Odd separation happening

[Michaelvsoaps]

Hi, as you can see in the photo.

the resulting soap (Not moulded, but cut out) went through a separation during cool down. I wonder why and what is the clear side and what is the darker side. Both sides are soap for sure, they both lather.

Here you can see my recipe:

I used bidistilled water.

The process was:
making the soap at 90° - 110° C for an hour and a half to evaporate the water completely although I am not sure if I am allowing the hydrolysis to happen before all the water evaporates. I am yet to see the soap in the "vaseline" state but I don't think that matters as long as it has been saponified. I don't think the glycerin cares.

So next I poured 95% glycerin (475g) that was infused with turmeric powder (30g / 3% , and was NOT sieved out) for a couple of hours, ALONG WITH extra virgin coconut oil as the superfat (I do manage to emulsify everything and the final soap doesn't feel oily. I love the idea of controlling what the superfat is because it adds to the aroma, and you can say the same thing about the turmeric, the aroma of it was preserved somewhat)

Anyways, I poured that down, the turmeric went completely black. The whole thing was black, but the sides of the pot were tinted red wine as I was stirring (Beautiful colour, I love it). And whatever turmeric smells like, it was smelling that but rather bitter. Bare in mind before pouring the coloured glycerin, the soap was at 90° C more or less.

Then I kept stirring until the soap was 90% dissolved into the glycerin before stick blending. Until it looks like a pond with tiny bits of soap floating.

I turned off the heat.

Then I poured 30g of (orange peel essential oil/peach fragrance oil/coconut fragrance oil) and blended for 6 pulses of 30 seconds each. This is where the magic happens, the colour was all throughout red wine, perfect. Then I left it to cool down to room temperature and a separation occurs. This has happened before even without adding any colorant and or aroma chemicals.

Why does that happens? I am not even able to know what emulsifier should I use since I don't know what is separating away from what.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Hi Michael - maybe ask @Relle to move this to the Beginner’s Forum for trouble shooting? No one seems to have seen it here.

I’m unsure about this ‘soap of two halves’ and why it would occur, but I can say that it’s a most unusual recipe and we wouldn’t normally use that amount of coconut oil as it will be too cleansing/drying.

I don’t hot process so I can’t advise on how that might affect your soap.

 

[AliOop]

I have to agree with @KiwiMoose - this recipe has so many unusual features, that it is hard to know where to begin. Stearic acid, beeswax, milkfat, and glycerin are rather atypical additives for handmade soap, especially at the rates you used.

That being said, fragrance oils and essential oils are famous for being the major culprits in soapmaking problems, including separation. However, since you said that this separation has happened in other batches before adding the scent, my money is going to be on the beeswax and stearic, which saponify immediately when the lye hits them.That can make it difficult to get those fully incorporated with the rest of the soap, especially with all the extra liquid you added later (more on that below). You can achieve hardness without the stearic or wax, or at least, using just one of them at 1%, but not both at a combined 6%. Since they are both very tricky to use in soapmaking, consider leaving them out for now until you achieve good results.

You also cooked this soap for an extremely long time, and you say you evaporated off all the water. There is simply no need to cook the soap for hours - only until it is zap-free, which is typically far less than two hours, unless your batch is much larger than what you indicated.

So, my recommendation is to rework your recipe to remove the stearic acid, beeswax, and milk fat, maybe:

40% beef tallow (or split between tallow and palm)
25% coconut oil 76º (save the 92º for lip balms where the higher melt factor is important)
30% liquid oil such as olive, rice bran, or high oleic versions of sunflower, canola, etc.
5% castor oil

Cook this only until there is no more zap to the soap, which will probably be in an hour or so after you combine everything. Here is a link to how to properly zap-test to confirm that all the lye has saponified.

Your post-cook superfat sounds fine; do heat it before adding, so that it doesn't cause the warm soap to become to firm. Same with glycerin, although 475g is waaaaayyy too much and probably affected your batch, as well. Just use enough to get the colorants dissolved, probably about 30g of glycerin for the 30g of turmeric. Besides, glycerin is a natural byproduct of handmade soap, so it's already in your soap even if you don't add more. You can add some warmed yogurt at the end of the cook, as well. That helps with fluidity and will add a bit more superfat, as well.

One final note: if you are scraping hard bits of cooked soap off the sides of your pot, those are never going to incorporate well into the rest of the soap. Cutting down the cook time to about an hour should help eliminate some of those, but also resist the temptation to scrape hard stuff off the sides.

Simplifying things this way should help you achieve a nice soap. Good luck!