coconut milk soap seize

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rumack28

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hello!

First time poster alert.

I have been making soap for about a year and my first seize yesterday with a recipe I have done before. It was typical that the seize happened when I was making a big batch! I still can't decide what caused it but need to figure it out before I go ahead to make more.

I always soap at room temperature, I was doing a 50:50 coconut milk and water method which all went to plan, adding the coconut milk to the oils once at room temp, I added the EO once had blended the milk in lightly, but the pot started to seize once I added the lye water and used stick blender lightly. I was being careful to just pulse a little as I knew not to overblend at this point, but it came about within seconds, like a bloom forming under the surface.

I just can't figure out where my mistake was. I managed to get it all into the mould and when I checked it 10 hours later it was oily and sludgy on top, and later when I dug it all out, it was quite crumbly in places. I used a patchouli EO to anchor lemongrass and lemon myrtle, not sure I have used patchouli in soap before and am wondering if that was it. There are some brown streaks in the few silicone moulded bars I was able to pour in succcessfully at the end but I wonder now if they are safe to use as maybe the lye was not mixed completely before the seize started. I did try to rebatch (after frantic googling) but its awful and I'm going to throw out. Very frustrated to have wasted so much time and ingredients!!

Can you suggest why my seize happened? I am wondering if it was the patchouli EO, or if it was due to my coconut milk which had some thickeners in it (xantham gum, guar gum, I don't know which brand I used before but had no issues with a tinned coconut milk last time) or, I noticed this morn that last time I made it I had a 33% lye discount whereas this time I forgot to change that in soap calc so it was 26.66% was my end usage rate. I did feel my lye mix was very gloopy which I don't remember it being last time, but surely if I had gone by the 33% lye conc value there would have been even less water in it and it would have been even thicker.

Any suggestions please?

I don't want to make this again until know where I went wrong

Thanks so much for any advice!
 
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