Not lovely soap, not yet at least

[Mobjack Bay]

I made two batches of soap last night to use up some matcha tea infused OO - same house, same humidity and temperature, but different recipes and methods.

The first batch was a lard based recipe that I soaped at around 90F, brought to light trace, poured into individual bar molds and then put into a warm oven. I used a new FO for this one and also added water hydrated green clay that I SB’d into the oils before I added the lye. I added the FO at late emulsion and SB’d it in. About an hour after the soap went into the oven, I turned the oven back on for like a minute at the lowest setting. Dumb newbie mistake... I wanted to make sure the bars got warm enough to gel or at least to saponify in a reasonable amount of time. I think I may have overheated the soap. The liquid on the top seems to be FO. Will it re-absorb?

On the other hand, a “brackish” version of Zany’s No Slime Castile turned out lovely with the matcha infusion and lemongrass EO. I used a lower percentage of matcha OO compared with above. It’s “brackish” because I used masterbatched lye and then added only enough faux seawater to achieve a 40% lye concentration. I know the green will fade, but it’s pretty while it lasts. This one went into a different oven with the light on (First time I’ve used the light for a little heat approach). Here’s a teaser:

 

[runnerchicki]

I just love the color that matcha tea gives to soap.

I did the same thing last week with my white soap - turned the oven on in an attempt to keep it warm enough to gel and a similar thing happened to me. The soap got all buggly on top. Lard based recipe as well. A week later it seems fine, but the top is kind of weird looking. Everything absorbed, but it stayed a bit bumpy and spotty looking. Since you are using individual molds maybe that won't matter so much. The worst result is that the soap smelled pretty rank for a few days. Definitely brought out a piggy smell. It *seems* to be fading a bit, but only time will tell if it is going to fade enough for me to stomach it.

Hopefully this doesn't happen to yours - they are so pretty!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

I just love the color that matcha tea gives to soap.

I did the same thing last week with my white soap - turned the oven on in an attempt to keep it warm enough to gel and a similar thing happened to me. The soap got all buggly on top. Lard based recipe as well. A week later it seems fine, but the top is kind of weird looking. Everything absorbed, but it stayed a bit bumpy and spotty looking. Since you are using individual molds maybe that won't matter so much. The worst result is that the soap smelled pretty rank for a few days. Definitely brought out a piggy smell. It *seems* to be fading a bit, but only time will tell if it is going to fade enough for me to stomach it.

Hopefully this doesn't happen to yours - they are so pretty!

They don’t smell lardy, so I will keep my fingers crossed. I haven’t unmolded them because they’re still a bit soft. Hopefully the surfaces in the molds will be okay. The color in the top soap is especially nice. I backed it up with green clay with the hopes of keeping it some shade of green for longer than the tea can do on its own.

 

[Nanette]

I made two batches of soap last night to use up some matcha tea infused OO - same house, same humidity and temperature, but different recipes and methods.

The first batch was a lard based recipe that I soaped at around 90F, brought to light trace, poured into individual bar molds and then put into a warm oven. I used a new FO for this one and also added water hydrated green clay that I SB’d into the oils before I added the lye. I added the FO at late emulsion and SB’d it in. About an hour after the soap went into the oven, I turned the oven back on for like a minute at the lowest setting. Dumb newbie mistake... I wanted to make sure the bars got warm enough to gel or at least to saponify in a reasonable amount of time. I think I may have overheated the soap. The liquid on the top seems to be FO. Will it re-absorb?

View attachment 40710

On the other hand, a “brackish” version of Zany’s No Slime Castile turned out lovely with the matcha infusion and lemongrass EO. I used a lower percentage of matcha OO compared with above. It’s “brackish” because I used masterbatched lye and then added only enough faux seawater to achieve a 40% lye concentration. I know the green will fade, but it’s pretty while it lasts. This one went into a different oven with the light on (First time I’ve used the light for a little heat approach). Here’s a teaser:

View attachment 40711

love those molds...I gotta try them. They make such elegant little bars...!

 

[Obsidian]

They will be fine and the oil should absorb with no problem. You might get a little silicone rash but its just a cosmetic issue.

I have a tendency to turn my oven on during cpop too and it does cause issues once in awhile.
For the most part, I don't bother to gel individual molds.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

They will be fine and the oil should absorb with no problem. You might get a little silicone rash but its just a cosmetic issue.

I have a tendency to turn my oven on during cpop too and it does cause issues once in awhile.
For the most part, I don't bother to gel individual molds.

I have small hands and really like the size of the smaller individual soaps, which seem to fit in my palm better. I also have a sense, based on limited experience, that the matcha tea color holds better in the individual bars. Using the light in my other oven seemed to work well for the Castile soap. It was much warmer in the oven than I expected, but not too warm

 

[Arimara]

I'm not sure I want to use my matcha in soap but I am intrigued nonetheless.

 

[Dawni]

I want that mold..

Nice soaps though..

Never tried matcha so..

 

[KiwiSoap]

Thanks for sharing these soaps, I love how crisp that pattern has come out in your Zany's Castille soap!

About an hour after the soap went into the oven, I turned the oven back on for like a minute at the lowest setting. Dumb newbie mistake... I wanted to make sure the bars got warm enough to gel or at least to saponify in a reasonable amount of time. I think I may have overheated the soap.

I have CPOPed a lot of my soaps and 'top up' the temperature once or twice each time with no ill effects yet, but I haven't used many FOs. I sit the mould on a wooden chopping board, rather than directly on the oven racks, and placed in the middle of the oven. I hope your soap has recovered?

You do wonderful things with matcha, I am still monitoring the progress of my natural greens and my chlorella soaps are still green! Not as vibrant as they were, but still not brown, 11 weeks on...

 

[earlene]

Mobjack, ovens tend to heat at a much higher temperature than the setting while trying to bring the oven up to the temperature of the setting. It's just the nature of how ovens work. (Hence the suggestion to pre-heat an oven BEFORE putting stuff inside of the oven.) So when 'topping up' the heat after turning the oven off for a period of time, one has to expect it may overheat the soap still inside.

To avoid this, what I tend to do is to cover the individual molds with plastic wrap before placing in the oven. I also place some additional insulation on the top of the molds to help hold in the heat: cardboard and a towel on top of that. If I do have to re-heat the oven, I either remove the tray of soaps from the oven during the re-heat, or I take internal temps during the re-heat process and turn the oven off immediately if it gets too hot (which it can.)

 

[Mobjack Bay]

So, it’s a sad story... I recently started masterbatching my lye water and I’m convinced now that I only added half of the needed amount of lye to the first batch posted above. It came out of the molds this morning looking exactly like guacamole in terms of color and consistency. I heated it in a pan on the stove, brought half to 165F and the other half to 200F before spooning it back into clean molds. I haven’t made much HP soap, but it just wasn’t right. It’s not at all zappy and it makes lather just fine, but I think I may have ended up with soap that is 50% SF. Yikes . Can I save it? I’m thinking about putting it in the freezer and then pulling it out to use around November when my skin starts to get super dry. Is that a crazy idea?

You can easily see the oil on the mold:

On the other hand, my brackish water ZNSC soaps are perfect!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

The cooking of the lard soap did not advance my efforts to save it I guess I should have done some research to find out what to do when you don’t add enough lye, but I had company this weekend and after being the gracious hostess, I was just too tired. Oh well...

 

[Mobjack Bay]

After a little down time, I found this thread, which inspired me onward. Now I have soap in a mold... I started by mashing up what I had after rebatch #1 (like small soap curds in oil) then melting it again on the stove, adding water as necessary to get a consistency I could work with. My original lye concentration was 40%, so there was room for water. I added the missing lye, which I decreased by 10% to account for potentially missing oils due to the messiness of the first round of rebatching. My nice green went to brown. The soap is not zappy. To liven it up a bit, I added some small white, yellow and pastel blue soap chunks I had saved up along with various other bits and pieces of trimmings. It will be rustic soap for sure.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Here’s what I ended up with for the first batch with the tortuous history. Some of the green from the matcha is coming through as an olive green.

 

[dibbles]

Nice save

 

[Dawni]

Yeah.. Looks good actually

 

[Mobjack Bay]

I really did not want to put that first batch in the trash, especially because it has some avocado oil in it.