the mold the fissures remained, and flexing the block revealed huge chasms. I scraped what was left in the crock out and formed it into a small bar, which I cooled in the freezer, and it's great soap, don't get me wrong, but it is gonna be a while before I try hot process again. What I made isn't even really hot process, just mercilessly beaten cold process turned oven process. At least it's soap that will wash and won't zap, though it's the ugliest thing I've made yet. Here's the proof.
As you can guess this soap is falling apart into pieces. I may just get to try my hand at rebatching soap from this failed experiment if it ends up falling apart all over the place, which is more than likely.
All in all, I will give HP another try, when I have a crock pot that will actually heat the soap. Thankfully this has been my first ever soaping disaster, and I'm happy with how the color and the scent turned out, even the feel of the soap is nice for a... Bastile I guess you would call it.
At this point I'm pretty damn comfortable with zap, as I wet my finger and touch it to the tip of my tongue almost compulsively. I think I tested it well into the double digits because I just wanted this six or seven hour ordeal to be over. I've cut the soap into big cubes but pieces are just falling off of them. *headdesk*
I'm so glad I have this forum, mostly for the information but to vent this, the first of my serious in the kitchen frustrations. Sure I've had DOS and melted an oil bucket in a double boiler but they pale in comparison to this screw up.
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