What is it?

[KudzuGoddess]

Um, what on earth have I done to this poor soap?

 

[Obsidian]

Those are glycerin rivers, perfectly fine to use. They often appear when using too much water

 

[KimW]

I kind of like it. It looks like licorice candy!

 

[KudzuGoddess]

Whew! Thank you! I thought I killed an innocent peppermint charcoal!

 

[Zing]

I think it looks great too, but I do try to avoid glycerin rivers. Search on this forum or Google. My risk factor for getting glycerin rivers is using titanium dioxide. I lower the amount of water to 1 part lye + liquid divided by total weight of lye& Laud is 32.5%

 

[Quanta]

I like the way it looks, too. Manufacturers used to make their soap that way on purpose to show that it was pure soap, back when manufacturers were putting all kinds of crazy fillers in their soap to cut production costs. You can't force glycerin rivers in soap that has fillers in it. So people would look for it and pay higher prices because they knew it was better soap.

Here's an interesting read on it: Glycerine Rivers: Secret Revealed
ETA: The article is about what causes glycerin rivers, not about people adding fillers to soap.

 

[penelopejane]

The “rivers” part tends to shrink at a different rate to the rest of the soap as it cures so it can look unsightly.