A couple more newbie questions!!

[JessicaB903]

As for FO's I have read about ricing, discoloring, seizing and accelerating, but what I cant seem to find out is how to avoid or if not avoid then maybe prepare for any of those? What do you do when any of the above happens? I like to be prepared just in case (cuz if I'm not I will panic)

 

[Fuzled]

*disclaimer* I'm a new soaper, so my opinion based on feedback I got from others.

My soap accelerated on my last week for the first time, and I had thought It riced.. it actually was accelerated. So that was a lesson: learned what it looked like. (it looked like chucky applesauce vs curdles/rice)

Advice that was give to me if acceleration happens:

- To PRevent: Heat up the FO to the around the same temp as your oils and lye. (you can add it to the oils rather than at trace)

-Once it gets to applesauce, stir it a little bit more (with the stick blender turned off) and slop it in the mold and insulate, it's going to gel anyway most likely

-acceleration means it's moving fast, so slow down and use a whisk

- mix as well as you can, and smoosh it into the mold

If it's ricing on you:

-If it rices instead of the applesauce thing,generally blast it with the blender to see if it incorporates...if not, there's nothing you can do at that point and you gotta chalk it up to a bad FO


These are my notes from OTHER folks feedback.. Hopefully others will post here to give their info

Here's the post I made here when I thought Mine had Riced.. might provide some good info?
http://soapmakingforum.com/forum/viewto ... highlight=

 

[carebear]

These are all great things to TRY, but quite often there is nothing you can do about it.

The best advice *I* can give you for working with tricky FOs is to soap cool, don't use a stick blender, and cross your fingers. Or better yet, don't use FOs that are known to do that - at least until you have more experience.

Discoloring is simply a cosmetic issue. You really cannot combat it with titanium dioxide or anything, tho I guarantee you will try it. The vanilla stabilizer sold by (I think) Bittercreek North has given a lot of us trouble so I won't touch it ever again). Some believe that if you don't let your soap gel the D may not be so intense. I've not found that to be true. Discoloration is something you either can live with or cannot.