My First Batch! FAIL!

[NewNaturalista]

Hi Everyone, I'm new to soap making, in fact I made my first batch a few days ago. I thought I followed directions to a T EXCEPT I used Olive Butter instead of Olive Oil.

My batch traced pretty fast which I thought was odd, but it looked even so I poured and stored for 24 hours. When I went to cut...well see the photos below. It was hard as a brick and crumbled when I cut.

Please let me know what I might have done wrong! (I'm hoping it was the olive butter mix?

Thanks in advance!

 

[dieSpinne]

1) Can you post the pics? You mention them but I cannot find them in your post.

2) ( ETA: Thanks carebear for moving this...)

 

[carebear]

no pictures here!

anyway, tell us your exact amounts of each ingredient.
and olive butter is NOT the same as olive oil, it would absolutely trace faster.

 

[MKRainville]

i would love to see the photo

I have had a batch crumble - it went to trace WAY to fast the temperature was off balance and i was rushing and still very new ... this was years ago though.

Try the soap calc (its listed as a sticky under cp forum) but DONT give up - it takes (lots) of practice and believe me.. weve all had a cruddy batch

 

[soapbuddy]

Olive butter is most likely soy or soybean oil based. Soybean and olive have different SAP values. That could be why your soap is crumbly. It could be lye heavy.

 

[Fragola]

Looking at the soap calculator, it seems to me that olive oil and soybean oil have very close SAP values.

To my knowledge, olive butter is still olive oil, but hydrogenated. Assuming we are talking about pure 100% olive butter (I guess you should check the product label).

Did you zap test your soap ? Did it show any separation ? Maybe you had a fake trace.

 

[Maythorn]

I once had a all shortening batch fail because it cracked and crumbled. It was one of my first.

Don't give up!

 

[Tiffiny Shea]

Soap Seizing

It sounds like something I just read about called "soap seizing", when it comes to trace too fast... here is what the article said:


"What is “soap seizing” ?
Seizing is when you incorporate additives into your mixture and the soap overreacts by immediately going to trace, becomes grainy and/or becomes hard. Most often it is the result of difficult fragrance oils…but there can be other reasons. Too high or too low temperature can cause the fragrance oil and/or essential oil to overreact, causing the soap to harden suddenly and unexpectedly. Heat produced from a stick blender can often push a difficult fragrance over the edge and cause a seize. It can also be caused by ingredients such as sugars, waxes, jojoba oil, stearic acid, and alcohols. Some base oils such as neem oil, shea butter and sometimes castor oil can also cause soap to seize if used at more than 5%. Additionally, some essential oils (especially cinnamon and clove) can accelerate trace or cause soap to seize. Many Soapmakers avoid seizing problems with fragrance oils by blending them into a small amount of warm oils, taken from your soap pot before you have added your lye solution, and add at early trace."

It's from this pretty informative website:
http://www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com/FA ... aking.aspx

 

[NewNaturalista]

Looking at the soap calculator, it seems to me that olive oil and soybean oil have very close SAP values.

To my knowledge, olive butter is still olive oil, but hydrogenated. Assuming we are talking about pure 100% olive butter (I guess you should check the product label).

Did you zap test your soap ? Did it show any separation ? Maybe you had a fake trace.

What is it a zap test?

 

[NewNaturalista]

Re: Soap Seizing

WOW I think this might have been what happened!
BTW I've tried to post the pictures - here's a link

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/232/soap2.jpg/

It sounds like something I just read about called "soap seizing", when it comes to trace too fast... here is what the article said:


"What is “soap seizing” ?
Seizing is when you incorporate additives into your mixture and the soap overreacts by immediately going to trace, becomes grainy and/or becomes hard. Most often it is the result of difficult fragrance oils…but there can be other reasons. Too high or too low temperature can cause the fragrance oil and/or essential oil to overreact, causing the soap to harden suddenly and unexpectedly. Heat produced from a stick blender can often push a difficult fragrance over the edge and cause a seize. It can also be caused by ingredients such as sugars, waxes, jojoba oil, stearic acid, and alcohols. Some base oils such as neem oil, shea butter and sometimes castor oil can also cause soap to seize if used at more than 5%. Additionally, some essential oils (especially cinnamon and clove) can accelerate trace or cause soap to seize. Many Soapmakers avoid seizing problems with fragrance oils by blending them into a small amount of warm oils, taken from your soap pot before you have added your lye solution, and add at early trace."

It's from this pretty informative website:
http://www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com/FA ... aking.aspx

 

[NewNaturalista]

Here are the pictures!

I'm sorry it's taken so long to get the pix to you - I had problems linking them here. Here are two photos.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/839/soap1.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/232/soap2.jpg/

 

[tlm884]

I would probably end up rebatching that. It looks pretty lye heavy

 

[Soaplady22]

I suggest rebatching also. Break it all up and put it in a crock pot - or in the oven - and then remold. Maybe add a liquid 1 Tblsp. at a time - milk or water. Some add sodium lactate. I'm assuming your ingredient amounts were correct.

I'm rebatching today - it's in the crock pot now. I will add 1 Tblsp. sugar water and 1 Tblsp. of the fragrance that I originally used at the end. Yesterday's rebatch turned out pretty good. (In my case I let the milk/honey soap get too hot and it separated. So it won't look so great but at least it will be usable!!)

Welcome to the wild and wacky world of soaping!!

 

[youreapima2]

I had a problem with a batch of lavender soap doing this exact same thing, only not as crumbly as yours. I found out that it was LYE heavy. The lye calc I was using was not a very good one. The soapcalc works much better because it will superfat, unlike the other I used.

I would rebatch this. But be patient rebatching it does take quite some time to melt it back down.

Another note, be careful what f/o's you use too. Some could bring a batch to an almost instant thick trace, I also found this out hard way, when it turned to consistency of mashed potatoes within 15-20 seconds.

Try not to get too discouraged...making cp soap is a learning process.

I have made about 15 batches so far with a few that didn't turn out so nice. Those usually tend to be the larger batches that I think will work out. I have learned to make smaller batches for the practice. It's a little frustrating when the small ones come out so great though. But until you have your recipe down pat and the f/o's that work well, I would highly suggest smaller batches

Also keep a "soap diary" with details of ingredients used, how big of batch and the outcome. This will help you out a lot, esp when you have ones that turn out fabulous and you cannot remember what you did to achieve that

 

[Fragola]

A zap test is using your tongue as a pH meter for testing the pH of the soap. Assuming you don't have a more reliable pH measuring device.

This is how I do it: stick a needlepoint sized piece of soap on to my fingernail and touch it with my tongue. A "zap" means that your soap is lye heavy. It's an electric feeling, like licking a 9V battery. If I don't get zapped, I get more confident and actually lick the bar

If you suspect that the lye wasn't correctly homogenized, you may need to test more soap samples.

Sure, you can rebatch, which can be tricky ... If you have some measuring or lye calculation error, you would need to calculate how much oil to add. Of course, you'd need to know exactly what your error was, in order to fix it.