Is this my first fail?

[lenarenee]

Because I've made 17 batches of soap that all turned out well, I invested in a real soap mold and used it for the first time yesterday. I made a dandelion zebra swirl with a bastille recipe, scented with Lavendar, Lemon, Rosemary. First time using micas.

When I finished swirling, the batter looked fine. I decided to OP it since I used pastel micas, and brought it to a full gel.

This morning there's a thin layer of oil around the edges, and what looks like a few grains of salt. I'm worried that this is lye heavy. What do you think? ( I'm too chicken to zap test! Please don't make me!)

Oh, it's still sitting in the mold. It's a thick silicone mold and I can't tell the difference between squishy soap, and squishy silicone mold! Since the soap is only 16 hours old, I thought I'd leave it a while.

 

[Obsidian]

I wouldn't think its lye heavy, most likely overheated a bit and you are seeing some separation. Give it some time for the oil to soak back in. Poke the top and see how firm it is, when you do unmold, do so in a pan in case there is oil pockets and you need to rebatch.

You do need to learn the zap test though, it pretty important you know your soap isn't caustic. Just don't test brand new soap, wait until its 3-4 days old.

 

[shunt2011]

It sounds like it may have overheated. You may want to just let it sit and see if the oils reabsorb and then zap test it. I don't OP as every time I tried it when I first started out it caused issues so now I just insulate my molds really well and haven't had any problems with partial gel or overheating. I use silicone lined wooden molds though.

 

[Obsidian]

I too always had issues with doing OP. It would overheat and I would get a little oil separation or cracks. I finally figured out how to OP that works for me. I let my soap sit in the mold for 2-3 hours to start setting up then I put it in a preheated oven (170*) just until it hits full gel. As soon as I see its gelled all the way to the edges, it comes out of the oven. I never, ever turn the oven on while the soap is in it, even a couple minutes and it overheates on me.

 

[Seawolfe]

I have the same problem as Obsidian - the oven has to be warmed & off for me or I get just what you describe. Instead I've been just putting the lid on top of the mold, bundling the sides and top in an old towel and then placing on my floor heater grate that always has a pilot light on.

 

[seven]

me too. i dont have much luck with cpop, dunno why. either it gave me volcano or overheating. nowadays, i don't turn on the oven unless i have a very valid reason. if it's only for color reasons, then forget it. not worth the pain me thinks. but that's just me.

as for your soap, give it some more time. mine is usually in the mold for at least 24 hours.

 

[IrishLass]

With the exception of one of my formulas, I stick all my batches in the oven to encourage gel, but I set my oven temperature on the low side to avoid overheating. It took a little bit of trial and error to figure out what my 'sweet-spot' oven temperature should be (the often recommended 170F was way to hot for the majority of my batches), but it thankfully wasn't too long before I figured it out.

I should mention that 3 important factors came into play when trying to find my sweet-spot oven temp: 1) my soaping temps, 2) my lye solution % and 3) my mold type. All of those seemed to make a difference.

To make a long story short, for the vast majority of my batches (the ones soaped between 114F - 120F using a 33% lye solution and poured into my well-insulated wood molds), my sweet-spot oven temp turns out to be 120F/49C.

Basically, once my oven heats up to 120F/49C, I stick my soap (covered) into the oven, then I immediately turn the oven off and let it alone to do its thing overnight. This works very well for me in achieving full gel without overheating. Every once in a blue moon I might get a soap that didn't gel completely all the way to the outer edges (usually about 1/8" shy of being fully gelled in some spots), but that's too inconsequential to be an issue with me.

I recently purchased 2 of Essential Depots silicone molds and I'm sure I'll have to conduct some trial and error tests to find a sweet-spot oven temp for them.


IrishLass

 

[lenarenee]

I forgot that there was a little leftover batter I had poured into a small container for the little one to practice her swirling... it never gelled and looks beautiful. *sigh*

From what everyone says it does sound like it overheated. I thought I was being conservative with the oven...heated it to 160, turned it off, left door wide open for a one minute before putting soap in and leaving it, checking every 20 minutes.

Normally I prevent gel. After this experiment...I think I'm going to stick with that!!

I don't think it's going to recover; but I'll let it sit and hope that is surprises me.

Thank you everyone for sharing your experience with me!

 

[lenarenee]

Well, the soap did slurp its oil back up. No zaps. But it's 10 kinds of UGLY. The base is sickly yellow (evoo), and the pretty pastel micas have no idea what color they used to be.

So...I handed it over to dd (who thinks its beautiful:roll, gave her the soap cutter and let her have at it.

Did you know that a 2lb batch of soap makes 22 slices of soap? And it's a great sub for Play-Doh!

Oh well. I'll try the dandelion zebra swirl again this weekend...after I reformulate a white soap recipe...AND receive titanium dioxide from BB!

 

[grayceworks]

Well, I know from experience with using some of the more greenish EVOO that the sickly yellow often will still lighten with cure time, to a light cream even to nearly white... and so if your micas were discolored by the EVOO, they might eventually be closer to the color you'd planned. Unless they were ph sensitive and known to morph... but even then, some soaps get significantly milder with cure, so i think that could affect color too? Someone correct me if I'm off base in thinking here, it's entirely possible that my brain is addled from the stuff I'm taking at the moment lol.

 

[Obsidian]

I always hear the EVOO will lighten but mine never did. I made castile with EV once and it stayed a ugly yellowy green until I rebatched the mess about 6 months later. Now I use pomice or regular OO and no more green.

I only get 9-10 slices from a 2lb batch, how thick did you cut yours?

 

[lenarenee]

I always hear the EVOO will lighten but mine never did. I made castile with EV once and it stayed a ugly yellowy green until I rebatched the mess about 6 months later. Now I use pomice or regular OO and no more green.

I only get 9-10 slices from a 2lb batch, how thick did you cut yours?

Oh, I get 8-9 bars out of this silicone mold. But...my six year old thinks more is better and I put her in charge of this ugly, smelly soap....hence the large number of "slices". A lot of it now is in a pile that's either diced, or shredded with a vegetable peeler. She thinks it's beautiful. Poor thing.

 

[vuladams]

Oh, I get 8-9 bars out of this silicone mold. But...my six year old thinks more is better and I put her in charge of this ugly, smelly soap....hence the large number of "slices". A lot of it now is in a pile that's either diced, or shredded with a vegetable peeler. She thinks it's beautiful. Poor thing.

That's adorable that she loves it!