New to soap making 2nd batch ever

[Shollie979]

Hello amazing and intelligent soap makers,

I am new to soap making and yesterday was my first attempt in making organic homemade soap. And I would like to know where I went wrong?

i was making turmeric, ginger & Honey soap. I used the heat transfer method to melt the hard butters and oils. My recipe contained:
6oz of lye
23oz of water (my actual first batch was way to thick so I had to chunk it and try again)
4oz of Shea butter
5oz of coconut oil
19oz of olive oil
8.7oz of honey, turmeric, and ginger
.8oz of lavender and lemongrass
2.5oz of sweet almond oil

I then went throughout the entire process and when it was ready I placed it into wooden silicone mold box I got off Amazon. It looked and smelled amazing I thought I finally got it right. I waited for about a 1.5 days because I noticed an oily layer on the top of the soap so I placed it under a low fan. When the soap hit about 36hrs I decided to just go ahead and cut it. When I cut into the soap the middle layer of my turmeric never solidified and as soon as I lifted it from the silicone liner it rushed out. Where did I go wrong and how can I fix this issue? may you pretty please help me?

 

[TheGecko]

WAY too much water. Using a 33% Lye Concentration, you should have only used 8.51 oz of distilled water. And you're a bit lye heavy. Your soap overheated.

Adding to the over heating...8.7 oz of honey, turmeric and ginger?!? That's a LOT of additives for 30.5 oz of Oils. At best, 1 teaspoon of honey per pound of oils...so about 1.5 teaspoons. Same with your turmeric and ginger since I am going to assume they are for color?

 

[Shollie979]

WAY too much water. Using a 33% Lye Concentration, you should have only used 8.51 oz of distilled water. And you're a bit lye heavy. Your soap overheated.

Adding to the over heating...8.7 oz of honey, turmeric and ginger?!? That's a LOT of additives for 30.5 oz of Oils. At best, 1 teaspoon of honey per pound of oils...so about 1.5 teaspoons. Same with your turmeric and ginger since I am going to assume they are for color?

Thank you so very much for taking time to help me I truly appreciate it. I can’t wait to try and again with your recommendations

WAY too much water. Using a 33% Lye Concentration, you should have only used 8.51 oz of distilled water. And you're a bit lye heavy. Your soap overheated.

Adding to the over heating...8.7 oz of honey, turmeric and ginger?!? That's a LOT of additives for 30.5 oz of Oils. At best, 1 teaspoon of honey per pound of oils...so about 1.5 teaspoons. Same with your turmeric and ginger since I am going to assume they are for color?

But yes the turmeric, honey and ginger are for coloring.

 

[earlene]

I am new to soap making and yesterday was my first attempt in making organic homemade soap. And I would like to know where I went wrong?

i was making turmeric, ginger & Honey soap. I used the heat transfer method to melt the hard butters and oils. My recipe contained:
6oz of lye
23oz of water (my actual first batch was way to thick so I had to chunk it and try again)
4oz of Shea butter
5oz of coconut oil
19oz of olive oil
8.7oz of honey, turmeric, and ginger
.8oz of lavender and lemongrass
2.5oz of sweet almond oil

I then went throughout the entire process and when it was ready I placed it into wooden silicone mold box I got off Amazon. It looked and smelled amazing I thought I finally got it right. I waited for about a 1.5 days because I noticed an oily layer on the top of the soap so I placed it under a low fan. When the soap hit about 36hrs I decided to just go ahead and cut it. When I cut into the soap the middle layer of my turmeric never solidified and as soon as I lifted it from the silicone liner it rushed out. Where did I go wrong and how can I fix this issue? may you pretty please help me?

I think 8+ ounces of honey + turmeric + ginger is the problem here. Where did you get this recipe?

If you actually used 8 ounces of honey or even close to 8 ounces in only 30.5 ounces of oils, that would certainly make for a sticky soap if it were even ever completely emulsified or traced.

Perhaps you could share a little bit more of your process as well. But I am wondering where you go this recipe.

Also, you used at least 2 ounces too much of NaOH (if you lye is sodium hydroxide) and 3 times as much water as would be called for in a normal recipe with 30 ounces of oil. Are you sure about the amount of water & lye you posted?

I get completely different amounts for NaOH & water when the lye calculator is set to default settings:
click to enlarge


If I try to make the water & lye fit what you posted above, the soap comes out quite lye heavy, in fact it comes to a NEGATIVE 38 superfat (-38), meaning extremely lye heavy. See this:
click to enlarge

 

[Zing]

Welcome to the forum and welcome to the hobby! I will weigh in on how crucial it is to use a lye calculator. You should run every recipe through a lye calculator -- even "trusted" recipes found online or in books. It's important to make sure every single lye particle marries an oil particle -- or else it will be caustic.
I bet it does smell great -- I'm putting that combo on my list!
Good luck and keep us posted. Third time will be the charm!

 

[GemstonePony]

Welcome! To clarify, was the 8.7oz of honey, turmeric, and ginger combined, or 8.7oz each? It was way too much either way, I'm just trying to get an idea of how far over it was. You shouldn't need more than 1-1.5 tbs per pound of oil for the turmeric and I believe ginger should be similar, though ginger isn't used for color nearly as often as turmeric.

I'm on the higher end of honey users, I think, but I'll still only use at most 1tablespoon per pound of oil, and I'll only go that high if the recipe is very high in stearic acid, otherwise the bar just collapses to mush in no time. If you're just using it for color, I would drop it to 1tsp per pound of oil in the batter that you're coloring.
If your batter uses 30 oz of oil, and you're only coloring 1/3rd of it with honey, then you calculate the honey for 10oz of oil, and the same calculations should be made in regards to turmeric and ginger.

 

[Shollie979]

I think 8+ ounces of honey + turmeric + ginger is the problem here. Where did you get this recipe?

If you actually used 8 ounces of honey or even close to 8 ounces in only 30.5 ounces of oils, that would certainly make for a sticky soap if it were even ever completely emulsified or traced.

Perhaps you could share a little bit more of your process as well. But I am wondering where you go this recipe.

Also, you used at least 2 ounces too much of NaOH (if you lye is sodium hydroxide) and 3 times as much water as would be called for in a normal recipe with 30 ounces of oil. Are you sure about the amount of water & lye you posted?

I get completely different amounts for NaOH & water when the lye calculator is set to default settings:
click to enlarge
View attachment 55700

If I try to make the water & lye fit what you posted above, the soap comes out quite lye heavy, in fact it comes to a NEGATIVE 38 superfat (-38), meaning extremely lye heavy. See this:
click to enlarge
View attachment 55701

This is absolutely perfect thank you so much for your advice. As you can see lol i do truly need help. I looked several places but mostly YouTube and Google and I was not able to find a recipe just the people telling me continuously of the ingredients that were being used. Where can I find the calculator that you used? That seems to be extremely helpful.

Welcome to the forum and welcome to the hobby! I will weigh in on how crucial it is to use a lye calculator. You should run every recipe through a lye calculator -- even "trusted" recipes found online or in books. It's important to make sure every single lye particle marries an oil particle -- or else it will be caustic.
I bet it does smell great -- I'm putting that combo on my list!
Good luck and keep us posted. Third time will be the charm!

Yes sir, moving forward I will set this into habit. I am looking into now is this I can just download?

Welcome! To clarify, was the 8.7oz of honey, turmeric, and ginger combined, or 8.7oz each? It was way too much either way, I'm just trying to get an idea of how far over it was. You shouldn't need more than 1-1.5 tbs per pound of oil for the turmeric and I believe ginger should be similar, though ginger isn't used for color nearly as often as turmeric.

I'm on the higher end of honey users, I think, but I'll still only use at most 1tablespoon per pound of oil, and I'll only go that high if the recipe is very high in stearic acid, otherwise the bar just collapses to mush in no time. If you're just using it for color, I would drop it to 1tsp per pound of oil in the batter that you're coloring.
If your batter uses 30 oz of oil, and you're only coloring 1/3rd of it with honey, then you calculate the honey for 10oz of oil, and the same calculations should be made in regards to turmeric and ginger.

Yes It was combined. Perfect I gotcha. I am going to reattempt today on my soap with everyone’s amazing help and with the help of my lye calculator.

 

[Kcryss]

In addition to what others have already stated, here is a website by one of the members here with some great information on formulating soap recipes: Table of contents | Soapy Stuff

 

[earlene]

This is absolutely perfect thank you so much for your advice. As you can see lol i do truly need help. I looked several places but mostly YouTube and Google and I was not able to find a recipe just the people telling me continuously of the ingredients that were being used. Where can I find the calculator that you used? That seems to be extremely helpful.

This link: Soapmaking Recipe Builder & Lye Calculator

It is not downloadable for offline use; it requires an internet connnection to use it. If you need an offline calculator that you can download for use when you don't have internet access, I think there are some free, but I haven't used one in a long time. I did have one a few years back, but prefer the online ones.