Post you ugly soap pics here - Troubleshooting thread

[houseofwool]

Went to do a wall pour in my slab mold but it traced way too fast and screwed up every thing. I did use castor oil at 15% along with shea and kokum butter, but my last batch with this combo did well. Wondering if it was the EOs...lavender/cedarwood and a touch of ylang ylang. I'll see how it is after it dries but I'm pretty sure it's heading to the food bank...

Ylang-ylang accelerates like crazy! I've found I need to soap at room temp and bring to a bare emulsification then hand stir.

 

[houseofwool]

Soda ash is killing me! Fortunately I haven't had too many other complete disasters or weird things but I ALWAYS have soda ash...I'm guessing that's what that is anyway! Any hints or tips for preventing? I soap around 120 degrees and spray with alcohol and cover and insulate! View attachment 16875

Did you scent with lavender EO? I find that there is almost no way to prevent ash entirely when I use lavender.

The last time, I rand the entire loaf under running water after molding and wiped away the ash. Quick and easy.

 

[Misschief]

Misschief, if the next batch won't unmold after a few days and you think it'll go rancid due to air stagnation, have you considered freezing it just so you can unmold it? . I'm a little curious why staying in the mold would make it go rancid if it was mixed properly, I've had to leave soaps in the cavity M&P molds (I was doing CP) for over a week just to unmold them but no rancidity that I can tell... *scratches head*

The only reason I could come up with is that there was too much of the mint (leaves) in the soap and, being so moist for so long, the tea leaves started to decompose. As for freezing it, I tried that, too. It wasn't pretty. The mold started cracking when I tried to get the soap out (plastic, not silicone).

I didn't toss out the entire batch; there were only 3 soaps in that particular mold. I still have the rest and it was a fairly large batch.

This morning, I unmolded my confetti soap and I can report that it is a definite success. Looks good, smells amazing. Yup, I'm happy I decided to go that route. Now, I'll have Peppermint Soap for a long time to come. This batch only used three of the small ugly soaps. I still have 6 of the rounds and 9 bars of the stuff.

On the top of the pile - the ugly soap

005 by Ev Skae, on Flickr

002 by Ev Skae, on Flickr

004 by Ev Skae, on Flickr

 

[Punkin2x74]

This soap as pretty as it is in the loaf this one was actually Cotton Candy the base was supposed to be blue and the top pink. Also I was using parchment paper and I unmolded it to soon. It ended up widening out in the middle and looking like a old wooden boat. Oh well we live and we learn.

 

[sugar_soap]

And here it is - the Spaghetti Puke Soap.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

And here it is - the Spaghetti Puke Soap.

What happened?

 

[sugar_soap]

I miscalculated and this was left-over mixture. The spaghetti was supposed to go on Christmas muffins to look like tinsel but it looked like a muffin out of Elm Street so I just piped it on the mixture randomly.

 

[penelopejane]

This soap as pretty as it is in the loaf this one was actually Cotton Candy the base was supposed to be blue and the top pink. Also I was using parchment paper and I unmolded it to soon. It ended up widening out in the middle and looking like a old wooden boat. Oh well we live and we learn.

Pink and blue?

 

[Steve85569]

I was trying for the December challenge. With a trusted well behaved FO.
Everything was going according to plan until the FO hit the batter. Ever see a batch go to "soap on a stick"? It was close but I got it into the mold before it seized. Whatever happened is a mystery to me because everything with the FO went not just the high or low water.

 

[Steve85569]

Next attempt was closer but still not there.
Looks like the bottom overheated for some reason. This is the only time - so far - that I have had this happen.

 

[penelopejane]

How did you force it to gel?

 

[Steve85569]

The second soap was CPOP'ed but I didn't think it had gelled properly so I applied some heat to the bottom. That's where I went wrong. I know the recipe I'm using and should have known that I had gel even if the top of the loaf didn't look like some of the others. It's what the inside looks like after the process that counts.

It's still soap so after a month of cure time we'll see how bad it is.

 

[CaraBou]

Hey! I can see your progress for the challenge! So the first one has the colored CO in it, but not the second? Did you give up on it for the challenge?

 

[penelopejane]

The second soap was CPOP'ed but I didn't think it had gelled properly so I applied some heat to the bottom. That's where I went wrong. I know the recipe I'm using and should have known that I had gel even if the top of the loaf didn't look like some of the others. It's what the inside looks like after the process that counts.

It's still soap so after a month of cure time we'll see how bad it is.

I know there are a few ways to CPOP but I preheat the oven to 100 F and have started putting a pizza stone a few shelves below my soap. Then I make my soap, put it in a cardboard box and wrap it in a blanket and put it in the oven and turn off the oven straight away and leave it over night. This seems to work well, even with my fan forced oven which clears the hot air out of the oven when it is turned off.

Your soap looks great though. Maybe if you trimmed off the overheated bit at the bottom no one will even know!

 

[Steve85569]

"Hey! I can see your progress for the challenge! So the first one has the colored CO in it, but not the second? Did you give up on it for the challenge?"

No I have not given up on the challenge. I have done another batch that I will submit and I just batched lye and water for a late attempt for perfection. I am thinking that I may want to use different water ratios more often after this challenge and what I have learned ( so far).


"I know there are a few ways to CPOP but I preheat the oven to 100 F and have started putting a pizza stone a few shelves below my soap."

I have been scheming on getting my "Chunk 'o Iron" that I used to use in the ovens at work and using it to help stabilize the oven temperature when I CPOP. It's a 30" x 8" x 1" mass that once heated stays at temperature quite well. I think I'll go out and get it from the shop since you tipped me on the pizza stone.

Thank you both!!

 

[CaraBou]

No no Steve, I didn't mean give up on the challenge, I meant give up on the colored CO for the challenge. I said that because the soap you posted had no orange in it. I knew you had struck your gold and I am dying to see it! Here I go, waiting again...:roll:

 

[Steve85569]

No no Steve, I didn't mean give up on the challenge, I meant give up on the colored CO for the challenge. I said that because the soap you posted had no orange in it. I knew you had struck your gold and I am dying to see it! Here I go, waiting again...:roll:

No I did not give up on the colored oil.
I just had to try one without just to see what I could come up with . I still had a couple of bugs to work out of my procedure when I did that one. Got 'em fixed and I can now repeat the process with reasonable results. Just a few more days and I will post the pictures.

 

[amd]

I have made a few trial batches of salt soap before using Shari's recipe and thought I would take a stab at a big batch. I started with a 2lb recipe but realized I didn't have enough coconut oil so cut it in half and stuck a divider in my log mold. I stuck it in a warmed oven for 3 hours as my house was cold. When I took it out of the oven it was a huge oily mess. I let it sit for another 3-4 hours to see if it would absorb but no luck so I cut it. It is a new FO for me so I don't have a history with it. I can only guess that either I miscalculated when I cut the recipe in half and maybe didn't have enough lye or it false traced and separated in the oven. Any thoughts?

 

[houseofwool]

It looks like it overheated to me. Was the oven on for the full 3 hours?

 

[galaxyMLP]

That's the recipe with 80% CO and 20% Avocado oil w/ 20% SF, right?

The only batch I've ever had separate and overheat like your picture was a 100% CO 20% SF soap that I tried to CPOP. Looks like it overheated from the high CO (prob. not the FO).