A big blunder:

[gurmeet]

Hi all!. back again after i made my third lot a day before ,committed a big blunder.......at least i think so. I made my third batch of soap after doing a lot of reading and research but still did mistakes. First of all, i wanted to try shea butter recipe . so i planned for a mixture of
5oz coconut oil, 5oz olive oil, 2oz shea butter, 0.5oz castor oil, and 4oz almond oil.
Unfortunately, i never realized i had poured sweet almond oil instead of almond oil . There was some issue of electricity in our area the day i chose for making my third lot which made me quite panicked . I
realized just today that the usage rate of sweet almond oil is 5-20% .
Also i used ROE for the first time that made my entire oils brown in color and later orange as soon as i poured lye. I got bit worried whether i have used more ROE as per advised or it is how this happens.
Have been reading ROE usage by Dunn's research paper as well as the forum mentioned it. Also read about EOs safety use on the forum but am still scared to use them as i am till date still not very clear about its safe usage rates.
Don't feel like unmoulding my soap which i have to do tomorrow. Hope what blunder i committed can be used or needs a rebatching??
Any advise.

 

[lsg]

I would say the recipe should contain sweet almond oil, not bitter almond oil. According to your recipe, you used 20% sweet almond oil. If you ran the recipe through a lye calculator, then it would have shown the correct weight of lye and liquid to use. How much ROE did you use in the recipe? Almond Oil vs. Sweet Almond Oil: All You Need to Know

 

[gurmeet]

I used lye 2.4oz and 5oz water. I used 1/4tsp ROE which I later realized after reading the forum and Kevin's paper that it should be .2 to 1g per 1000g oils. I hope I am correct now....Moreover I used more than 20% sweet almond oil in my receipe. Since what I could calculate it should have been 3.3oz for a safe usage.
Thanks for the link above. I read this today .
I just messed it yesterday..... reading and doing it practically makes a huge difference since I felt my things came to trace quite early though it appropriate.
Though it was a small batch but I don't know whether this small lot gets totally wasted or rebatching needs to be done.

 

[dragonmaker]

It’s perfectly safe to use 20% sweet almond oil or more in soap. I’ve made soap that was 100% sweet almond oil and it was still good soap. So long as you ran your recipe through a soap calculator to get the lye amount correct it should be fine.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

i never realized i had poured sweet almond oil instead of almond oil .

Sweet almond oil is the one we use to make soap and other products. I'm not sure what you mean by "almond oil"? If it's not too much trouble, can you please clarify?

I’ve made soap that was 100% sweet almond oil and it was still good soap.

Me too. Both NaOH hard bars and KOH liquid soap/shampoo by customer request. Early on I learned that almond oil (sweet) is the best sub for those who don't like 100% Olive Oil Castile. 100% Almond Oil Liquid Soap/Shampoo is wonderful. I was surprised that it lathered as well as it did.

Contrary to Sweet Almond Oil, Bitter Almond is an essential oil that requires great care. It can be lethal if ingested. It contains prussic acid aka hydrogen cyanide. Most suppliers cut it with 50/50 Bitter/Sweet or process it to remove the prussic acid.

https://www.edenbotanicals.com/almond-bitter.html

 

[Zany_in_CO]

i used ROE for the first time

There's good information on ROE use in this thread:

Rosemary Oleoresin Extract

HTH

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Don't feel like unmoulding my soap which i have to do tomorrow.

5oz coconut oil, 5oz olive oil, 2oz shea butter, 0.5oz castor oil, and 4oz almond oil.

I'm guessing it may be a little soft. You may have to wait a little longer to unmold. Other than that, I think it will be fine.

Hope what blunder i committed can be used or needs a rebatching??
Any advise.

Wait and see. If you need advice, we need to see the printout of your recipe to better help us to help you.

 

[gurmeet]

You people are amazing. Great pack of knowledge . A long long way ahead....
I unmolded my soap today and am attaching few pics . The soap got unmolded easily and the dark orange color which I expected was no where to be seen on my outer portion of my loaf. The only concern now I had was there was very light orange left on the inner which i suppose should diminish after curing. At least hoping so..............
If you can observe in the pic (taken a close up) there are one or two air bubbles though very small.
Though I tried my best but how can we just minimize it to zero . Anything we need to add or is it due to early tracing and not proper whisking or blending.
Just a thought : Is it that we can add ROE before also, that is , one or two days before to our oils and keep them to diminish this effect of orange / brown . Has anyone tried it? Will that effect the outcome ?

 

[Jorah]

Gurmeet, I think you just need to take a deep breath! I am a fellow new soap maker, and know the nerves that can take over, believe me! But we're not putting babies lives at risk,* we're making soap, and so long as you do as the other commenters have said, and check everything with a lye calculator, you'll be fine. Your soap looks awesome, by the way!

You'll likely find that most soap makers work in grams rather than ounces today, as it allows for easier accuracy, which is one of your biggest aids!

I always check my recipes with two calculators (I used to check four, and realized the numbers were all within a small margin of being identical). Here are links to some of the calculators I have bookmarked:

1. Soap Calc: SoapCalc
2. Soapee: Soapee Next
3. Soap Guild: Lye Calculator
4. Bramble Berry: Lye Calculator and Fragrance Calculator (this site also has an EO calculator that you may find helpful)

I use Soap Calc the most, and I cross-check with Soapee. There are other calculators out there, too.

*these are the words of a long-ago girlfriend; "why panic? Are babies at risk?" She measured everything against baby safety...

 

[gurmeet]

Thanks Jorah for appreciating. I am still doing my calculations by hand . Still need to learn a lot before going over to using good supported calculators as specified by you above. Thanks.

 

[Shelley D]

You people are amazing. Great pack of knowledge . A long long way ahead....
I unmolded my soap today and am attaching few pics . The soap got unmolded easily and the dark orange color which I expected was no where to be seen on my outer portion of my loaf. The only concern now I had was there was very light orange left on the inner which i suppose should diminish after curing. At least hoping so..............
If you can observe in the pic (taken a close up) there are one or two air bubbles though very small.
Though I tried my best but how can we just minimize it to zero . Anything we need to add or is it due to early tracing and not proper whisking or blending.
Just a thought : Is it that we can add ROE before also, that is , one or two days before to our oils and keep them to diminish this effect of orange / brown . Has anyone tried it? Will that effect the outcome ?

Ooo! Blue! My favorite color! It looks awesome! Funny thing ~ I love using the waving cutter to slice my loaves, it makes the bars easy to hold on to and gives them a bit of a massaging feeling when rubbed on the skin My family prefers smooth bars ~ oh well, I'm the one in charge of cutting so (I do make smooth bars for them too )
Have fun on your soapy adventure!

 

[Jorah]

Thanks Jorah for appreciating. I am still doing my calculations by hand . Still need to learn a lot before going over to using good supported calculators as specified by you above. Thanks.

Isn't it funny, how differently we can approach the same topic? I'd say that calculating by hand is a lot more advanced than what I do! I've read about the hand-calculation method, but haven't sat down to calculate a recipe by hand yet. The calculators are just too easy!

 

[gurmeet]

Thankyou all for being such a sport. I think I would have not reached this far without this wonderful support of forum and immediate responses .

 

[Zany_in_CO]

I unmolded my soap today and am attaching few pics .

WOW! That is the most beautiful "blunder" I've ever seen!!! Good for you!

I am still doing my calculations by hand .

Nothing wrong with that. I use SoapCalc -- the most universally recognized calculator. You might want to check your results against that one. Just follow the Getting Started and Detailed Instructions in red at the top of the first page to understand how it works.

As a beginner, I spent many hours in the evening, for 2 weeks, playing around with it, calculating one tried and true recipe after another to see how it compared to Pen & Paper I was doing at that time. It didn't take long for me to switch over to using SoapCalc full time. The ability to manipulate it by subbing different oils, or adjusting SF or trying all 3 ways of calculating NaOH became invaluable when creating new formulas to match my goals. HUGE time saver too!!!

here was very light orange left on the inner

No doubt due to too much ROE.

we can add ROE before also, that is , one or two days before to our oils

Yes, you can! I actually add it to my liquid oils when I first open them to extend shelf life. I also add it to the WARMED oils along with fragrance, color, clay, etc before adding the lye solution. That way, I don't forget anything!

 

[gurmeet]

So do you think with this larger amount of ROE Can I still use my soap?
Will this color diminish?
I read yesterday using too much ROE can also make your soap rancid....

 

[Jorah]

I read yesterday using too much ROE can also make your soap rancid....

I hope not! I accidentally put 3x as much as I should have in a batch yesterday!

 

[gurmeet]

That 's a big relief.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

So do you think with this larger amount of ROE Can I still use my soap?

Yes.

Will this color diminish?

I don't know. Think positive and be patient.

I read yesterday using too much ROE can also make your soap rancid....

I would appreciate it if you could please post a link to that information. I've never read that.

 

[gurmeet]

I exactly don't remember where I read . I read in some article yesterday. I will search and send it......

 

[dibbles]

@gurmeet @Zany_in_CO
From DeeAnna’s Soapy Stuff article on ROE

Do not use more ROE than necessary!

Too much antioxidant can accelerate the oxidation of fats, a process called "pro-oxidation."

Stick with the recommended dosage -- more ROE is not better! Also do not double dose -- if you add ROE to your stored fats, do not add more ROE when making soap.