Hi Fellow Soapmakers,
I’m fairly new to soap making and this is my 5th soap. I was hoping that some experienced and friendly soap makers could help me in identifying (and avoiding in future) the main problem with my soap - semi transparent pockets of something that looks like melt and pour soap. My concern is that these could be infamous lye pockets! Or could these be oil pockets?? They seem to be as firm as the soap itself. I tried to do zap test, it didn’t seem to tingle, it was a bit salty in taste – but then, I never experienced the zap so I’m not sure how it would if feel.
I did not use any fragrance or essential oils, it’s an unscented soap. Of course I ran the recipe through soap calculator (in fact two, they gave me slightly different results, which I found a bit strange in itself. I went with Bramble Berry soap calc). I used the following oils in my recipe:
Olive Oil 31%
Rice Bran Oil 26%
Coconut Oil 25%
Mango Butter 15%
Castor Oil 3%
I was soaping at room temperature of about 20 degrees Celsius, both oils and lye water. I had impression that the soap thickened really quickly, as I’m reading about troubleshooting soap, it seems that it could have seized.
Colorants I used were: titanium dioxide, activated charcoal and Australian pink clay. I sprinkled the soap with pink Himalayan salt (just the top – I don’t think it has anything to do with the problem). My mould was a silicone loaf.
Apart from that, there is also some air trapped in my soap – is it because I didn’t give the soap a proper “tap” or does it have something to do with hanger swirl technique I used? Finally, the white bit of my soap has small cracks – I read that titanium dioxide can cause that especially in recipes with rice bran oil – my soap had a lot of that oil. Any thoughts on that?
I know I ask for answer to three different problems, but even if you could enlighten me on one of them (especially the main one), that would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!
I’m fairly new to soap making and this is my 5th soap. I was hoping that some experienced and friendly soap makers could help me in identifying (and avoiding in future) the main problem with my soap - semi transparent pockets of something that looks like melt and pour soap. My concern is that these could be infamous lye pockets! Or could these be oil pockets?? They seem to be as firm as the soap itself. I tried to do zap test, it didn’t seem to tingle, it was a bit salty in taste – but then, I never experienced the zap so I’m not sure how it would if feel.
I did not use any fragrance or essential oils, it’s an unscented soap. Of course I ran the recipe through soap calculator (in fact two, they gave me slightly different results, which I found a bit strange in itself. I went with Bramble Berry soap calc). I used the following oils in my recipe:
Olive Oil 31%
Rice Bran Oil 26%
Coconut Oil 25%
Mango Butter 15%
Castor Oil 3%
I was soaping at room temperature of about 20 degrees Celsius, both oils and lye water. I had impression that the soap thickened really quickly, as I’m reading about troubleshooting soap, it seems that it could have seized.
Colorants I used were: titanium dioxide, activated charcoal and Australian pink clay. I sprinkled the soap with pink Himalayan salt (just the top – I don’t think it has anything to do with the problem). My mould was a silicone loaf.
Apart from that, there is also some air trapped in my soap – is it because I didn’t give the soap a proper “tap” or does it have something to do with hanger swirl technique I used? Finally, the white bit of my soap has small cracks – I read that titanium dioxide can cause that especially in recipes with rice bran oil – my soap had a lot of that oil. Any thoughts on that?
I know I ask for answer to three different problems, but even if you could enlighten me on one of them (especially the main one), that would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!
They are what is known as 'Glycerin Rivers' (athough they're really not rivers in the sense of flowing liquid). Anyway, they are completely harmless. If you do a search on 'glycerin rivers' you will find several posts talking about it. They usually occur in my soap when I use TD along with an accelerating FO that causes my soap to gel to hot.
