webby water discounts

[frmartin]

I am discounting water as 33% of oils (per soapcalc) and keep coming out with bars of soap that have cool but odd, web-like (almost fractal) patterns on them. It occurs in the middle of the soap, the ends do not seem as affected.

At first I thought it was just my red sandalwood soaps, but have noticed the same discoloration patterns with ultramarine violet pigmented soap and others.

Any thoughts? Is this caused by minerals in the water? I use tap water which comes a creek fed by snow melt in Northern California.

Since it happens mostly in the middle, I wonder if gelling is part of the picture.

Any ideas anyone?

 

[Suisan2]

What oils are you using in your recipes, especially the solid-at-room temperature oils?

From what I've read on here so far, sometimes when a solid fat doesn't dissolve all the way, or if you are working with it too cool, the stearic acid starts to solidify before the rest of the fats, leaving stearic streaks.

I live in northern CA too -- the water is weird up here. I think you'd be better off using distilled water. When I had a planted tank aquarium, a lot of the dissolved calcium and dissolved potassium numbers the rest of the country worked with were wonky in my tank (in comparison to my CO2 and pH measurements). Eventually someone pointed me in the direction of a thread wherein a few professionals were complaining about how weird the Norther CA water is! That's when I decided that planted aquariums weren't the hobby for me!

 

[frmartin]

40% olive, 30% coconut (76°), 25% palm and 5% castor

 

[frmartin]

Stearic streaks. Strangely compelling. It could be. I'll have to see if they seem fatty or not so fatty.

But that would make it odd for them to appear in the part of the soap that's gelling most thoroughly, and hence heating up the most.

 

[Suisan2]

Do they look like the pictures in this thread?

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/forum/vi ... 2186139f21

 

[frmartin]

Yes. Somewhat. I'll see if I can figure out how to upload a picture.