What Are The White Spots In My Hot processed Transparent Soap?

[Utkarsh]

I am a beginner in soap making. Recently I made a Hot process Soap. Initially, it was looking beautiful as last two trials. But, these days, 3rd and 4th trials become horrible for me. Because recent hot process transparent soap, initially looking was nice, but after few hours I saw them and shocked. There are minor white spots in soap. And day by day, spots are increasing in quantity and size as well. I don’t know what is the reason, but same problem occurred today again...

Can anyone please help to resolve the issue...

Receipe I used for soap making –

Ingridents	Ratio​
Castor Oil	7.50%​
Coconut Oil	2.50%​
Stearic Acid	10%​
Myristic Acid	4%​
Sodium hydroxide	4.40%​
Distilled Water	7%​
Cocamidopropyl Betain	17%​
Propylene Glycol	28%​
Sorbitol 70% Solution	15%​
Vegetable Glycerin	6%​
Fragrance & Color	0.5%

 

[ResolvableOwl]

That recipe looks dangerous … it will have an excess of about 25% unreacted lye! Are you sure you have given the right numbers (particularly the NaOH), and you're measuring all ingredients by weight?

Opaque soaps tend to develop soda ash at the surface, particularly when lye-heavy. Extra lye will slowly react with airborne CO₂ to form sodium carbonate. I don't know how this would tanslate to transparent/M&P soaps like yours. They have quite some water in them, and soda is water-soluble.

 

[coastmutt]

That recipe looks dangerous … it will have an excess of about 25% unreacted lye! Are you sure you have given the right numbers (particularly the NaOH), and you're measuring all ingredients by weight?

Opaque soaps tend to develop soda ash at the surface, particularly when lye-heavy. Extra lye will slowly react with airborne CO₂ to form sodium carbonate. I don't know how this would tanslate to transparent/M&P soaps like yours. They have quite some water in them, and soda is water-soluble.

Yeah.. Having so much lye in one recipe can be very, very dangerous!

 

[Utkarsh]

That recipe looks dangerous … it will have an excess of about 25% unreacted lye! Are you sure you have given the right numbers (particularly the NaOH), and you're measuring all ingredients by weight?

Opaque soaps tend to develop soda ash at the surface, particularly when lye-heavy. Extra lye will slowly react with airborne CO₂ to form sodium carbonate. I don't know how this would tanslate to transparent/M&P soaps like yours. They have quite some water in them, and soda is water-soluble.

Yeah.. Having so much lye in one recipe can be very, very dangerous!

Thankyou very much for ur valuable comments.
If possible, please guide me...is there any solution (remedy) to correct my soap
and what is the correct recipe for Transparent soap base...
regards

 

[ResolvableOwl]

It might be as easy as reducing the lye. Plug the pH active ingredients (castor oil, coconut oil, stearic and myristic acid) into your favourite soap calculator and adjust the NaOH accordingly (should be more like 3.4%).

I have little experience with good lye discount values for transparent soap; probably less is better (for clarity). But any negative value (lye excess) will first degrade the betaine, then attack the skin of whoever uses this to wash their hands with it.
And should these spots in fact be soda ash, then they should be gone too. They're to be credited for pointing you to a scary calculation mistake of whoever formulated that recipe.

Edit: Did you realise that your ingredients don't add up to 100%, but 101.9%?

 

[Utkarsh]

It might be as easy as reducing the lye. Plug the pH active ingredients (castor oil, coconut oil, stearic and myristic acid) into your favourite soap calculator and adjust the NaOH accordingly (should be more like 3.4%).

I have little experience with good lye discount values for transparent soap; probably less is better (for clarity). But any negative value (lye excess) will first degrade the betaine, then attack the skin of whoever uses this to wash their hands with it.
And should these spots in fact be soda ash, then they should be gone too. They're to be credited for pointing you to a scary calculation mistake of whoever formulated that recipe.

Edit: Did you realise that your ingredients don't add up to 100%, but 101.9%?

Thanks a lot for ur guidance.
i will try to resolve the issue with ur suggestions.....
regards

 

[Utkarsh]

It might be as easy as reducing the lye. Plug the pH active ingredients (castor oil, coconut oil, stearic and myristic acid) into your favourite soap calculator and adjust the NaOH accordingly (should be more like 3.4%).

I have little experience with good lye discount values for transparent soap; probably less is better (for clarity). But any negative value (lye excess) will first degrade the betaine, then attack the skin of whoever uses this to wash their hands with it.
And should these spots in fact be soda ash, then they should be gone too. They're to be credited for pointing you to a scary calculation mistake of whoever formulated that recipe.

Edit: Did you realise that your ingredients don't add up to 100%, but 101.9%?

Thank you very much for ur valuable guidance.

Did experiments successfully with corrected mixtures as per your suggestions...

In another previous batch, in which the % of ingredients was correct, but the problem was same...SPOTS... in that...resolved the same and I Found that the main problem was with oils mixtures & lye solution cooking timing. Its duration was too short and before complete cooking, added other ingredients. I think... That’s why invisible particles of lye or fatty acids like stearic acid or myristic acid (may be anyone) was creating problem after few hours of pouring the soap.