What soapy mistake have you made today?

[spenny92]

So, I made an OMH batch a few days ago, one which I've made a good few times before without a hitch. I'm sitting here on the couch chilling out and reading some old threads on here, when I come across photos of someone's OMH soap. BAM - a lightbulb just went off in my head signalling that I forgot to add the ground oats to that soap! Annoying mistake, but at least it wasn't something really crucial that I missed out.

 

[traderbren]

I have been out of face lotion for a few days, so I had a moment before dinner and started weighing things out. Same recipe I have used in the past, but I want to add lemongrass EO to it, and lavender hydrosol. I added my water to my heated oils, and realized my ewax must not have been all the way melted. Too late now, so I blended til it cooled a bit, took it downstairs to add the cooldown phase and realized I didn't mark how much lemongrass eo to add. Poured a little, decided it needed more, poured a little more. Moment of insanity, I guess.

I washed my face last night and went to try it out before my shower. A few minutes in, and I felt like Gollum crying out "It burns us!" as my face was on fire. Promptly washed my face well, and dumped the lotion down the drain.

Today I am remaking my lotion, with proper lemongrass eo amounts noted.

 

[hlee]

I made a batch of pumpkin soap with pumpkin the other day . I forgot to watch for overheating and next thing I knew it had a big crack on top. I threw it in the freezer quick and of course now I have a partial gel soap. Just the edges didn't gel so luckily it doesn't look to bad and it still smells great.
I have not had a chance to make much soap lately but have made 4 batches in the last couple of days. I feel a little rusty.

 

[TwystedPryncess]

I am teaching myself mica lines now. So of course, I screwed that up. Pictures later.

 

[JayJay]

This is my soapy mistake.

Not sure what caused this. I am guessing that I got it too hot in the oven.

100%OO

 

[gigisiguenza]

Did the whole process of separating out and coloring, pouring, getting everything all done - only to realize I totally forgot to measure out my FO and add it LOL. So even if it comes out well it won't smell yummy. What a blonde moment LOL.

 

[Sonya-m]

This is my soapy mistake.

Not sure what caused this. I am guessing that I got it too hot in the oven.

100%OO

Was it a silicone mould? I know other soapers have gotten the bubble effect from silicone

 

[jojosmama]

My soapy mistake...

Yesterday I made a batch of salt bars and about an hour after I poured into the mold I realized that I hadn't put in the salt

I made another batch with salt - that time I kept saying salt over and over again so that I wouldn't forget.

 

[lionprincess00]

I too would say silicone mold too hot. Cheaper silicone does this at lower temps. I've he broken in good silicone do this afterone super hot session....then it tends to do it every time in the same spot.
Looks like pock marks from here, so that's why I too suggest heat + mold.

 

[JayJay]

Sonya and lionprincess:

Yes it was a silicone mold and my first time putting it in the oven. I baked it at 170 degrees F for about 40 minutes. I wanted to avoid partial gel.

I was also getting dressed for date night at the same time. I kept running back to the oven but it looked like nothing was happening for the longest time. I probably left it unattended for too long.

Thanks for the help! I will be more careful next time.

 

[gigisiguenza]

Unmolded the soap I made last night and am staring at it wondering if I like the way it looks LOL. It was my first time using a silicone loaf mold and I struggled to unmold it. It was not a nice clean unmolding, lemme tell ya. It peeled away from the sides in an unpleasant way that left the surface looking sorta glue-y. I had already begun peeling it off, so figured in for a penny, in for a pound, and finished removing it.

So I've got a less than smooth kinda glue-y looking unmolded loaf, cut into bars, with no FO cuz I forgot to add it when I was making the batter, with crooked stripes (the batter was too thick when I poured thanks to over enthusiastic SBing LOL) with colors that aren't quite what I expected.

I'm too tired to get up and take pics right now of this quirky looking batch (just got in from a 13 hour shift about thirty minutes ago) but once I've slept some, I'll take a pic and show you the poor little things LOL.

My sincere hope is that the cure will pretty them up some, color wise, and a good planing will fix the lack of smooth sides once the bars firm up more.

I'm not sure I like silicone molds if they make gloppy sided loaves that need fixing later. Not sure what I did wrong in the unmolding. I was afraid to leave it in too long and have the loaf firm up too hard to cut cleanly.

I had such visions of loveliness when I planned this batch LOL

 

[gigisiguenza]

Yanno why I love this thread?

Because it reminds me that things don't always work out as planned and to not be so critical of my mistakes

 

[LazyUmbrella]

I'm preparing for my second farmers' market (yay!) this Sunday and while I'm short on stock, I did have a new batch of 10 soap bars that was curing for about 6 weeks.
Finally I get to share with the world my perfect soap from perfect me!

Even though I am perfect, I always test my soap with a zap test as well as a shower test. I don't need to because I'm perfect, but I do anyway.

So I do the zap test, and no za... wait a minute what was that? Let's try again. It's probably my electric personality that's throwing me off.
I try again. So no zap per se, but I have to admit, it does feel like a zing!

I read up on AlchemyAndAshes' Zap Test Guide, and read about how I should rerun my numbers in a lye calculator. How silly. Why would I do that? I'm perfect! I do things perfectly the first time. In fact, let me run my numbers in the SoapCalc tool just to show you how perfect I am.

So I run the numbers and get a NaOH content of 127.9 g (1000 g batch, 5% SF). I then open my notes to see how much NaOH I used in the actual batch. I also ask myself why I'm wasting my precious time since I'm sure I'll see the same number staring right back at me. See that? Right there: 137.9 g. Just as I thou...

Wait, what? I used 137.9 g in the batch? Bu.. but that's 10 grams more than needed! That's a minus 5% superfat!
That's not perfect! That's not perfect at all!!

So I just discovered that I added too much lye to my soap. 6 weeks later. And one week before I was supposed to bring this to the farmers' market.
While I always double and triple check my numbers, I must have done something wrong. Maybe my fingers slipped and I typed in a 3 instead of a 2? Who knows.

What I do know is that I can't do much with this soap other than give the trash collectors more to throw into the truck.
And I'll have even fewer batches to display at my table.

I know - maybe I'll sell air soap - Ladies and Gents, it's the latest trend all the young kids are raving about - why use real soap when you can use air soap? I guarantee it's 100% hypoallergenic and is so mild you'll feel like you haven't used any soap at all!

 

[kumudini]

My soap calc numbers for lye are not exactly true as I've been adding CA to my soaps and manually calculate the extra lye to be added. You could have done that but didn't note that down, may be not. Even my super lye Castile wasn't zappy after 4 weeks and that's a 40% lye excess.
Are you sure that was a zap you felt? If yes, you could just give it more time to mellow out.

 

[LazyUmbrella]

My soap calc numbers for lye are not exactly true as I've been adding CA to my soaps and manually calculate the extra lye to be added. You could have done that but didn't note that down, may be not. Even my super lye Castile wasn't zappy after 4 weeks and that's a 40% lye excess.
Are you sure that was a zap you felt? If yes, you could just give it more time to mellow out.

CA = Citric acid?
No, I didn't add that. No excuses for me!

To be honest I'm not sure that it was a zap, but I'm not 100% certain that it isn't zappy, so I'm erring on the side of caution.

Maybe I won't throw it, and will keep it for research purposes. But I definitely won't sell it or give it away...

 

[dibbles]

I decided to make a batch of salt bars. Everything was fine, but I needed to warm my oils up a little bit. My soaping space is in the basement, but I have to go up to the kitchen for the microwave. On my way up, I caught my rubber soled slipper bottom on a stair tread. Slopped a good amount of the oils on not one, not two, but 7 carpeted stairs (carpet is only about 6 months old). Only 2 stairs got the worst of it. So I spent the better part of an hour cleaning that up. Of course, the lye water is waiting patiently. So I remeasured and melted the oils and went on my merry way. Time to add the salt, and as I'm pouring it in, clumps!! I noticed them when I weighed it to be sure I had enough, and knew there would be time to break up the clumps while waiting for the lye to cool. So who knows what I'll have. DH hasn't seen it yet.

I do have a question, though. Not all of the original oil spilled. Since the oils were stirred together before any spilled (80% coconut/20%olive), can I assume that this is the ratio of what I have left and still use it? Or should I just toss it?

And I have jury duty.

 

[LazyUmbrella]

NOT GUILTY!
(sorry, just practising my jury-speak)

First of all, if you are working with less oil than what you started with, you need to make sure that you used a lot less of the lye solution as well!

How confident are you with the mixing? If you melted the CO thoroughly and mixed it well, then I guess the spilled oil should also be an 80-20 CO-OO ratio, and the remaining oil should also be an 80-20 ratio.

Just for fun, let's experiment: Let's say that you wanted to make a 1000 g batch (10% SF) and lost 200 g of oil in the spill:

• - 1000 g batch of 80% CO, 20% OO, with 10% SF = 156.32 g NaOH originally required
• - Let's say 200 g of OO fell out, so 800 g of 100% CO with 10% SF = 131.94 g NaOH required
• - Let's say 200 g of CO fell out, so 800 g of 25% OO, 75% CO with 10% SF = 123.34 g NaOH required
• - Let's say 200 g of an 80-20 ratio of CO-OO fell out, so 800 g of 20% OO (160 g), 80% CO (640 g) with 10% SF = 125.06 g NaOH required

Based on these quick calculations, in this example, i would think that as long as you use less than 123.34 grams of NaOH (considering a 800 g batch), you're OK regardless of what type of oil fell out.

 

[LazyUmbrella]

Based on these quick calculations, in this example, i would think that as long as you use less than 123.34 grams of NaOH (considering a 800 g batch), you're OK regardless of what type of oil fell out.

Actually, that assumes you want to maintain a 10% SF.
You can use up to 137.04 g of NaOH for the example above and still remain in the superfat zone - though with that much CO, might make a very drying soap!

 

[Susie]

CA = Citric acid?
No, I didn't add that. No excuses for me!

To be honest I'm not sure that it was a zap, but I'm not 100% certain that it isn't zappy, so I'm erring on the side of caution.

Maybe I won't throw it, and will keep it for research purposes. But I definitely won't sell it or give it away...

Don't toss it. Hold on to it for 3-4 months. That extra lye will eventually go away, and you will have good soap.

 

[dibbles]

NOT GUILTY!
(sorry, just practising my jury-speak)

First of all, if you are working with less oil than what you started with, you need to make sure that you used a lot less of the lye solution as well!

How confident are you with the mixing? If you melted the CO thoroughly and mixed it well, then I guess the spilled oil should also be an 80-20 CO-OO ratio, and the remaining oil should also be an 80-20 ratio.

Just for fun, let's experiment: Let's say that you wanted to make a 1000 g batch (10% SF) and lost 200 g of oil in the spill:

• - 1000 g batch of 80% CO, 20% OO, with 10% SF = 156.32 g NaOH originally required
• - Let's say 200 g of OO fell out, so 800 g of 100% CO with 10% SF = 131.94 g NaOH required
• - Let's say 200 g of CO fell out, so 800 g of 25% OO, 75% CO with 10% SF = 123.34 g NaOH required
• - Let's say 200 g of an 80-20 ratio of CO-OO fell out, so 800 g of 20% OO (160 g), 80% CO (640 g) with 10% SF = 125.06 g NaOH required

Based on these quick calculations, in this example, i would think that as long as you use less than 123.34 grams of NaOH (considering a 800 g batch), you're OK regardless of what type of oil fell out.

Thank you for your reply. I am sure the oils were well mixed. I will probably just make another batch of salt bars (20% SF) and recalculate the lye once I weigh the remaining oil. Still too mad at my klutzy self to do it yet.