Post you ugly soap pics here - Troubleshooting thread

[biarine]

I like it, looks like granite.

Thank you

 

[KristaY]

Problematic Plumeria

This is Plumeria from AH/RE. It had no CP info except to say there's no vanillin, it's bath and body safe, and FP >200. No reviews either. OOB it smells just like my daughter's favorite B&BW scent when she was young so I thought she'd get a kick out of it. Boy did it accelerate! I used the SB to very light trace, poured off 1/4 of the batter to color, then went back to the larger amount. By then it was almost soap on a stick so I had to cram it in the mold by hand. It crumbled when I cut today at about 18 hours old. Luckily I only did a 1 lb test batch. Amazingly ugly soap, lol! :x

 

[claireobell]

What else would make soap crumble like this? I made one the other day that did this after 72 hours! I stopped cutting after 2 failed slices in hope it will harden! I used pomace olive, coconut , grapeseed, Shea and cocoa butter, coconut milk (part of subbed water added at trace) and eo of amryis, neroli, Mandarin and jasmine. I'm too scared to cut the next slice coz it's so pretty! How long should I wait? Or is it broken?

 

[MarisaJensen]

Here is my ugly rebatch, looks like Spam.

Like Raincityjen said, it might be a hot seller. ;-)

I remember a long time ago a local vendor selling meatloaf soap. LOL Yep, it looked like meatloaf. I never got to smell it but I saw a picture and it was definitely interesting. It would have made for a funny gift.

 

[Bubli]

So I finally did it and it looks terrible!100%Evoo castile soap1T sugar ppo,1.5t salt ppo,1% citric acid(with lye adjust up to compinsate),water discounted to about 1.75 x amount of lye,hand stirred/wisked. Soaped at 125*F,Took FOREVER TO REACH MEDIUM TRACE,PLUS A FEW OIL/LYE SEPARATIONS.kind of crumbled where I cut it,play dough concistancy and still zapping at 24 hours.
K, there's the jist of my issue, here's my questions.....is all the above normal for this soap and the way I made it. I'm not used to my soap behaving like this. I actually though it was a failed batch and decided to give one more 2hr long stir and it finally took right at the 24 hour mark of beginning the soap.
I'm thinking cuz of the steep water discount it will zap longer than normal and I don't think it gelled.and I'm thinking cuz it's all olive that it will be softer for a while. Would it be best you think to use individual molds rather than have to cut and crumble?
I can see why this soap is said to be avoided by beginners! Any advice?

 

[Obsidian]

I've never had any trouble getting castile to reach trace but I've never hand stirred it, why didn't you use a stick blender? Castile is a odd soap, it can either take days days to set up enough to cut or it goes rock hard in just a few hours. I've found that EVOO seems to stay soft longer while my pomace castile sets up hard in about 24 hours.
I used individual molds last time, I like how the soaps turned out. I'm thinking you cut yours too soon and thats why it crumbled.

 

[JuneP]

Crumbling

My notes on the cocoa butter says too much can cause the soap to crack. They also give a limit of 15% on both cocoa butter and shea butter. I think some members have recommended in other posts to keep the total butters around 8% or less.

What else would make soap crumble like this? I made one the other day that did this after 72 hours! I stopped cutting after 2 failed slices in hope it will harden! I used pomace olive, coconut , grapeseed, Shea and cocoa butter, coconut milk (part of subbed water added at trace) and eo of amryis, neroli, Mandarin and jasmine. I'm too scared to cut the next slice coz it's so pretty! How long should I wait? Or is it broken?

 

[biarine]

View attachment 11976
So I finally did it and it looks terrible!100%Evoo castile soap1T sugar ppo,1.5t salt ppo,1% citric acid(with lye adjust up to compinsate),water discounted to about 1.75 x amount of lye,hand stirred/wisked. Soaped at 125*F,Took FOREVER TO REACH MEDIUM TRACE,PLUS A FEW OIL/LYE SEPARATIONS.kind of crumbled where I cut it,play dough concistancy and still zapping at 24 hours.
K, there's the jist of my issue, here's my questions.....is all the above normal for this soap and the way I made it. I'm not used to my soap behaving like this. I actually though it was a failed batch and decided to give one more 2hr long stir and it finally took right at the 24 hour mark of beginning the soap.
I'm thinking cuz of the steep water discount it will zap longer than normal and I don't think it gelled.and I'm thinking cuz it's all olive that it will be softer for a while. Would it be best you think to use individual molds rather than have to cut and crumble?
I can see why this soap is said to be avoided by beginners! Any advice?

I did castile too 100% olive oil I used 1000 grams of light olive oil, 35 water discount 5 sf with 1 teaspoon sugar + 1/2 teaspoon table salt. I used HP when I cut my soap also quite crumbly but I tried small slice is very good more bubbles and no slime.

 

[Bubli]

Maybe too steep a water discount for cutting, or cutting wrong time....Idk. Next batch I'll go with individual cavity molds also.

I hand stirred just cuz I always do with my other soaps,they trace so fast that a blender would just be pointless, one more pain in the rear to clean. BUT, you can bet that if I do another EVOO castile at 100%.....I WILL have a d$&@ good blender in my hand and running!
So after 3 day,zap free YAY! But I wish so so badly that I had molded individual bars. We all know the soap is good no matter how bad it looks but if feels better when it's pretty too.
I also wish it had turned out that emerald green, I know alit of people don't like it, but I do."Grassy"green or any natural green color/shade is my favorite color. Any tips on retaining that green?

 

[Rowan]

As far as I am aware you don't tend to retain the lovely green colour of the extra virgin olive oil. Some people have managed it with Laurel Berry Oil (Aleppo soap), but it must depend on where you source it because others say they get brown soap with it. Someone posted the most amazing picture of a deep green Aleppo soap. It would be amazing to recreate it!

 

[Obsidian]

Yeah, OO won't make a pretty green soap. My EVOO castile is a putrid chartreuse.

 

[SplendorSoaps]

Had to share my ugly soap - my husband tells me that it looks like egg casserole with ham! LOL

I wanted this one to turn out like a pretty sea glass soap. I had lemongrass green tea soap (that looked really cool, but had too much green tea butter in it for my liking) and some rebatched lavender rose soap (without much fragrance) just sitting around. I cut them into cubes, and added them to a plain batch of an old standby recipe.

Here's where things got interesting... I decided that I needed to add some fragrance to it, so I used Lemon Eucalyptus EO (thinking it would go well with the lemongrass green tea scent), and what the hell!, just threw some grapefruit EO in there with it (because, it's all pretty much citrus, right?). I could not have been more wrong!!! Not only does the soap look like...I'm just going to say it...VOMIT!, it ended up smelling so strongly of citronella that it could repel bugs (and probably humans, too) from miles away. I don't think I can even rebatch this into anything useful. The bummer is that it's actually a nice soap to USE, but stinks to high heaven and is ugly as can be.

 

[jules92207]

I don't find that ugly actually. Kinda cool. I don't have scratch and sniff though so I will have to take your word on the scent.

 

[SplendorSoaps]

Thanks, jules92207. I think I wouldn't have been bothered by the look so much if my husband hadn't mentioned it looking like chunks of ham. Now every time I see it, ham is all I can see! LOL

 

[Cactuslily]

Unless you're seeing something in person that isn't coming through on camera, I think this is lovely. As for the smell, maybe it'll mellow out a bit in time? If not, can you rebatch a rebatch?

 

[ariella42]

I was so excited to finally try a wine soap! I even bought a wine FO and some merlot mica for the occasion. Unfortunately, it didn't go quite as planned colorant-wise. First of all, I knew the FO accelerated trace, so I decided just to do a simple two color in the pot swirl, with a bit of a mica oil swirl on top. I didn't expect to not even have time for that. I ended up glooping the purple into the pot, kind of folding it in, and throwing it all in the mold. The purple pigment I used hardly colored at all, so I quickly mixed some more to add, and the only part of the purple that came through was in a couple of undissolved bits. The mica was supposed to make a rich red, and it looks good in the oil swirl, but even though I added it at almost twice the amount listed (and it was listed as safe for CP), it faded out to a weird mauve after gel. Of course, I thought the top looked nice, at least...until my cat decided to nap out on top of it while it was gelling. I can't wait to get a cat-free soaping zone!

 

[snappyllama]

My first attempt at HP was going so smoothly. Everything was according to plan. I had my soap molded up... yellow with pink marbling. It looked so smooth and perfect. Scented with Daystar Goldilocks. I was really impressed with myself.

Then I realized I left out the SF... grr... plopped out of mold and combined the best I could. Once it was back in the mold... I realized I made awesome scented canned corned beef soap complete with those ribbons of yellow spam fat.

Oh well.

 

[Saponista]

That is the most realistic looking corned beef soap I have ever seen snappy! It sucks when things don't go to plan, I always manage to leave something out. At least it still smells nice and is useable

 

[Sonya-m]

Here's my latest beast! Thanks to the baby powder FO seizing on me. Now it's weeping lye water has white crystals forming on top and really isn't the drop swirl I intended!!



The crystals


I don't mind the inside

 

[Saponista]

Does it zap?