cracking after using?

[iiii]

Hello everybody. I made this levander soap (picture below) on January 29th. I gave one bar to my boyfriend and yesterday he told me that it starts to crack after he uses it and it dries. The recipe is:
H2O 190 grams
NaOH 69,48 grams

coconut oil 22% (110 g)
shea 15% (75 g)
olive oil 40% (200 g)
palm oil 23% (115 g)

I also added almost one teaspoon of sugar to increase bubbles, 16 grams of levander EO and one teaspoon of TD. The soap did not went through gel phase.

I use the same soap at my work and this never happened to me. By the way, my boyfriend's bathroom is not heated and it's cold there, which at first I thought may be the problem, but the thing is that any other soap that I made does not crack. Any thoughts?

 

[lpstephy85]

Is that a mica/pencil line or is it just dark from being used when hands/body were really dirty?

 

[iiii]

that's cacao powder

 

[handavaka]

Read posts ADDING SUGAR....I just came upon that thread and it looks like it may have enough information to explain what possibly may have happened.

 

[Seawolfe]

Were there bubbles in the soap that could have been exposed when the top layers dissolved? Were there drag marks when the bars were cut? Or were they molded in single cavity molds? Are there any whole lavender buds in there?

 

[iiii]

There was some drag marks and whole lavender buds on top, and there possibly was some bubbles.
I guess I need to read more about adding sugar...

 

[Seawolfe]

Oh I just thought of one more possibility - how long did you cure the soaps before using? I've seen cracking on uncured soap.

 

[iiii]

I cured it for about 6 weeks.

 

[Obsidian]

I've seen soap crack like that when it got too wet before it dried. Does he have a good soap dish that keep the bar out of standing water?

 

[iiii]

His soap dish is actually not the best one, sometimes the soap lies in the puddle of water.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I use sugar often and not had anything like that happen. It might be a contributing factor along with many, but the sole reason? Not so sure.

I would also think of impurities being a cause

 

[DeeAnna]

Yep, it's not getting to dry enough between uses. When a bar of soap stands in water, the bar will absorb water and gets soft. That's no surprise, but what you might not know is that a bar of soap is not one uniform material so it doesn't have a uniform reaction to this mistreatment. If the soap does not fully dry out between uses, some parts of the bar will become much softer and weaker than others. These mushy parts will wash away more easily, eventually leaving cracks or odd holes in the soap bar.

Areas of a soap bar that contain soaps made mostly from coconut oil (myristic and lauric soaps) will wash away easily. Areas that contain soaps made mostly from the palm oil (stearic and palmitic soaps) will not wash away as easily.

Commercial soaps do this too -- but because they are formed into bars differently than handcrafted soaps, a mistreated store-bought soap bar will usually show cracks on the short ends of the bar, rather than in odd places throughout the bar like you can see on a handcrafted bar of soap.

If you've ever had a batch of soap show crackling or streaking, you have a clear visual example of how a handcrafted soap bar is not uniform -- the parts of the bar that seem to be translucent are one type of soap and the more opaque parts are a different type of soap.

 

[iiii]

Thanks everybody.

 

[shunt2011]

Maybe too heavy of a cocoa powder line. Causing it to separate some?