Not a good smell

[Korgan]

Hello.

So nearly every time I make cp soap, there is this lingering scent that I don't like. And when cured later on, and when used, there is a smell that I can liken to ammonia. It is not a good smell.

I figure that the first bad smell is coming from excess oil in the soap, after all, it's basically the smell of cooked oil. I can remedy this by adjusting my lye discount, and have done so recently, successfully.

But this ammonia scent is still there. All I can do is add larger ratios of fragrance, but I'd like to understand where this smell comes from.

Does anyone have a similar problem?

Apart from this, the soap is fantastic. Just want to get to grips with this.

 

[Soaplady22]

Are you HPing or CPing? How much fragrance PPO are you using?
What lye discount are you using? What about water amount? How do you mean you remedied the smell by regulating the lye?

Someone here should be able to answer this for you!

 

[TJ]

Are you putting sodium lactate in your soap by chance? Sometimes when I put sodium lactate in my soap I get an ammonia smell, but after a day or two of curing it fixes itself.

 

[agriffin]

I only get an ammonia smell when soaping with milk. Are your oils fresh?

 

[Korgan]

Here I am!

Ok so.

Am I HP or CP? I already said I'm CP.
How much fragrance? Off the top of my head, I think it was about 4% the weight of the oils. But I'm not sure about that.
Lye discount? It was 5%.
Water amount? 1/3 the weight of the oils.

Remedied the smell by regulating the lye: what I mean by this is that I expect the smell is coming from unsaponified oils, and so if I adjust my lye discount (lessen it), then there's less oil sitting around. Since I'm using grams instead of ounces it's much easier to make fine adjustments.
Sodium lactate? No.
Yes my oils are fresh.

@TJ, yeah the smell went away eventually, like you said. But at first wow it's very unpleasant.

Sorry for delay in my response, the notification email got sent to my spam.

 

[turbo]

I got an ammonia smell last night when I made GM soap. I was not sure where it came from. I thought it was from the onion skins in the garbage from dinner. Soap smells fine now.


Mike

 

[Guest]

It's not coming from unsaponified oils. If it would, the oils would smell like ammonia before you add them to the soap. Did they ?

Also, I never had a recipe smelling like ammonia. Except for GM, of course. From what I heard, I believe that's always the case with GM.

If you investigate your receipe more in depth, you may be able to find out what's the cause of this.

 

[busymakinsoap!]

the smell of 'cooked oils' to me would signify rancidity, and lowering the super fat to decrease that smell is only masking the problem and not solving it.

My guess is, there is an oil in your recipe with a short shelf life. I have used sunflower and had the same result.

A high superfat does not = smelly soap

 

[Guest]

Except that rancidity doesn't go away with time.

 

[busymakinsoap!]

Except that rancidity doesn't go away with time.

I think from the OP there were 2 smells, the ammonia (which went away with time) and the cooked oil smell (which went away with the lowering of the superfat)