What happened to my soap?

[Yrina]

I'm relatively new at soapmaking. But lucky lucky me, all of my batches so far have turned out perfectly... And then there was this one. Ironically, it was the first batch I was CONFIDENT would be perfect and this happened... Can anyone help me figure out why the bottom layer is so crumbly???

 

[shunt2011]

It looks like it may have possibly overheated a bit. Hard to tell without more information. How long did you wait to cut it? You'll need to post your recipe, additives and process so we can better help.

 

[Yrina]

Hi!

12 oz oils, 1.71 oz lye, 3.82 oz distilled water, 1 oz fragrance, 2 tsp sodium lactate (I suspect this is the culprit), 1 tsp red dispersed mica, 1/2 tsp mustard dispersed mica.

I poured the lye water with sodium lactate in the oils at 125F and mixed with spatula. Pulsed oils and lye until thin trace.

Separated 4 oz into a different container. Added yellow colorant and mixed with spatula. Added 0.25 oz fragrance. Pulsed until medium trace. Poured into mold.

Repeated last paragraph with remaining soap batter (adding 0.75 oz fragrance).

Insulated soap (in cardboard box, wrapped with towels, no added heat from heating pad) for 24 hours. Removed from mold and cut after 2.5 days. Found sad, crumbly soap

Please share wisdom

Nina

 

[shunt2011]

Too much SL. I use 1-1 1/2 tsp per lb of oils. Also waited to long to cut. 24 hours is generally long enough and sometimes too long.

 

[cmzaha]

You did not indicate what oils you used in your recipe. If you use high stearic or palmitic acid oils such as tallow, lard and hard butters they will contribute to hard bars that will not require much SL. In fact, I have never used SL in my soaps.

 

[goat soap rulz!]

Looks like it overheated. Plus too much SL. If I try to force my soap through gel fase, I will definitely get a volcano!! In about 5 minutes of covering my soap it went up about 20 degrees! Maybe next time just let it set out instead of forcing through gel...

 

[cmzaha]

This soap just looks like it broke when cutting because it was too hard. What did you use to cut the soap? My salt bars love to crumble on the bottom if I wait too long to cut. There is nothing indicating overheating that I can see.

 

[Yrina]

Thanks everyone! Repeated with less sodium lactate and it worked beautifully... I like to function by the rule that "a tad bit more is probably safer" but that clearly doesn't work with CP soap