Sad, cold, confused soap

[Tara_H]

I need some sympathy! And would also welcome suggestions for improvement if anyone has them, but mainly a shoulder to cry on that understands my pain

I tried my first pull through today and it started out so well!
I cut the Pringles tube in half and made two different templates, one from wire and one from the lid.


I figured I would start with the wire one while the batter was thin and then the other one.

I measured the tubes, calculated the volume of a cylinder and worked out how much batter I would need. Made a mark on each bottle for where to fill to, and put a couple of old computer screws in for shaking purposes. Actually measured my micas and wrote everything down.



I prepared everything to the n'th degree, had my fragrance mixed and ready to go; I even had colour coordinated straws on my squeezy bottles! Got the batter just to emulsion, divided it up, put in the fragrance, hmm, still too thin.

I waited for a bit but there was no change so I tried it anyway but the colours were just muddling together and not pushing each other out. Gave the bottles a good shake, no change. I started working my way around anyway, figuring sooner or later it would start thickening... Then boom! Between one bottle and the next it went from watery to solid.

Figuring there was nothing left to lose at that point I put the bottles in a bath of hot water and sure enough they melted up again.

Cue a nightmare sequence of trying to unblock each nozzle and pour some batter before the previous layer totally set up. There are even some wormy shapes in there where I squeezed solidified batter out of the straw...

Plus for some bizarre reason I ended up with only half the batter I expected, so only one half tub got filled although considering how much of a disaster this one was, and the fact I could barely get the wire template out, that's probably for the best.



I'm exhausted and on the beer now.

 

[Jersey Girl]

Beer works...lol. Sorry you had a bad soapy day.
But hey....like I always say...it’s still soap!

 

[AliOop]

If I still had pics of my first pull-through soaps, I would share them so you would feel better. But they were so dismal that I didn't keep the pics. It's hard because so much work goes into prepping them.

If the colors are nice, perhaps you can shred them up for some nice confetti soap?

 

[KimW]

Awweee nnnnaaahhhoooo. Bummer. Glad you had some beer and as Jersey Girl said, at least you still made soap...

You have my sympathy! Maybe try again with no FO? You can do it, I'm just sure of it.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Oh gosh darn it' Im sorry. For an encouraging note' we all have been their' your not alone, we truly understand what your feeling @ the moment but next time you will nail it w/ beautiful Flying colors. Cheers

 

[Tara_H]

Thanks everyone! I think the worst part is that I was looking forward to it all day and getting everything ready, it was 5pm before I was actually able to start, there was so much to do in advance!

I guess that didn't help, I was probably a bit tired at that point. But damn, I'm starting to wonder if I need to install a sauna to make soap in?! Or plan B, only make Castile soap if I want to do any kind of fancy work. I'm sure it's still the tallow setting up that's causing all these problems, so using only oils that are liquid at room temperature must be the answer...

If the colors are nice, perhaps you can shred them up for some nice confetti soap?

I'm curious now to see just how bad it's going to be! Certainly not what I was going for but hopefully there's a purpose for it yet. I'm most annoyed about the FO, I spent ages making up a fruity blend with 6 different oils that I trusted not to trace to fast, and it smells awesome! I guess I'll have a nice hot bath, get a good night's sleep, and see what inspiration strikes when I slice it tomorrow!

 

[Babyshoes]

Aww that sucks. I'm sorry, it's awful when you plan a project so carefully and it goes south... At least it will still be soap, even if not what you planned. Hopefully the cut will have some nice sections.

No actual advice as I'm a total newbie myself. My first batch which stayed at a lovely light trace for ages has 40% lard - it's part of why I decided to add lard to my soaping oils, as the first handful of soaps I made thickened up too fast. I'm not sure how it compares to tallow in that regard though.

 

[Tara_H]

My first batch which stayed at a lovely light trace for ages has 40% lard

Thanks! Yeah I'd love to try lard to compare, but it seems to be really hard to come by here, for some reason! I'm planning on asking the butcher next time I see him, I believe they process their meat on site so he may be able to help me out.

As far as I can see, though, the problem is just that it's too cold! We live in an old stone cottage, and we don't keep all the rooms heated very warm, so it's typically about 18C in the kitchen where I do my soaping. Any of the solid fats just cool down and go hard again so fast... I tested it out this time by warming up the squeezy bottles in a water bath, and sure enough they returned to a very thin consistency once they were warm, but I couldn't heat the top part also

I've just spent ages (in the bath, lol) trying to formulate a recipe that might work. My current plan is to 'master batch' the oils, let them cool down, and see what temperature they start to go solid. Hopefully they'll still be liquid, or at least slushy, at my room temperature.

So, the result is.. interesting.



Bottom left is the first ones, where the batter was far too thin. Those didn't take any pattern from the tool at all, which I'm a bit surprised by. The bottom right marks the transition from too thin to too thick. After that it all gets a bit blobby and weird, although maybe with some planing, in a good light, if I squint... I can pretend they were meant to be like that.

 

[Babyshoes]

The bottom left ones remind me of gobstoppers! I do like the colour combo.

 

[Tara_H]

The bottom left ones remind me of gobstoppers! I do like the colour combo.

It's a shame we can't send smell over the internet, it's the best thing about them! They totally smell like some kind of sweets; dominant notes are green apple, fig and passion fruit.

 

[KimW]

I really like the bottom left ones where batter was too thin. The bulls-eyes. Yes, it is odd that the tool design didn't come through on those since the batter was obviously thick enough to stay separate and not muddle. hmmmmmm. Gremlins. The smell sounds DELIGHTFUL!

(Shh! Do you smell that?!) <-- gold star to the first one who gets the reference without looking it up.

I can't believe nobody gets that reference... C'mon people!

Tara - I was thinking of your soaping woes, whilst cleaning up a soapy mess. I don't remember if you said you've tried a seed mat for keeping your molds warm prior to and after pour. What do you think??
Here's one on Amazon UK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lerway-Heating-Seedling-Greenhouse-Reptile/dp/B076DYSF19/

 

[Tara_H]

I'm afraid I had to look it up @KimW, I guess my 80s credentials are going to be revoked!

I guess the seed mat is worth a try, I certainly have a variety of germination equipment

 

[AliOop]

Oh, I got it, but I didn't want to ruin it for the others. It's a great quote, right up there with:

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.



ETA: Maybe we need to start a Favorite Movie Quote thread.

 

[KimW]

Oh, I got it, but I didn't want to ruin it for the others. It's a great quote, right up there with:

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.


ETA: Maybe we need to start a Favorite Movie Quote thread.

That's my Hubby's favorite movie! You start the thread - I'll contribute aplenty.

 

[Tara_H]

Today I had to make a batch of soap dough, so I decided to do some proper science and see if I could get to the bottom of this chilly problem. I also looked back over my notes and saw that I had used this exact recipe a couple of times previously with much less trouble. In fact, as I looked through my old batch records, I realised that the more care I had taken to try to keep the batter fluid, the more trouble I had had!

So a new hypothesis arose. In the earlier batches, I was being a bit less controlled, so getting to a higher trace than the later ones. Counter-intuitively, the higher trace batches were thickening more slowly. The logical reason was that at the higher trace it was generating more heat itself, and stopping the fats from solidifying. Also, as I became more paranoid about the problem, I was doing smaller batches to avoid wasting ingredients on failed attempts, which was just compounding the problem.

Given that the soap dough didn't need to be anything particular other than just soap, I used it to test this out. I made a bigger batch than I needed, and after melting the fats, I brought the lye and oils to 40C in a water bath. This actually took ages because I overshot by quite a bit and had to let everything cool down again. While I was faffing around with the thermometer and trying to get everything to stabilise, I realised the other part of the problem I'd been having. When I was trying to warm everything back up and unstick it, I had been overshooting in the other direction and practically bringing it to HP temperatures! Which explains why it was jumping from cold and solid to thick trace so quickly...

With these revelations under my belt, I gently and gradually took the soap dough batter at 40C to a thin trace. I went harder with the SB than I have done for a while, and excitingly, it did the trick! From a thin, bordering on medium, trace, I was able to split the batter 10 ways and 7 different colours, in a leisurely fashion. (More not shown here)



This gives me renewed hope that the doomed pull-through is still possible, maybe tomorrow I'll have a final stab at it.

(If not, I've just been reading about the whipped soap challenge, and that technique is definitely going on my list!)

 

[KimW]

So a new hypothesis arose. In the earlier batches, I was being a bit less controlled, so getting to a higher trace than the later ones. Counter-intuitively, the higher trace batches were thickening more slowly. The logical reason was that at the higher trace it was generating more heat itself, and stopping the fats from solidifying. Also, as I became more paranoid about the problem, I was doing smaller batches to avoid wasting ingredients on failed attempts, which was just compounding the problem.

This gives me renewed hope that the doomed pull-through is still possible, maybe tomorrow I'll have a final stab at it.

(If not, I've just been reading about the whipped soap challenge, and that technique is definitely going on my list!)

Wahooo! This makes sense - glad you cracked it!!

 

[The_Phoenix]

I really like the bottom left ones where batter was too thin. The bulls-eyes. Yes, it is odd that the tool design didn't come through on those since the batter was obviously thick enough to stay separate and not muddle. hmmmmmm. Gremlins. The smell sounds DELIGHTFUL!

(Shh! Do you smell that?!) <-- gold star to the first one who gets the reference without looking it up.

Ghostbusters?

We live in an old stone cottage...

That sounds like an opening to a fairy tale.