Honey bar oozing oil

[Carol-Ann]

Good day,
I made a 'lovely' honey soap yesterday - thought it had too much coconut, so brought the percentage down to 20% as you said and added the balance to oilve and Palm.
On opening the mould it was obvious that the recipe was far too oily. Oil oozing out of it. What went wrong?
Recipe - Olive 35% Coconut 20% Palm 25% Castor 5% Sunflower10% and cocoa butter 5%. I put it through a lye calculator. Lye 126.58 gr. and water 332 gr.
Could the fact that I wrapped and sealed the mould in cling wrap - in other words it was sealed and could not breath have caused this problem or do you have some other explanation?

Does anybody have a tired and tested Oatmeal, Milk and Honey recipe please?
Thanks
Kind regards
Carol-Ann
P.S. I have added an image of my soaps I have made as a 'Newbie'.

 

[Cortney]

It probably heated up too much because of the honey and being wrapped. I made a batch with goats milk, oats and honey, I made the mistake of insulating....it was a huge oily mess when I unwrapped it the next day. Goats milk, honey...any sugar really, makes the soap heat up too much and shouldn't be covered.

 

[Carol-Ann]

Oil oozing from Honey soap

Good day,
Thanks for your reply. Then what should I do, just leave the blankets off or what do you suggest?
The recipe says all the most fantastic things about the soap, but nothing about these problems which could be encountered.
Kind regards
Carol-Ann

 

[Guest]

The oil may soak back in to your soap .

Your recipe is okay , it is low on bubbles but the honey will help with that , it is moisturizing and fairly hard and has a good lather number .

Here are some milk and honey soap making tips .

First :
1-- Freeze your milk at least to slush consistency or use an ice cube tray , frozen solid is better .
2--Get your mold ready and measure out your additives the fine ground or baby oatmeal and the honey .(if you aren't using liquid honey , put it in a microwaveable dish and melt and cool to room temp . Have your FO bottle ready if using any.
3 -- When your milk is slush or frozen .Melt your oils and take them off the burner to cool off.
4-- (Gloves and Goggles on ) Add your lye very very very slowly to your milk and stir all the while.
5--Put your lye pitcher in the sink ( I mix mine in the sink) and holding it upright add cold water and ice if you have it , make sure that the lye container is stable .
5--When your oil pot just feels warm to your hands ( you can hold them on it comfortably ) add your FO and incorporate it with your SB .
6--Give your lye water a good stir ,( with goggles and gloves on ) and add it slowly to your oils and fo mix , and mix to light trace , add your room temp honey and oatmeal and blend well.
7-- Pour into your mold . You can cover it with saran with holes poked in it , if you are worried something might fall into the mold.
8-- Pop the mold in the fridge overnight , if you don't have room , I have put mine on top of my chest freezer it is cool to the touch.
9-- If you want to gel it , put it somewhere in sight and watch it like a hawk for the first hour or so , you can put a fan on it to keep it cool too . I usually make soap in the am or afternoon and take it out of the mold the next morning .
Honey and milk soap gets incredibly hot , I have actually had 1 burn , I had to toss it .It is not a soap to make when you are in a hurry or have to go somewhere right after it is made , you have to keep an eye on it until you know how your recipe works .
Hope that helps ,


Kitn

 

[reallyrita]

This stuff can be tricky to work with. I just made my first beeswax soap with honey (no milk). It was in a covered wooden mold and I kept my eye on it. It started to well up in the middle with maybe a crack starting so I took the top off the mold. There was no other insulation. This was about 4 hours after I poured. The soap is out and looks good except that it did not gel to the edges. It is darker in the middle and light at the edges. I hope to post a pic soon. I also got some ash on the edges where the bubble wrap did not quite cover. Although I took the wood top off, I did have a piece of bubble wrap on top. I did not get oil leaking out so I think I caught it in time but I also must have stopped gel by removing the top. Milk and honey would be a real challenge...mine was bad enough. I think the answer is: don't gel and put the batch in the fridge for about 12 hours.

 

[Carol-Ann]

Oozing Oil!

Good day,
Thanks for your mail and describing exactly what to do with the soap mold in the fridge etc.
Is it safe to say I can put all molds in the fridge or not?
I have noticed that all the oozing soaps I have made and there was another yesterday, had Sunflower oil in the recipe.
So no more sunflower for me in any of my soap recipes.
I think the oil content in the one I use is far far too high.
The smooth top layer of the soap also had what looked like tiny pimples on the surface - is that from overheating?
I hope to save it by cutting the top layer off - so instead of ash on the surface, I have oil. !
Please advise about putting all in the fridge.
Kind regards
Carol-Ann

 

[NatureandNurture]

My first O/M/H soap was not so great, partial gel disaster with weird spots all over. The second time I tried it, I put the milk/honey mix in the freezer for 5 minutes before adding it to the soap (I subbed 50% of the water for evap milk), it made it slightly slushy. Added the M/H mix at trace along with the oatmeal and blended it all very well. After pouring into the mold, I placed the mold (plastic ice cube bin) into a cold water bath... no ice. It seemed to work. I got a nice even gel without overheating.

 

[raine]

This just happened to me last night. I used a lilac fragrance though. I ran it through the soap calc which was okay. It did not zap me, but thorughout the bar ther are oil pockets. Should I toss it? Rebatch attempt to hardprocess? Just cure and see what happens?
Here was my recipe
olive oil 30%
castor 10%
palm 20%
coconut 30%
apricot kernal 10%

 

[Guest]

You can put any recipe in any mold the fridge to keep it from gelling. If it is a silicone mold , you might want to reinforce it by putting it in a box first .

All of the oil in the recipe should all be saponified if your oil and lye amounts are correct and you are getting a true trace . I don't think sunflower oil is the culprit . I am wondering if the soap is truly coming to a full trace ?
Can you post your recipe and lye and water amounts so we can try to figure the excess oil out .thnx


Kitn

 

[Carol-Ann]

Good bar

Hello,
Although there was oil on the top of the soap, I actually did not have to cut it off - I just wiped it off carefully. The rest of the soap turned out to be a bit oily but surely the most beautiful soap I have made - the 3 different coloured layers one with fine chamomile etc. looks like a work of art.
The recipe is as follows;
136 gr. sweet almond - 226 gr. Coconut, 181 Grapeseed - 136 gr. Olive, 136 gr. Palm and 90 gr. Sunflower Oil. Lye 127.42 gr. and Water 335.32.
I used the MMS lye calculator.
Would this oil oozing on the top be from overheating?

Just to clarify, my question referred to the soap and not the mold that can go into the fridge.
Can I put any soap - not necessarily only soap with honey which is inclined to overheat, into the fridge or must it stay wrapped in a blanket?
Thanks for your help.
Kind regards
Carol-Ann

 

[Guest]

Glad you could wipe the oil off . Any soap can be put in the fridge ( it is called ungelled ) when you stop the soap from heating up . It will sometimes take a little longer until you can unmold it .
The oil on top isn't necessarily from overheating , it happens sometimes for other reasons .
I am going to run your recipe through soapmaker 3 and see what it says .
The recipe is nice and moisturizing and fairly hard .

Kitn

 

[rubato456]

i have read that concerning milk/honey soaps that a log shape mold retains too much heat ie can't cool off sufficiently fast. it is best to use a square shape mold that is only an inch or so in height.....the larger surface area aids in rapid cooling.

i don't have that type of mold, so i make sure to use the frozen milk like kitn says and i immediately put poured soap in the freezer for an hour or so, then in refrigerator for several hours. then room temp for remainder of the 24 hours.

i use vegetable milks and no honey, but i've not had any probs w/ darker areas.....the recommendation re the flat molds were to combat darkening in the middle etc of milk based soaps

 

[Kerye]

Hi Carol,
I'm new at this- just 5 batches made! But, the second batch I made was an oatmeal/honey, no milk though. I had the same problem... some where here is my post panicking because the soap was soooo oily after 24 hours.
I cut it anyways, and after 5 1/2 weeks it looks much, much better! It smells great and I made these big chunky bars that everyone is begging to test for me!
Check it after 5 or so weeks, I think you'll be please at what you see!

 

[Carol-Ann]

Soap in fridge

Hello all,
Thanks for all your helpful tips.
I am dying to ask this question. Does the fridge soap look any different from the normal wrapped one (without the oil oozing of course).?
If it looks just as beautiful either way, then why don't we just put the soap in the fridge anyway?

Second question - polishing the soap! I am busy packaging some soap and would like to know whether polishing really makes such a big difference? How should I polish my soap - does it shine?

I cut the oozing soap, the second batch in 2 days, the honey one I unfortunately ditched. It turned out to be a work of art - amazing!
This one was not honey and milk, but also had sunflower oil in which I thought was the culprit. I split the mixture into 3 - sage green, sage green with chamomile and then white on the top.
Will post a picture as soon as it can be handled safely.

I also don't have a square shape, but that makes sense - will have to make one.
I will do the freezer, fridge room tip. It should put a stop to that overheating. Does it not form water droplets from condensation on the soap? If it is not one problem it is another.

Thanks again.
Carol-Ann

 

[sandyvern]

I have made many batches of OMH scented and unscented...cause they happen to be my favorite And only one time I had one that acted up on me...it volcanoed out of the mold :shock:

But part of it I think was 1)I soaped a little too hot and 2)just to make things a little more challenging it happened to be one of the hottest days we had had all summer.

Once I cleaned up the volcano mess though the soap actually turned out awesome...one of my best OMH (unscented) ever! I use a log mold...usually a 4lb wooden mold and usually just leave it uncovered and it has been fine (except that one time). Although this last time I attempted to not gel so I did basically a rtcp and then left it on top of my chest freezer uncovered and it worked fine. I did notice that this one sweat a bit...course I think that may have been because it rained for 2 days. But it is now fine...and curing nicely. I have even used some already...great lather I am really bad about waiting to use it...I only cut a little sliver for me to try right away With the ungelled one I waited a few days...but it killed me to wait :wink: