Teach Soap

I ordered Fresh Bamboo FO from Bramble Berry a few weeks ago and just made a batch of soap with it.
First, my soap is olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, shea butter, water, lye and sodium lactate. I also added bentonite, as I was making shave soap, but I added it AFTER the FO.
As soon as I poured the Fresh Bamboo in, it curdled my soap! At least, that's what it looked like. My soap is a bit of a yellowish color, and when I poured the FO in, it made it white and chunky. I whisked it til it was smooth again, but I could still see tiny white chunks. It really looked like curdled milk. What in the world??!!! Bramble Berry said it has been tested for cold process soap and is fine for normal usage. Is what just happened to me normal? I've never even seen this!

What was your recipe, at what temp did you combine the oils and lye and how much did you superfat?

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

Sounds like it riced, mine looked a bit like curdled milk when it riced.

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

According to my soap calc, your recipe is lye heavy. You would need 2.28 ozs. of lye for a 7% superfat.
You need to calculate ALL your oils and butters right up front. Adding the shea butter at trace will not guarantee that the shea butter will end up as your superfat. Lye is still very active at trace and it will take whatever it wants. I would also recalculate this recipe into grams for better accuracy.

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

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

A little late to this party, but I've used that FO on several occasions and never had a problem. It's been a while since I used it, but I don't recall any acceleration issues, either.

Anita

Late to the party too, but I too have no problems with Fresh Bamboo in my regular recipe. I think the others have worked out it's a lye heavy recipe.

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Goldenearthgirl