HP Transparent Soap - developing white patches

[orpheusisland]

Hi everyone, I am new here, have been making transparent soap for a few years now from scratch using:

Shea or Palm butter
Coconut Oil
Castor Oil

With solvents:

Glycerin
Sugar Syrup
Methalated Spirits (denatured 95% alcohol)

Fragrance and Essential oils

I have noticed to varying degrees no matter which recipe I follow whether it be Catherine Failor or others on the internet such as Bonnies Clear soap. I get white spots develop each and every time to varying degrees.

I have tried placing in the fridge or freezer to cool, curing in and out of the freezer. Ive replaced alcohol and sugar syrup to varying degrees with propylene glycol and sorbitol and nothing seems to help. Ive used synthetics and essential oils and neither made any difference, even no colour.

The strangest part of all is my latest batch of 40 little soaps in separate moulds, left me with 33 that are still ok and 7 that are developing spots, the spots look like feathery crystals.

It's quite crazy and quite random, my next step is to try substituting some of the alcohol for TEA but id rather not. Does anyone have any suggestions or knowledge beyond mine?

Thanks for reading

Michael

 

[Saipan]

Are you using a distilled water?

It kinda looks like hard water minerals like salts crystallizing. Not sure though.

So it could also be sugar crystallizing depending how much you use.