Is there a miraculous save???

Rsapienza · Mar 9, 2019

I made a boo-boo. Like, a huge one. I prepped most of my oils and lye water last night. So, today, I begin to start my batch. Add my lye solution, SB to what I thought was emulsion. Added my fragrance. SB a little more. It was taking way too long to come to a light trace. Then I noticed what appeared to be some sort of separation. I stick blended the heck out of it. Still very thin. Separated batch and added color. Noticed the separation appearance again. Got online to look up something....LOL. Not really sure what I was looking for and I find a post about someone who forgot their lye. Well, of course, I laughed cuz I would NEVER do something like that!! And then it dauned on me. That's why my silk didn't fully dissolve. I had my water, added my sugar and silk but I needed to get some lye out of my bulk container as I was low in my smaller one. OMG!! I can't believe I did this.I forgot to add my lye!! Is there anything I can do???

IrishLass · Mar 9, 2019

Oh no! Hmmmmm.....if it were me.....since fat floats to the top of water, I think that what I would try to do is let the fat float to the top, separate the fat out from the water, then add your lye to the water.

IrishLass

aksamitka · Mar 9, 2019

Now we have a challenge!
I never had this type of happy accident so I don't know any "right" or verified solution.
Based on common sense you can try with something like this:
Make lye water one more time with proper amount of NaOH/KOH but in Lye:Water ratio 1.
Calculate how many grams of excess water do you have. If it will give you total lye concentration under or around 25%, you can hot process your batch to evaporate some of excess water.
I know that this is far from perfect. Maybe someone will have better answer.

Obsidian · Mar 9, 2019

I'm with IL, let the oils and water separate. If you have a lot of hard oils, you might even be able to put the everthing in the fridge and get the oils thick or hard so its easier to remove.

Once separated, you have a couple options. Mix all the oils together, weight them and proceed like normal or weigh each color separately and prepare lye for each color.

newbie · Mar 10, 2019

Another option would be to double your batch. Weigh out another batch of oils to add to what you have and make a 1:1 lye to water solution for the whole thing. That could potentially make for more soap that you really want and it might have a higher water content in total that you want, but I thought I would add another possibility.

I think this might be the third post I've read of someone forgetting their lye recently. Is there something in the air?

cmzaha · Mar 10, 2019

Not knowing your batch size, if you can put it in the freezer overnight it should be hard enough for you to remove the water from the bottom of the oils.