Soap Siezed

I made a batch of lavender soap and reduced the water used. I used:

Olive. 40.4%
Coconut 17.5%
Palm 17%
Castor 3.2%
Lavender EO/FO blend. 4oz (8 lb batch)

I added the fragrance at trace, blended for a few seconds, then added the kaolin clay and TD. The soap seized almost immediately. I couldn't even get it all in the mold. I decided to try heating the second seized half in a crock pot and was able to add some lavender ultramarine. I plopped it on top, covered, and left it overnight. The next morning when I tried to cut it, the soap separated into a white half and purple half. I almost cried-I did not want to throw out this batch. How could I remelt it? I only had one crock pot.

I threw the white half in a cast iron/ceramic pan and the purple half in another and put both in the oven on 200 degrees for about an hour or so. It ended up looking like mashed potatoes but I got both halves in the mold, covered, and cut the next day.

It smells ok but not like my cold process lavender. Did the heat change the scent? Anyways, what I wanted to ask is can I add the fragrance and colors and clays to the oil before adding the lye? Will this make a difference? And can it always be added before? I have seen people post that they do this but I have been afraid to try it without knowing more.

Here is a pic of that soap that I saved by plopping it in the oven. Any advice on adding everything before adding lye?

Sorry about the sideways pic. I am not sure how to fix it after it is uploaded- it wasn't sideways before the upload.

How much water did you use and what temp were you soaping at?

Shame it all seized up like that

As for hp, you normally get a better scent as you add the scent after the cook. In this case, the scent was there before it was cooked, so the heat would have got rid of some of it

I used 11.8 oz NaOH and 18 oz water. Big water discount. I mixed at about 105 degrees. And thank you! That explains the scent. If it ever happens again maybe I can add more scent before putting back in the mold.

It is usually advised that you use at least twice the amount of water as lye. This is so the lye will completely dissolve. It also will speed trace to use so little water.

Why did you take such a deep discount? You do realize it will not cure and be ready to use any faster right?

I would be worried that all the lye did not dissolve and there will be lye pockets in the soap. Have you zap tested this?

If not, be careful when you do.

While lye will dissolve in the same amount of water (lots of people make a 50% solution as a master batch) I would also agree that less that a 2:1 water:lye ratio would be likely to set quickly

The Efficacious Gentleman said:

While lye will dissolve in the same amount of water (lots of people make a 50% solution as a master batch) I would also agree that less that a 2:1 water:lye ratio would be likely to set quickly

Click to expand...

You are right EG, I flipped the numbers in my head. Mea culpa.

I'm with the others. Less than 2:1 and it's going to move fast. Sorry it didn't work out for you.

I'm not sure how long you've been making soap but you may want to consider making smaller batches if you are relatively new. I wouldn't make larger than 2lbs until you find a recipe(s) that work well and then go larger. Smaller=less money if you can't save it.

Lavender Fo's can certainly accelerate as with most floral fo's and with the added problem of such a large water discount that is a recipe for trouble. I also have a Bulgarian Lavender EO that accelerates like a runaway train. It is really advisable to not discount unless you know the fragrance you are using.

It was a recipe I had used before and had no problem other than glycerin rivers. I did the water discount using some advice from other soapers but they may not have taken into account that it was lavender EO/FO. The lye to oil ratio was fine so it is not lye heavy. There are no lye pockets. I will up the water ratio again I guess. Thank you all for the insight. But back to my original question, can I add the EO/FO, clays, colors, oatmeal(not in this batch-just in general), etc to my oils before adding in the lye? Would this make any difference? Do you think this soap would still have seized up? I am thinking it would, but can this be done for any recipe? Seems to me like it would just be easier.

Dorymae, I was trying to avoid glycerin rivers, not make it set faster. I used a ratio that other soap makers used to keep glycerin rivers from forming. I will up the water-maybe try 10% less than my original recipe and just keep bumping it down until it works.

"...I did the water discount using some advice from other soapers..."

Well, that's certainly a reasonable goal, but looking at the numbers, here's the story I see --

In your previous thread, you said you had been soaping at "full water". That means you were soaping with about 28% lye solution concentration. And, yes, that much water content is more likely to cause streaking or mottling (glycerin rivers) than less water.

The general advice of the posters was to use less water. I said, "...I have seldom seen mottling/streaking/glycerin rivers when I soap with 33% lye solution (1 part NaOH to 2 parts water). I have soaped recently with 31% lye solution ... and I'm getting streaking in the higher-water soaps..."

According to the information you've given here, you jumped from a "full water" 28% lye solution concentration to an advanced soaper's 40% lye concentration. That's a BIG jump, and I'm not surprised to learn you had trouble soaping this recipe!

If you want to learn about soaping at higher lye concentrations, why not just raise the concentration, say, 2% from "full water"? This is enough of a change -- as you can see from my quote, that's the amount of change I made and I saw a significant difference in how my soap behaved.

So, just take it easy and see how a 30% lye concentration works for you. If that behaves fine, then work your way up 1-2 percent at a time. This will challenge you plenty.

"... I was trying to avoid glycerin rivers, not make it set faster...."

It's a tradeoff -- you can't avoid them both. By raising the lye solution concentration, you are intentionally increasing the rate of saponification. That means the soap is going to come to trace faster, all other things being equal. By raising the rate of saponification, you are ensuring the soap sets up faster into a firm mass to eliminate the streaking and mottling. As you found, the tradeoff is you have less time to work with the soap.

By raising the lye solution concentration a LITTLE bit at a time from full water, you will be able to find that sweet spot where the rate of saponification is slow enough so you can do your design work, but is fast enough to prevent streaking in the molded soap. It's going to be a little different for everyone and a little different for different blends of fats, so there's no one right answer that will work all the time.

For the recipes I've tried, my soaps trace fairly fast at 33% concentration, but they don't show streaks. At 31%, they trace slow enough -- almost too slow -- but I get streaks. Maybe 32% lye solution concentration is the sweet spot for these recipes, hey?

The advice I got for the ratio that I used was not on this forum, but you are correct-it was about 40%. I used a little more water than what was suggested but apparently that's not working for me. I wasn't aware that the reduction of water would make it trace so much faster! I will try a few small batches, maybe start at 30%, then 31% and so on. At 28% it traced pretty slowly. I just don't like the look of glycerin rivers so I would like to be able make my lavender soap without them.