# First batch is disappointing :/



## dwolanin (Nov 10, 2014)

Here's what happened. Lots of lessons were learned.  One is don't put your essential oils in a cheap plastic dixie cup type thing ya drug out of the bathroom. I went to move it and the bottom was stuck to the freezer paper but the top portion pulled away and I lost a half a bottle of essential oils. It ate through the plastic.(glad I had freezer paper down). so I got a small jar and poured the rest in it. Okay that's cool moving on. 

Now everything went really well, I mixed the lye in the oils and did the blender thing and it was going really good  Then I parted half out to color cause I wanted a kind of swirl thing going on. I put in the color into the rest of the pot but didn't stir it cause you kind of want it to swirl when you pour it in the mold. I was ready to pour it in the mold when I see the essential oils sitting there. Oh No! I says. I can't have the soap not scented. So i think well its just going to have to be a green color cause I'm going to have to mix it. So I put the EO in and blend it. Omg, it gets all bubbly and chunky. At this point its getting THICK and has to be poured somewhere. I said to myself " just pour the chunky mess in the mold" It is what it is. :/  In conclusion it seems that all the problems seem to lie with the essential oil from hell. Should I try again? I think so.
Any help is appreciated as to what happened with the oil and the little chunks.
Thanks


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## Luckyone80 (Nov 10, 2014)

dwolanin said:


> Here's what happened. Lots of lessons were learned.  One is don't put your essential oils in a cheap plastic dixie cup type thing ya drug out of the bathroom. I went to move it and the bottom was stuck to the freezer paper but the top portion pulled away and I lost a half a bottle of essential oils. It ate through the plastic.(glad I had freezer paper down). so I got a small jar and poured the rest in it. Okay that's cool moving on.


 

So sorry you had issues, I myself had a hot mess on my hands just last week involving the same EO problem and a Solo plastic cup...lesson learned!


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## seven (Nov 10, 2014)

i'm sorry to hear about your experience 

what kind of EO were you using? not an EO expert here, but are you sure it was meant for soap making? i had a similar experience a while ago with a thing called: lemongrass oil. it wasn't EO and def had a bad reaction with the lye, and gave me a lightning fast trace which ended with a soap on a stick.

and yeah, def don't use plastic cups for FO/EO... coz now you  know why


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## Obsidian (Nov 10, 2014)

What EO was it? It kinda sounds like you had acceleration but I've not heard of EO causing that. Getting it into the mold quickly was the best thing and your soap should be just fine. Everyone has a bad batch on occasion, keep trying and you'll get it


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## IrishLass (Nov 10, 2014)

Yes- you are right- it sounds like classic acceleration caused by the added scent (be it an essential oil or a fragrance oil.) Thankfully, not all essential oils or fragrance oils will cause acceleration,

 Which essential oil did you use? The ones that contain eugenol, like  clove and cinnamon, for example, are notorious for causing acceleration. Other compounds found in essential oils that cause acceleration are thymol (from thyme oil) and carvacrol (from oregano and thyme), and also salicylaldehyde (from meadowsweet).

 Some people have reported good results from adding the ornery-behaving essential oil (or fragrance oil)  directly to their batch oils, and then slowly adding only 1/2 of the lye solution into the oils at a time, mixing only with a spoon or spatula (no stickblender), and then once mixed in, adding the remainder of the lye solution (hand-stirring only). Although it won't prevent things from moving at a quick pace on the whole, it will slow things down enough to be more manageable. This method has worked for me with a few of my more ill-behaved FOs.


 IrishLass


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## dwolanin (Nov 10, 2014)

Thanks for the replies 

I used a Lemongrass EO from BA. I don't know if i should say who I got it from but I Thought it was okay for soaping.

Here's the recipe i used..
Castor 5%
Coconut 76 25%
Palm Oil 25%
Olive Oil 40%
Mango Butter 5%

Everything worked out great until the EO :/
I'm going to try again, maybe tomorrow. 
No more plastic dixie cups!


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## seven (Nov 10, 2014)

your recipe looks fine, pretty similar to what i've done before. i've used lemongrass EO many times and it's pretty well behaved, except for that lemongrass oil which def wasn't meant for cp soapmaking. if you are keen to try it one more time with the same EO, i would do what IrishLass suggested... or hp. by doing hp, you are adding the EO after the cook, no more active lye present, the EO should be okay and wouldn't give you funky stuff.


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## dwolanin (Nov 10, 2014)

After I added the EO I used the stick blender. That's when it went south. I knew I had forgotten to tap the air out of the blades. At first that's what i thought I had done. I thought I had incorporated air into the mix. But then it got chunkies. Maybe I should have just stirred it in. Also I get a bad suctioning on the stick blender. It sticks on the bottom of the pot. Does anyone else have that problem? I tried to keep it up off the bottom as much as I could. :roll:


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## seven (Nov 10, 2014)

my sb does the same too (suctioning). next time you might want to just hand stir the EO.


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## JustBeachy (Nov 10, 2014)

Hey, disasters happen when you're starting out. Lord knows I had some doozies.   I would suggest, if you're not already doing it, to keep notes on everything. Your process, your oils, your EO's/FO's and your suppliers. It will help you tremendously down the road in avoiding most of the unsuspecting mishaps or from repeating mistakes. 

PS. It also helps to check your notes periodically. I had one batch not too long ago trace really fast, with a scent that I had used before with no problems. When i went to notate it in my notes, I realized that I had a note on this FO from a certain supplier,  that seemed to speed up trace. Thought to myself,  that would have been a good thing to check before I started the batch. :think:


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## goji_fries (Nov 10, 2014)

dwolanin said:


> _*After I added the EO I used the stick blender. *_That's when it went south. I knew I had forgotten to tap the air out of the blades. At first that's what i thought I had done. I thought I had incorporated air into the mix. But then it got chunkies. Maybe I should have just stirred it in. Also I get a bad suctioning on the stick blender. It sticks on the bottom of the pot. Does anyone else have that problem? I tried to keep it up off the bottom as much as I could. :roll:



From what is written above, it sounds like the EOs were dumped in all at once. When stick blending after all is mixed and traced lightly, add the EOs slowly. No clump (IME). 



seven said:


> my sb does the same too (suctioning). next time you might want to just hand stir the EO.



^^^


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## Susie (Nov 10, 2014)

If you will hold your stick blender at at least a 30 degree angle, you should not have the suctioning issue.  But we have all been there with fast moving scents.


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## dwolanin (Nov 10, 2014)

goji_fries said:


> From what is written above, it sounds like the EOs were dumped in all at once. When stick blending after all is mixed and traced lightly, add the EOs slowly. No clump (IME).
> 
> 
> 
> ^^^



Oh Goodness, That's exactly what I did. I just dumped it in....Me Facepalms.


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## Obsidian (Nov 10, 2014)

I always just dump it in, never have issues unless its a scent that accelerates and in that case, I want to get it in and stirred as quick as possible.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Nov 11, 2014)

Ouch! Will be interested to see how the soap comes out. 

It won't help with that one issue now after the fact, but I would say to read a whole lot of stuff on the beginner and cp areas, especially when people are asking about what went wrong or talking about a soap disaster - as soon as I saw you mention plastic cups I knew what was coming and as Lucky said, she had this issue very recently and posted about it. Her experience would have saved you the hassle.


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## coffeetime (Nov 11, 2014)

I use lemongrass EO from NDA, and have never had acceleration. Are you sure it wasn't an FO? Or maybe one of those nature-identical blends that some companies have?


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## dwolanin (Nov 11, 2014)

I have been researching what happened to my soap. I found a great article by BB with some pictures and it looks like ricing, tapioca pudding has happened.
I'm hoping this is only cosmetic and I can still use.


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## Susie (Nov 11, 2014)

I've used that lemongrass EO from NDA also with no problems whatsoever.  Wonder if they changed their supplier. I don't have any of their lemongrass EO on hand tight now or I would test it.


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## pamielynn (Nov 11, 2014)

What I've found *helps* - not fixes - is to put my scent in with the base oils and SB the heck out of it before adding the lye solution. In my mind, this gets the scent mixed in well, even if it's going to speed up on me.

If I have a new FO or one I KNOW will try to seize, I use more water than I normally would. 

I have a very popular scent that is just a nasty old witch to work with, and the only thing that helps not to lose the batch is a lot of water.


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## shunt2011 (Nov 11, 2014)

I do the same thing as pamielynn.  I add my EO's/FO's to my oils and stick blend well before adding my lye mixture.  I find it also give me a bit more time to work with it if it's a fast mover.


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## goji_fries (Nov 11, 2014)

shunt2011 said:


> I do the same thing as pamielynn.  I add my EO's/FO's to my oils and stick blend well before adding my lye mixture.  I find it also give me a bit more time to work with it if it's a fast mover.



Hey shunt, :-D

I had read so many times before to add the EOs at the last step aka after trace. Is there any real benefit to that? Makes sense to add with oils then blend with lye monster. :think:


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## shunt2011 (Nov 11, 2014)

goji_fries said:


> Hey shunt, :-D
> 
> I had read so many times before to add the EOs at the last step aka after trace. Is there any real benefit to that? Makes sense to add with oils then blend with lye monster. :think:


 
Some think that it may make the scent weaker so add it at trace.  However, I've not found that to be the case.  I figure it's still going through the soponification phase either way.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Nov 11, 2014)

shunt2011 said:


> Some think that it may make the scent weaker so add it at trace.  However, I've not found that to be the case.  I figure it's still going through the soponification phase either way.




Aye - when we think that saponification (talking cp here) lasts for about 24 hours at least, keeping the eo out of the lye for 30 minutes (not a slow or particularly speedy trace) is equal to a mere 1/48th of the total time that there is active lye. That is not going to make much of a difference from my thinking. 

But if by adding it in earlier we can avoid some issues, I think it might be worth it.


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## pamielynn (Nov 11, 2014)

I think that "add at trace" might be another misnomer left over from the days of hand-mixing soap. You'd want to make sure your emulsion is stable before adding scents. But with the SB, I don't that's applicable anymore. 

I do it my way because when I've added finicky scents to traced batter, I didn't feel like the scent could get distributed evenly - especially when it seized so bad I could barely get it in the mold. Yep. Been there; done that


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## JustBeachy (Nov 11, 2014)

You know it's funny I never even thought about adding fragrance before the lye. It actually makes sense from a mixing perspective and maybe not speeding up an already quickly tracing batter. Definitely falls into the category of "because that's how I've always done it".  Gonna feel pretty silly if it solves some of the trickier fragrance problems. 

I'll try it in the batches this weekend. Making a repeat of a salt soap I always make, that goes pretty quick and the scent never seems to help.


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## cmzaha (Nov 11, 2014)

I also add my eo's and fo's to my oils and sb before slowly adding in my lye. At least if it accelerates I have had time to get the fragrance blended into the oils. Also I agree extra water helps when using super crank fo. I also stay away from milks especially coconut milk when I know I have a crank pot and use just water


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## dwolanin (Nov 11, 2014)

I got a yellow plastic miter box this morning for the first batch. When I unwrapped it there was a bit of Soda Ash on it. But not to bad. It unmolded beautifully and cut really well. I'm going to use it after it has cured.  
I'd like you to see it but I don't know how to use flickr :/ 
Made a second batch today, it  came out much better than this green one 

Thanks y'all


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## TeresaT (May 26, 2015)

seven said:


> my sb does the same too (suctioning). next time you might want to just hand stir the EO.



Mine does the same thing, as well.  My stick blender has a flat bottom, does yours?  I've noticed in many of the videos I've watched, the stick blenders have a serrated bottom and they don't seem to do the suctioning thing. I've been thinking of getting a new one because of that.  But then I think maybe I just don't know how to use it.  If I hold it at a little bit of an angle, the soap flies all over. 


BTW:  that's a pretty green soap, dwolanin!!


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## rbecca74 (Jun 22, 2015)

OMG.. what did you use to get that color??? (ok, I admit.. I didn't read through all 3 pages of responses... but I'm curious)


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