Seizing

[RatherLather]

So I made a batch on friday and during the stick blending portion of it I ended up having my soap seize into a "Gloppy chunky" like mixture that I hastily threw into my mold for fear it would seize any further. Does anyone have an idea as to why It may have seized.

My Cold Process ingredients:
454 Grams of Coconut Oil
454 Grams of Canola(Rapeseed) Oil
454 grams of Olive oil
454 grams of Castor Oil

250 grams of lye
690 Grams of distilled water

I have heard rumors that high concentrations of Castor Oil can cause seizing, but others dispute this claim.

 

[lsg]

I have never used over 8% Castor oil in any recipe. Your lye and water amounts look right. Did you use a fragrance oil, some of those cause seizing. At what temp. did you soap?

 

[judymoody]

Both castor and coconut in high % will cause your soap to accelerate.

I am also curious about fragrance and soaping temps.

Big batch!

 

[RatherLather]

It started getting really thick before I even added any EO's, the EO's I was using were Lavender and Ylang Ylang but again I didn't add them until I noticed that it was getting really thick really fast.
The only thing I can think of other than oils being the issue is the temp, both oil and lyewater were at about 150 when I started stick blending them.

 

[AlchemyandAshes]

The only thing I can think of other than oils being the issue is the temp, both oil and lyewater were at about 150 when I started stick blending them.

Oh yeah, that's a pretty good reason for acceleration :wink: High temps get things moving a LOT quicker...add stick blending to that AND high Coconut Oil and you've got yourself soap on a stick in no time!
So how did it all turn out?

 

[judymoody]

Ylang also is super speedy and a heater.

 

[Lindy]

I make a couple of products with high %ages of castor oil and I HP them because they do seize and turn into soap on a stick without any fragrance. At 25%, I do believe it is what caused the seize.....

 

[RatherLather]

Luckily I know a bout a lot of fragrance oils being accelerants, so I was going to avoid adding the EO's till I had reached a point of heavy trace. Something I noticed was that the lavender bars of someone I know had a trace of blue in them, can you get blue from lavender or did she add a mica/ultramarine?


This is how it turned out

It wasn't as smooth as my last batch =/ gonna work on refining my ratios probably knock down the amount of castor and coconut.

I also really need to stop cutting with a kitchen knife...that or start measuring my cuts properly.