Is it the FO or recipe oils??

[troyrim01]

So today I made some soap. I poured my soap batter at very thin trace into two separate beakers, coloured one green, and the other white. I distributed the FO evenly between the beakers. The FO seized my green soap batter whilst separated from my white soap batter.
Is it the FO that is bad, or is the FO just bad with my recipe? (or is it a case of testing the FO with other recipes?)

Also....
I scooped my green batter into the mould. And then tried to stick blend my white soap batter which didn't do much. So I just poured it into the mould on top of my green soap batter. Was this a bad move?? ...It's just sitting on top all rice-like and separated from the FO :-( ...or should I have not poured my riced white soap batter at all?? :cry:

 

[shunt2011]

It sounds like your FO misbehaved badly. If it doesn't look like it's coming together I would pour it all into a crockpot and HP it. It may bring it together. You may need to add a bit of water to it.

 

[troyrim01]

It sounds like your FO misbehaved badly. If it doesn't look like it's coming together I would pour it all into a crockpot and HP it. It may bring it together. You may need to add a bit of water to it.

Ok. How much time do I have? ....I poured my soap into the mould at 13:00 today, so when is best to see if it has or hasn't come together?

 

[cmzaha]

You can put it in the crock pot and anytime, but would do it as soon as possible. The softer the soap the better it will melt down. Make sure you get as close to all the separated oils and batter into the crock pot and smoosh up what is solid or semi solid. You may have to add in a little water. With your crock pot of low let it melt and try to stick blend it together. Usually riced soap will come together when heat and stick blenders are applied. If you did not add fo to the white portion and it separated, I would guess you did not have a stable emulsion otherwise it should have seized the same as the green portion.

 

[dixiedragon]

It could be your FO or possibly too hot? What FO did you use?

 

[IrishLass]

Can you tell us more about your recipe, such as what fats you used and their proportions, how much FO you used ppo, your water amount, and what your temps were, etc.... Oftentimes, the culprit isn't necessarily one thing vs another, but maybe a combo of things.....

For example, your FO may actually have been a well-behaved one, but if a goodly portion of hard fats was used in the recipe and you didn't soap warm enough for their liking, then you added a cool or room temp FO to the batter when the lye reaction was just barely getting started, it may have added just the right amount of coolness for things to go into 'pseudo trace' mode. Pseudo trace' looks like a really fast trace or seize is happening, but it's not a true trace- instead it's just the hard fats coming out of suspension before the exothermic heat reaction of the lye has a chance to kick into high enough gear to keep them in suspension....

Or at the other end of the spectrum, maybe pseudo-trace had nothing to do with it at all, and the batter may just have been too hot (some FOs like cooler temps)........

And/or it could've been that the amount of water you used was too little (some FOs behave better with more water)........

And/or you used too much stick-blender action (some FOs do much better when hand-stirred).

Knowing any of the above factors will help us to be able to better help you troubleshoot more accurately.

In any case- whenever you have a badly misbehaving batch, an emergency HP is the cure that will save your soap from sure doom. Whenever I have a dire seizing/ricing/separation situation like that, and my batter just won't mellow out or come together, I put my soap pot (which is stainless steel) right into the oven @ 180F and cook it into submission. Works every time.


IrishLass

 

[troyrim01]

It could be your FO or possibly too hot? What FO did you use?

I used green apple fragrance oil and I soaped at 115º

Here's the recipe:
• 7.3 oz. Coconut Oil
• 8.7 oz. Olive Oil
• 5.4 oz. Palm Oil
• 4.4 oz. Meadowfoam Oil
• 1.8 oz. Rice Bran Oil
• 1.4 oz. Jojoba Oil
• 3.8 oz. Sodium Hydroxide Lye
• 9.6 oz. Distilled Water (I took 4 tbsp of this and used to mix the colorants. So only 8.8oz was part of the lye solution)
• pinch tussah silk
• 2oz green apple fragrance oil
• 2 tsp chromium oxide green powder
• 2 tsp titanium dioxide

...or could it have been any of the above oils, or something wrong with the recipe?

...Also, I hot processed it after a few hours of it sitting in the mould. Will the goodness of the oils, as well as the lather, bubbles and smoothness still be the same as if it was a CP soap. Or does HP change that?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

What exactly did you do as this 'hp' step? Hp means cooking the soap until it saponifies and then putting it in the mould.

 

[troyrim01]

What exactly did you do as this 'hp' step? Hp means cooking the soap until it saponifies and then putting it in the mould.

I put it in the crock-pot, melted it down, and scooped into the mould

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Ah, I wondered if you had just popped it in the oven, mould and all!