Castile soap turning yellow

[isha]

You can sub rice bran just be sure to run it through the soap calculator. It will not be Castillo though. Vitamin e will not do anything. Rosemary olersin will help if added to the bottle when first opened.

Something certainly went wrong. It should not be soggy and dripping oil. Are you sure you are using pure NAOH.

This can also be one of the issues.. I remember having trouble with lye dissolving n dropped a batch. Cant remember if it was before if after this batch
Anyhow ive changed my oils and got pharma grade lye now.

Olive oil ia quite expensive here. So was thinking of replacing all recipes with rbo. If i add ROE to a 5 lt can of cookinh grade Rbo (i hope cooking grade oil is okay for soapin)
How much rosemary olersin do i add

Also any idea on how it might effect the soap quality. Ive used a large amount of pomace in other recipes

 

[isha]

After all this said about this batch. Should i be using this on my kid or toss it away.
It doesnt smell good. Oil leaking. May have been bad lye..

 

[DeeAnna]

"...Should i be using this on my kid or toss it away...."

What do you think? Here's what I'm seeing in your posts -- you have serious doubts about the lye, you are not sure you made the soap properly, there's oil leaking from the soap, and it doesn't smell good. Would you be absolutely comfortable, pleased, and even eager to bathe with it yourself? If the answer is no, then I don't think I'd use it on your child either.

 

[dibbles]

I wouldn't. Especially not for my child, but I wouldn't use it for myself either.

 

[SaltedFig]

You need to make this decision.

After all this said about this batch. Should i be using this on my kid or toss it away.
It doesnt smell good. Oil leaking. May have been bad lye..

The twin points of safety and smell have been addressed by cmzaha in post #7.

Children's noses are far more sensitive than adults.
The smell will be noticeable to other people.

The smell lingers.

 

[isha]

Thanks everyone. Im going to toss this one n make a fresh one with 5% sf hope this one wud turn good

 

[earlene]

Ive been wanted to replace my pomace with rice bran oil.. Do u think its a good idea to make castile with 100 rice bran oil with litttle vit e to help it avoid dos?

In July 2017 I made 100% RBO soap using ROE and EDTA to help ward off DOS (also EDTA helps reduce soap scum.) Those bars show not a single sign of DOS.

 

[Steve85569]

My highest SF for Castille bars is 3. I learned that the hard way.
I have also learned that I do not appreciate them since OO tends to dry my old skin out. Bottom line:

I have some extra if you want them. Just PM me and I'll send ya a small flat rate package. Pay the freight and they're yours.

 

[Kiran]

Hi Isha,

I think as one of the contributes initially said it must be an issue with old oil getting mixed up with new oil (re-batched).
I say this because i had the exact same issue with my 100% olive oil soap. It was beautiful initially, but then started to turn yellow and smelling of rancid oils. I had purchased the pomace olive oil oil from amazon India, which came comparatively quite cheap.

Also I am forced to buy at least 1kg of NaOH at a time and i d'ont make that many soaps, so it tends to stay in the container for long and could thus degrade.

This forum helped me out when I faced a similar situation.
Let me try to compile a list of and the suggestions I received which might be more relevant here in India.

1) Use ONLY distilled water
2) Try to soap with 40% lye solution
3) Use Critic Acid (2%) in your soaps
4) Make sure to ware gloves throughout the soaping process. Yes, even when measuring the oils
5) Ensure all utensils and tools are really clean before you start using them
6) Try to reduce the super fat to about 3% (since the NaOH we get is not 100% potent)
​

If you happen to try this please do let me know the feed back on it.
Here is the thread I had initiated for a similar issues i faced.
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/combining-acids-in-soaps.71263/#post-716956

 

[Kiran]

How are you storing your lye?

It is possible that your sodium hydroxide has degraded.

This can happen in storage, especially in a hot and humid environment.

Clumping, where you see lumps of lye crystals all joined together that are easy to break apart, is a sign that your sodium hydroxide has absorbed moisture from the surrounding environment.

If you are soaping with sodium hydroxide that has degraded, it will not be as strong when you make up your lye solution (it will already have extra water).
This results in a soap that has an excess of unsaponified oils.

A simple check is to weight the lye (and container) after you have finished soaping, and record that weight on the container.
Before you begin soaping next time, weigh the lye container again and compare that with the weight you recorded.
If you notice that it's got heavier, the lye has absorbed moisture and you will need to take the extra water into account.

This is sooo helpful, never thought of checking that way if the lye had absorbed moisture and degraded. Thanks.
But typically, does lye have a shelf life if it is not absorbing moisture and stored in a cool dark place?

 

[SaltedFig]

This is sooo helpful, never thought of checking that way if the lye had absorbed moisture and degraded. Thanks.
But typically, does lye have a shelf life if it is not absorbing moisture and stored in a cool dark place?

Thank you

Sodium hydroxide can be stored for a long time if it is kept in air-tight storage, but it is so reactive that it will turn clumpy in most ordinary screw top containers (like the container you purchased it in).
These containers allow moisture into the container and sodium hydroxide will react with this moisture. The hydroxide does react with some other gases in the air, but water vapour causes the most rapid deterioration.

A way to prevent most of this deterioration is to only open the lye container for the smallest amount of time (when you are measuring out your hydroxide) and otherwise store the lye in two containers (placing the sealed original sodium hydroxide container with a desiccant inside a larger sealed container).

Susie talks about placing her lye container on kitty litter in a large container in this post from 2015, and
Kchayshack has a photo of his lye containers and desiccant inside a large bucket with a gamma lid in his thread from 2016.

 

[winusuren]

Hi Isha,

I think as one of the contributes initially said it must be an issue with old oil getting mixed up with new oil (re-batched).
I say this because i had the exact same issue with my 100% olive oil soap. It was beautiful initially, but then started to turn yellow and smelling of rancid oils. I had purchased the pomace olive oil oil from amazon India, which came comparatively quite cheap.

Also I am forced to buy at least 1kg of NaOH at a time and i d'ont make that many soaps, so it tends to stay in the container for long and could thus degrade.

This forum helped me out when I faced a similar situation.
Let me try to compile a list of and the suggestions I received which might be more relevant here in India.

1) Use ONLY distilled water
2) Try to soap with 40% lye solution
3) Use Critic Acid (2%) in your soaps
4) Make sure to ware gloves throughout the soaping process. Yes, even when measuring the oils
5) Ensure all utensils and tools are really clean before you start using them
6) Try to reduce the super fat to about 3% (since the NaOH we get is not 100% potent)
​

If you happen to try this please do let me know the feed back on it.
Here is the thread I had initiated for a similar issues i faced.
Combining Acids in Soaps

Can citric acid be used in baby soaps??

 

[AliOop]

Can citric acid be used in baby soaps??

Hi @winusuren Since this is a really old thread that deals with a different topic from your question, it isn't likely to be seen or answered here. You'll probably want to start a new thread to ask your question.