What is happening?!

[southernsoaper28]

I've been making soap for many years and I've never had this problem. I've gone palm-free and below is the recipe I came up with. I'm getting tiny lye dots all in the soap. The soap doesn't burn you when you use it but you do get a zap when you lick it. What is going on? I've used 2 lye calculators and they both tell me the same amount of lye and water. I'm so confused.

Ounces
Water 31.12
Lye - NaOH 13.34
Oils 93.00

Ounces
1 Castor Oil 12.10
2 Cocoa Butter 13.80
3 Coconut Oil, 92 deg 30.80
4 Olive Oil 12.10
5 Soybean Oil 24.20

 

[coffeetime]

Are you using fractionated coconut oil? Or is your CO solid at room temp?

 

[IrishLass]

Welcome SouthernSoaper!

The water and lye amounts for your recipe are good, so the problem must lie elsewhere....

Two possible explanations that I can think of off the top of my head:

1) The lye was not as fully dissolved as thought.
2) The dots might actually be stearic spots from the cocoa butter possibly coming out of suspension (if you soaped to cool with it).

Can you tell us more about your procedure?

Also- is it possible to make a small batch of your old recipe for comparison sake, in order to see if any of the dots show up in it?


IrishLass

 

[southernsoaper28]

Thanks for the replies. The coconut oil is not fractionated, the solid fats are still present.

The best I can tell is the lye isn't dissolving fully. I'm going to try a test batch today and use cheesecloth to filter the lye water and I'm going to try distilled water instead of my well water from the sink.

The soap doesn't burn as you're using it, only if you lick it. It's very strange.

Side note, I'm mixing the oils and lye water at 100 degrees.

 

[southernsoaper28]

I actually have some soap from my old recipe and that never happened before. I'm wondering if I got bad lye...I ordered it on ebay.

 

[IrishLass]

It's very possible you may have gotten bad lye. I've heard of that happening before to some soapers. Did you buy a lot?


IrishLass

 

[southernsoaper28]

It's very possible you may have gotten bad lye. I've heard of that happening before to some soapers. Did you buy a lot?


IrishLass

I bought 10 pounds. I ordered some yesterday from http://www.bulkapothecary.com. I would think their's would be better.

 

[coffeetime]

Well, your recipe is set for fractionated. So if you didn't use it, you may want to rerun the recipe through your lye calculator with Coconut 76 instead and see what the difference in your lye amount is.

 

[Obsidian]

coffeetime, the recipe is set to 92* coconut, not fractionated. 92 and 76 use the same amount of lye so that shouldn't be it. I tend to agree that it most likely is undissolved lye.

 

[rparrny]

If you used paypal, and if it is bad lye, you can dispute the charge within 45 days and get your money back.

 

[coffeetime]

coffeetime, the recipe is set to 92* coconut, not fractionated. 92 and 76 use the same amount of lye so that shouldn't be it. I tend to agree that it most likely is undissolved lye.

Ah, you're right, Obsidian. Sorry.