# What is ricing??



## jadiebugs1 (May 13, 2008)

Hi all!  Anybody miss me??  Been gone awhile, my sister had a stroke so I went to Texas for a few weeks.  

Anywho.....glad to be back...

I keep seeing this term "ricing".  What is that exactly??  Is it different than quick trace, have anything to do with tracing, or is it a texture issue?  Does it make soap non-usable?  Inquiring mind wants to know!


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## Barb (May 13, 2008)

ricing happens when certain persnickety fragrance oils hit the main batch of soap and start to form little grains of rice like particles. sometimes you can beat it into submission with a stick blender sometimes not.  not quite the same as a seize where you get instant soap on a stick that looks like concrete in your bucket, but over sb it may cause it to get to this stage.

i have read where some people will warm the fragrance oil a tad before adding it to the main batch, helps with this as well as no water discount


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## cambree (May 14, 2008)

Yes, that is what happened to my 1st batch.  I put  3 drops of freesia fragrance oil and it formed rice size droplets instantly.  I didn't want to make it worse and just began mixing it wit the hand held blender.  It's been 2 weeks now and I'm still waiting for it to cure.  

So far it looks OK, except one of the cut bars are cracking.  I wonder if this is normal... may have to ask in different post.  Unless someone can answer that for me.  Thanks!


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## jadiebugs1 (May 15, 2008)

Does anyone by any chance have a photo of this "ricing?"  Apparently it hasn't happened to me or I"d know, but maybe it has.  I've had two batches that after adding the FO became more grainy tectured, but I wouldn't go so far as to say rice sized.  The second batch was tomato vine with tomato paste in it, but I tried soooo many different things with that batch, it's hard to say what happened with/to it.  Anyway, it's my favorite soap i've made so far but it has a very "light" texture that after many weeks of curing, I could still easily break the bar in half. 

Would this be something of a post symptom of a ricing soap that was poured anyway and not gelled??

Anywho....got pics anyone??


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## mandolyn (May 17, 2008)

Ricing looks like rice-sized pieces as your stirring. I use an FO that causes temporary ricing. I can stir through it, but even still there will sometimes be brown splotches of unblended FO  throughout the log.


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