Can anyone tell me what’s happening with my soap??

Sariados · Feb 15, 2018

This is the third batch I’ve ever made. Smells great, cut easy enough but the inside of both batches that I used colorant for look flakey on the inside even though the soap feels soft (not brittle at all)
Any ideas? Thanks!

Recipe for green bar:
9 oz olive oil
9 oz palm oil
9 oz coconut oil
3 oz grape seed oil
4.5 oz lye
9 oz water
2 oz fragrance
1-3 tsp of colorant for each color used

Black and pink bar same recipe except I used rose clay and charcoal to color

toxikon · Feb 15, 2018

In the top black/pink bar, the pink part looks like it has some TD crackle/glycerine rivers, caused by using a lot of water: https://auntieclaras.com/2014/05/glycerine-rivers-secret-revealed/

In the second bar, it looks like you have some air bubbles, but otherwise looks fine.

Steve85569 · Feb 15, 2018

What temperature did you soap at?
GR is caused by heat and the amount of oil converted to glycerin ( Mr. Obvious, I know).
The second bar has what looks like "stearic spots" but that could be small air bubbles too like toxicon said.
What are you using for fragrance? That could be what is causing both.

Your recipe makes a hard bar but is WAY too cleansing for my old skin. It's going to wash a lot of oils off the skin of the user. Looks like it will also dissolve fairly easily too. (lasting number).
Just my 2 cents.
Steve

penelopejane · Feb 15, 2018

The second bar looks like it has stearic spots which occurs when you soap too cool with a lot of hard oils like palm and coconut. Soap at around 110* to avoid this.

To avoid the different textures in the other one:
Use a lye concentration of 30-31% lye concentration in your soap calc. When you mixed the colours did you use extra water or did you take the water from the recipe?

If you took it from the recipe you need to take out equal amounts of water. So if you have 2 colours and a plain colour take 3 tsp from the batch water and add 1 tsp (with the colour) to each coloured part of the batch and 1 tsp to the plain batter.

This seems pedantic but if you are using a low water concentration or making small batches this can really make a difference.

Or you can use glycerin to mix your colours.

Steve and I were typing at the same time. Some people love that recipe. It makes a hard bar and doesn’t leave a residue and it cleans.

DeeAnna · Feb 15, 2018

"...GR is caused by heat and the amount of oil converted to glycerin..."

Actually "glycerin rivers" have nothing to do with glycerin. This streaky pattern has more to do with the soap going into gel during saponification AND then the soap cooling slowly so the different kinds of soap (stearic, oleic, etc.) have enough time to crystallize and solidify, one at a time. Use of pigments makes the effect more obvious, but streaking can occur in any soap.

Reducing the water content as PenelopeJane said is the single most effective way to minimize this issue if you don't like the look of streaks. (I think it's kind of neat.) I occasionally see streaking with my soap recipes at 31% lye concentration but not at 33% lye concentration (even less water).