non dissolving sodium hydroxide

[bekyip]

hello this is my first post i've been cp soap making since last march and love it. one of my friends has tried to make soap yesterday and i got a phone call asking for advice. Her lye wouldn't dissolve it got hot but not hot as it should and about 3/4 of it didn't dissolve i have been trawling the internet but i can't see any help. My suggestions are it could be the bottled water she used or a bad batch of sodium hydroxide does anyone else have a clue?
thanks in advance
bek

 

[newbie]

Did she say how much lye she tried to dissolve in how much water? Perhaps she did not use enough water, but can't say without more information.

 

[carebear]

yep, we need more information.

how much water, and how much lye for starters?
did she stir right away or did it sit for a while once the lye was added to the water?
oh, and did she add the lye to the water (or the other way around)?
what was her source of lye? brand?
what (about) was the temperature of the water she started with?

 

[bekyip]

oh thankyou sooooo much for replying i was worried no one would.
As i wasn't there at the mixing i'm not 100% sure on everything but she was following Anne watson's shea butter supreme recipe which is my favourite recipe and i've never had a problem with it. so she should have mixed 227g of water and 119g of lye Thanks for all the questions i'm going to fwd her them so she can go through and work out if she got anything wrong. She bought the sodium hydroxide form the same company i use justasoap but it could be a bad batch. Thanks again it's great to have some where to refer to when somthing unusual happens.
bek

 

[newbie]

One other thing that crossed my mind was what sort of container she mixed her lye up in. If there is any oily residue in that container, the lye can react with it and make small bits of white soap dots/balls that float around and could look like beads of undissolved lye. Worth asking about her containers. They can look clean but have a bit in there depending on how she washed it.

 

[bekyip]

One other thing that crossed my mind was what sort of container she mixed her lye up in. If there is any oily residue in that container, the lye can react with it and make small bits of white soap dots/balls that float around and could look like beads of undissolved lye. Worth asking about her containers. They can look clean but have a bit in there depending on how she washed it.

That is good point i'd not thought about that will ask her that aswell
thankyou
bek

 

[bekyip]

hi i've heard back
It's quite exciting being linked to lots of people through soap!

I used a plastic jug but I'm going to buy a glass one cos I wondered if it was reacting with the lye.

In answer to the other questions:
I followed your recipe using 227g spring water (Sainsbury's Scottish) and 119g sodium hydroxide adding this to the water. I stirred gently the 1st time I tried (we did it 3 times), then stirred it quickly, then tried leaving it before stirring- same results. I bought the lye from same place as you (just for soap?) and the water was cold (room temp) to begin with.

Like I texted I'm going to try again with different water and use a glass jug (we tried different spoons too!).

bek

 

[carebear]

bek, please do not use a glass jug - if it breaks (glass and heat don't mix well) you have a very dangerous situation.

you should stir as soon as you add the lye to the water, and keep stirring until it goes from cloudy to clear.

residue on your plastic jug can leave you with floaters, but the plastic won't react with the lye.

 

[Fragola]

Seems to me you aren't patient enough and possibly don't stir enough.

Sometimes lye dissolves slower, happened to me last week. Being somewhat impatient and also lazy myself, I started watching TV and checked on it every half hour or so and in few hours it was done. Other times, lye can dissolve very quickly, in minutes.

If everything else fails, you can increase the quantity of water, up to maybe 300-320 grams.

 

[bekyip]

i think she means a pyrex jug not just a glass jug that would take the heat
bek

 

[krissy]

i think she means a pyrex jug not just a glass jug that would take the heat
bek

pyrex is not safe for doing lye in. no glass is.

 

[carebear]

European pyrex is better than that in the US, but still not safe enough - if it's scratched or has been bumped it can shatter when the temp of the solution changes fast (as it does when lye mixes with water).

You really need to stir until it's dissolved. If you leave it before it's dissolved, it can form a rather interesting lump (looks kind of like ice) on the bottom of your container which will eventually dissolve - but eventually is a really long time. Stir until the solution clears.

 

[bekyip]

hi i think that discribes what she discribed over the phone to me Does it happen often ? i've never had this happen to me.
bek

 

[carebear]

I've had it happen when I dumped in the lye and didn't stir until it dissolved, or when I put the solution right into the freezer (colder water can hold less lye, so because that one was a highly concentrated solution - more so than usual - it precipitated out).

 

[KD]

You need me to hop in here, I think. About a year and a half ago, I had a bad batch of lye in my possession. It was a dissolving issue, and no amount of changes on my part would make it dissolve. It was a manufacturing issue, and I had my money (for the lye and not the ruined soap) refunded, and the issue was corrected. I am assuming that it is entirely possible that this has happened to someone else. The one thing that I noticed about the lye crystals themselves, is that they were much finer than was normal. The water never heated like it should have, and the soap was super soft and greasy (no leaking oil though).

 

[Fragola]

Well, that also happened to me, except it was my mistake. The package was clearly labeled with a lower content of lye and a high content of salt.

I was able to separate out some of the salt, which tends to fall to the bottom of the jar, and it in fact it does look like fine crystals. Probably this can happen at the seller aswell, the saltier lye falls to the bottom of the barrel.

On the topic of solubility, the salt indeed reduces the solubility of lye and it takes a huge amount of patience getting it dissolved.

For a more experienced soaper, it is perfectly useable, but it is quite a pain adjusting the calculated amount of lye each time. I just don't like to throw stuff away.

 

[bekyip]

Can i start by apologising a lot for not replying or continuing to post on this forum after all the help you gave over this problem. I didn't make soap for a while and then i forgot about checking this forum - now am back into soap making season i will check more often.

bek