What happened with my soap?

[karon L adams]

Stick blenders, especially if your temperatures are far apart, can creat an emulsion where air is trapped between the lye and the oil. emulsions are great for mayonnaise, they create bad soap. if you soap is white and hard, you have free lye and that will dry out your skin. it defeats the purpose of making hand made soap. anything that seems to come together too fast, probably is coming together too fast. and you may end up with a problem. I wouldn't use a soap that was dry.

 

[karon L adams]

Yes, when hand blenders began being used in soap crafting, this was my original argument. People who had made a grand total of 2 batches of soap were telling me I was nuts because I didn't like the 'convenience' of stick blenders. a lot of people accused me of trying to limit the people who could make soap. but I was the person freely handing out lessons and recipes. anyway, hand stir. and stir top to bottom and bottom to top rather than round and round. Because oil and lye (which, at that point is mostly water) will layer, you want to stir up and down.

if you have a recipe that continues to be fast moving, lower your temperatures.

but more than anything, slow your stir.