Teach Soap

I made this last night, right amount of lye (I think) and mixed it until my stick blender left a impression on the surface.
its 50% coconut and 50% oo.I added 1/2 a teaspoon of salt after adding the lye solution. used black raspberry vanilla. Could this be lye pockets or maybe unmixed salt?

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It looks more like salt to me.

But I'd zap test it in a couple days, just to be sure.

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Genny

I suppose it could be salt, but it does not look like it to me, especially if you only used 1/2 teaspoon. How much batter did you have? What grain size salt did you use? Was it sea salt? Still, unless you only made 1 bar, I doubt this is salt.
I also doubt it is lye, but it certainly could be. Zap test it. Cut one piece and then zap test the whitish area. No zap, it is not lye.

To me, it looks like unmelted, unincorporated soap or stearic acid pieces. If you took too long to soap, allowed your batter to cool too much and the coconut began to harden, this can happen. It is like getting soap from your sides when you hp it. If you don't get great emulsification, this can happen.
Main thing is to zap test it and not to assume anything until you know for sure it does or does not zap.

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy

You need to dissolve the salt in a little bit of water first. That looks like salt to me.

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

It was sea salt, yes. this was only a small one pound batch.

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My new blog: http://soapageddon.blogspot.com/

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy

33% Extra Virgin Organic Olive Oil, 32% Organic RBD Coconut Oil, 21% Organic Palm Oil, 7% Organic Extra Virgin Shea Butter, and 7% Castor Oil or 7% Avocado Oil... I'll try to get a couple pictures real quick...but they are just white powdery swirls in the batches. Recently I made a large oatmeal batch with a cinnamon tea, naturally the water turned a brownish red lye mix so when I later cut the soap (the next day) when the pockets of water leaked out red...and hurt...I know it was lye/water.... the next two baches did not leak with liquid and most of them looked nice, but small areas of the batch (about 25%) had the white powdery swirls...

yes I melt it in a large pre mixed pot first, then when I'm ready to do the batches I just stir it up, measure it out...reheat it to 100/105 and go...it's melted...as for colorants, I usually don't use any...sometimes I use fruit additives at the end and FO. The catastrophy batch was oatmeal with cinnamon added at the end with a FO...In a large wooden mold... I would add a picture but can't seem to get them resized small enough

if you allow the palm to cool off before you take the amount you need out, it could be that.
If you are using too high a water discount, it could be that. You need enough water to dissolve all the lye and not get crystallization. So maybe you are cutting it too close. I use at least double my lye amount in liquid unless I am doing Castille, then I usually doe 1 1/2 to 1.
Make sure you check for zap on those white spots. If you don't get zap, then I would say it probably has to do with stearic and not properly mixing the palm.

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy

Do you think it could be that the batches were not mixed well enough? My stick blender doesn't reach the bottome of the pot and the drill just seems to take forever to trace so maybe using the stick blender didn't allow all of it to mix good enough...or maybe I put it in the mold at too light of a trace causing the lye to form pockets?... I did the zap test afte 3/4 days...no zap...so it should be safe to use, right?

I'm pretty sure I just didn't mix the batches well enough...lesson learned...being tired and in a hurry can cost lots of $ ...err oh well.