Questions about my first batch!

CrisMaz · Jul 18, 2014

Hi everybody!
My first batch was a Lavender scented soap from an ED starter kit and is now shy of 4 weeks old.
Since I will be making some more soap hopefully in a couple of weeks I decided to post some pictures and ask some questions!

Warning: extremely blah looking soap lol

Background story on this soap: ED's website doesn't really list the full recipe, so all I know is it contains 8oz of coconut oil, which I had to melt and a blend of coconut, olive and castor oils. Seems to be a pretty basic recipe, but I have no idea of the proportions. Also, Lavender EO. Decided to follow instructions from one of my books so my temps were roughly 105F for the oils and 115F for the lye water.

Not sure if you can tell from the picture/lighting, but from the coloring of the soap I'm assuming I got partial gel, almost full. Am I right or am I seeing things? lol
Also, I see a million tiny bubbles all over, did I not burp the stick blender properly or tap the mold hard enough or enough times after pouring? My trace wasn't that thick, so I'm not sure... Are some bubbles to be expected?

There are some opaque spots, not all over, but in some of the bars. They seem to be dry (not oily looking or feeling like I've read lye pockets can be) and somewhat a little more brittle that the soap surrounding them; I also don't see any spots deeper than 1/4in at the most from the top of the bars. What are they? Did I not blend the EO and the batter enough? Or maybe it's bowl scrapings from when I poured the batter? I read new soapers probably shouldn't do that, but I guess cooking instinct just took over booo

Last but definitely not least, I insulated my mold and waited about 36 hours to unmold the soap. The top felt hard enough and I couldn't wait anymore so I did it! The thing is one of the ends was much softer than the rest of the loaf, I could notice it in about 1/5th of the loaf, with the end bar that I cut from that side being so soft that some of it actually stayed stuck to the mold. The picture below is the softer bar I mentioned, about 3 days after unmolding. I poked it with my finger with moderate pressure and it was still pretty soft. It's been 24 days now and it's as hard as the others.
I'm guessing I unmolded it too soon, but what's puzzling me is why the lopsidedness of the whole thing. Why wasn't the whole loaf soft uniformly? Was my insulation uneven?

I know this is a pretty hefty post, but these questions have been burning in my brain for the past three weeks...
I appreciate any and all help, apologize if the questions are stupid and congratulate you for actually reading the whole thing!

Jaccart789 · Jul 19, 2014

Tell us the other amounts you put in for your oils and lye. It will be easier to diagnose, but your "blah" soap is still pretty!

fuzz-juzz · Jul 19, 2014

Is it just the bottom end corners that are soft? If your soap loaf doesn't gel all the way through it will happen. I have BB silicone mold and almost every time get soft corners. My soaps gel, I insulate well, but those bottom corners always stay a bit soft. Gelling stops maybe 5mm of the corners, so annoying, but hey, I just learned to be more careful when unmoulding. Air bubbles, I randomly get them, for me there is no rule. Those white spots, could be lye pockets, are you brave enough to do the zap test?

And by the way, your soap looks great for a first soap, not blah at all.

AKjulz · Jul 19, 2014

Your soap looks great! I think you're over analyzing.
I have a couple different stick blenders and one of them (the one I bought new and not at the thrift store) always makes tons of those tiny bubbles and no amount of banging or stirring will make them dissipate
I agree that your squishy end was probably an insulation/heat thing. After the cure they are all the and right? So it should be fine. As for the white spots? Don't know, could well be the bowl scrapings like you said. I don't think it looks like anything to worry about. Just do the zap test and then go take a shower with it already, I want to know how great it works!

navigator9 · Jul 19, 2014

I happen to think your soap is beautiful. I love "plain" bars of soap, to me, they're anything but plain. In the photos you posted, I can't see any partial gel. Very tiny bubbles are usually caused by air trapped under the bell of your SB, and then getting whipped into the soap. No amount of banging the mold on the counter will get rid of those. Bigger bubbles usually happen with thicker batter, banging works for those. As far as the spots, here's what I would recommend. As you're using the SB, stop now and then, and stir with the SB, then turn it on again, stir, SB, stir. Depending on the power of your SB, the size of your batch, how much you move it around, I don't think that all areas of the batter get mixed evenly. After I reach the desired trace, I remove the SB, then stir really well with my spatula, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom, and stir it all in really well, then I scrape it all into the mold with the spatula. I don't know where you read not to scrape the pot, I've never heard that before! Try this method and see if it works for you. Good luck! And again, very nice soap! :thumbup:

chemo38 · Jul 19, 2014

Jaccart789 said:
Tell us the other amounts you put in for your oils and lye. It will be easier to diagnose, but your "blah" soap is still pretty!

All my ingredients were pre measured since I bought a kit. The website has little information but I did keep the containers so I managed to get the ingredients from the label.

20oz olive oil (pomace)
16oz coconut oil
3oz castor oil
5oz lye
1oz lavender EO

fuzz-juzz said:
Is it just the bottom end corners that are soft? If your soap loaf doesn't gel all the way through it will happen. I have BB silicone mold and almost every time get soft corners. My soaps gel, I insulate well, but those bottom corners always stay a bit soft. Gelling stops maybe 5mm of the corners, so annoying, but hey, I just learned to be more careful when unmoulding. Air bubbles, I randomly get them, for me there is no rule. Those white spots, could be lye pockets, are you brave enough to do the zap test? And by the way, your soap looks great for a first soap, not blah at all.

The softness only happened at one of the ends, which is why I thought maybe I insulated half-@$$edly. The other end was pretty ok. Actually pretty much the entire loaf felt pretty good for cutting, except for that one end section.

I have not had the guts to zap test it yet, but I suppose I can't get out of it haha hubby won't do it for me, so I have no choice

AKjulz said:
Your soap looks great! I think you're over analyzing.
I have a couple different stick blenders and one of them (the one I bought new and not at the thrift store) always makes tons of those tiny bubbles and no amount of banging or stirring will make them dissipate
I agree that your squishy end was probably an insulation/heat thing. After the cure they are all the and right? So it should be fine. As for the white spots? Don't know, could well be the bowl scrapings like you said. I don't think it looks like anything to worry about. Just do the zap test and then go take a shower with it already, I want to know how great it works!

Over analyzing is my thing haha
Yeah, even the super soft bar is fine now, so that gives me hope... I will definitely wait a bit longer to unmold next time, just to be safe, till I get a feel for the different recipes and what they need.

I really need to take it in the shower if it passes the test, I can't believe I waited this long haha

navigator9 said:
I happen to think your soap is beautiful. I love "plain" bars of soap, to me, they're anything but plain. In the photos you posted, I can't see any partial gel. Very tiny bubbles are usually caused by air trapped under the bell of your SB, and then getting whipped into the soap. No amount of banging the mold on the counter will get rid of those. Bigger bubbles usually happen with thicker batter, banging works for those. As far as the spots, here's what I would recommend. As you're using the SB, stop now and then, and stir with the SB, then turn it on again, stir, SB, stir. Depending on the power of your SB, the size of your batch, how much you move it around, I don't think that all areas of the batter get mixed evenly. After I reach the desired trace, I remove the SB, then stir really well with my spatula, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom, and stir it all in really well, then I scrape it all into the mold with the spatula. I don't know where you read not to scrape the pot, I've never heard that before! Try this method and see if it works for you. Good luck! And again, very nice soap!

Someone observed that new soapers may not think to regularly scrape the sides and incorporate that batter into the main thing so the small bits of possibly not well blended batter start saponification on the sides of the bowl/pot/whathaveyou. Then when it's time to pour the sides do get scraped and all the bits just fall in.

It's amazing how much I learned from my first batch. No amount of reading or video watching can accomplish what actually doing it can, in my opinion.

I just discovered a glycerine connection in Phoenix, AZ. It is a commercial company that makes biodiesel. For those who don't know, glycerine is a waste product when making biodiesel. This connection uses potassium hydroxide to make biodiesel. Therefore, only liquid soap can be made from this glycerine. Also, the glycerine is always dark brown and any liquid soap made from it will be dark brown in color.

This connection has nine 55 gallon drums of glycerine he wants to give away. He only wants compensation for the metal drums.

If you live in central Arizona and want this glycerine, send me a PM.

chemo38

Hi chemo38! I live in AZ but know nothing about biodiesel glycerin. If it's used for KOH soaping because there's KOH used in the process, how do you calculate how much KOH is needed for a recipe? Receiving 55 gals of glycerin is a LOT to store too! Do you know the process for using it?

seven · Jul 19, 2014

my 10" silicone molds used to give me similar problem with unmolding. i now put the soap in the freezer first for 30 mins. gives me a clean unmold every time.