how many times can I rebatch my failed experiment?

[pure&simple]

Hi,

I'm a newbie at soap making. I've just discovered this great hobby for me less than 2 weeks ago and I've made already 5 batches of soap. My husband asked me how dirty do I think we are.

Three days ago I used a recipe with OO, CO and AO with GM and CM and water as liquid.

The batch traced slowly and light. Then I poured into the mold and waited 3 days but it never sap. So this morning I rebatched it with additional GM but it is still very soft. Can I just make liquid soap out of this or ...?

 

[PrairieCraft]

Tell the husband that you are very dirty :twisted: Mine thought I was nuts at first but now he complains that we are almost out of soap in the shower if there is less than 3 bars in it.

I'm nowhere near expert but if you were either short on lye or heavy on liquid then the addition of more liquid wasn't the way to go. Someone with more experience will probably chime in soon on how to add more lye to the batch to get it right. You might want to go ahead and post your recipe with amounts included so everyone can have a look at what might have went wrong.

 

[pure&simple]

I can't remember the exact recipe, nor can I find the darn thing but I think the recipe consisted of 14 oz of OO, then 1 oz (1.5?) each of grapeseed and almond and ???. the total base was 17 oz. I think the lye was 55g. I used 2oz of water with lye then added coconut milk and GM milk at trace. I can't remember how much liquid. The paste turned out beautiful, like soft vanilla custard. I could have eaten some spoonful had I not know better.

But never mind, I decided to rebatch again with lots of water to turn it into liquid soap. I think it worked. I used it to wash my hands this morning and nothing got burned off. I hope this is not a no- no thing to do with failed batches.

 

[carebear]

keeping good notes is key, as you have just learned.

as for turning it into liquid soap - well it might start out looking that way, but if you soaped with sodium hydroxide then you will be turning it into soap slime, or mucous - and a pretty solid slime at that. such is the nature of sodium soaps.

but have fun anyway!

 

[Muzhik]

Rather than turning into liquid hand soap, do some research on the web on making laundry soap. You'll need to find the right amounts to add, but by adding some washing soda (NOT baking soda), some Borax, and maybe some grated Fels Naptha, then boiling it up, you could have a pretty decent laundry soap.