What soapy mistake have you made today?

[jules92207]

TT they are coconut milk, goat mil and avocado soaps )

Oh nice! I bet those are lovely, unscented and all!

 

[amd]

Sigh. The Soapy Gremlins have taken over my mojo. My last three batches have all been oozing oil. All three have been made with masterbatched oils and lye - first time using masterbatched lye, so I'm concluding the error is in the lye. More accurately may be my calculations. I always double check my final oil masterbatch weights to make sure I don't forget anything or have too much of something and this time was no exception.

So masterbatching Lye: I made 12lbs of oil (which is 6 batches 2lbs each) and decided I would masterbatch enough lye for all of it. For this recipe, per batch, I use 12.16 oz liquid and 4.45 oz NaOH both by weight. To make a 50% lye solution I calculated I would need 3x12.16 (representing half of the liquid) and 6x4.45.
3x12.16 = 36.48 oz liquid
6x4.45 = 26.70 oz NaOH

I combined these, using aloe vera juice as liquid, in an igloo water thermos that my family was no longer using (and then labeled it Poison and 50% lye solution so the family would know it wasn't lemonade). I stirred until fully dissolved. That was Friday night.

Saturday I made a batch of soap, cut it Sunday and found it oozing oil. Assumed it was because of separation as I had not brought it to trace, only to emulsion. Made two batches on Sunday, and brought both to trace. I OP'd to gel like normal (heating oven to 170F and turning off before inserting soap), as my house is still a chilly 60degs during the night. I took them out of the oven this morning and they are very oily and mushy, too mushy to unmold.

So when I made my soap I weighed out 6.08 oz masterbatch lye (I aimed for in between 6.00 and 6.10), and then added 6.08 oz remaining aloe vera juice (again shooting for the in-between).

1. Did I masterbatch correctly?
2. Did I use the masterbatch correctly?
3. Other than having a measurement off, any other trouble shooting I can do?
4. Ideas to save the soap and / or masterbatched lye?

Sorry, I know this is a lot in one message and maybe should be it's own thread. I can move it if needed.

 

[welsh black]

Sigh. The Soapy Gremlins have taken over my mojo. My last three batches have all been oozing oil. All three have been made with masterbatched oils and lye - first time using masterbatched lye, so I'm concluding the error is in the lye. More accurately may be my calculations. I always double check my final oil masterbatch weights to make sure I don't forget anything or have too much of something and this time was no exception.

So masterbatching Lye: I made 12lbs of oil (which is 6 batches 2lbs each) and decided I would masterbatch enough lye for all of it. For this recipe, per batch, I use 12.16 oz liquid and 4.45 oz NaOH both by weight. To make a 50% lye solution I calculated I would need 3x12.16 (representing half of the liquid) and 6x4.45.
3x12.16 = 36.48 oz liquid
6x4.45 = 26.70 oz NaOH

I combined these, using aloe vera juice as liquid, in an igloo water thermos that my family was no longer using (and then labeled it Poison and 50% lye solution so the family would know it wasn't lemonade). I stirred until fully dissolved. That was Friday night.

Saturday I made a batch of soap, cut it Sunday and found it oozing oil. Assumed it was because of separation as I had not brought it to trace, only to emulsion. Made two batches on Sunday, and brought both to trace. I OP'd to gel like normal (heating oven to 170F and turning off before inserting soap), as my house is still a chilly 60degs during the night. I took them out of the oven this morning and they are very oily and mushy, too mushy to unmold.

So when I made my soap I weighed out 6.08 oz masterbatch lye (I aimed for in between 6.00 and 6.10), and then added 6.08 oz remaining aloe vera juice (again shooting for the in-between).

1. Did I masterbatch correctly?
2. Did I use the masterbatch correctly?
3. Other than having a measurement off, any other trouble shooting I can do?
4. Ideas to save the soap and / or masterbatched lye?

Sorry, I know this is a lot in one message and maybe should be it's own thread. I can move it if needed.[/QUOT

this is how I do it.

If you make masterbatching lye you need equal NaOH and liquid. So you would mix 26.70onz of NaOH and 26.70onz of liquid. this is your master batch.

When making your first batch, the recipe called for 4.45of NaOH. 12.16 of liquid

Weigh 8.9 onz of your master batch - which is half liquid half NaOH - so you now have 4.45 onz of NaOH
then make up the liquid to 12.16onz
there is already is 4.45 of liquid in that mix, so add. 7 .71of liquid
I think that's right !!

 

[galaxyMLP]

amd, WB is right. Your masterbatch can be any concentration though. So if you always soap with that lye concentration (4.45 oz NaOH: 12.16 oz liquid) you can make up your masterbatch like that just by multiplying by the amount of batches you want. Then your would weigh out 16.61 oz of lye solution.

I think you misunderstood what "50% masterbatch" means. I think (from what I read) you tried master batching your solution at 50% of what you normally soap with. It should be 50% concentration weight/weight sodium hydroxide/water. So like WB said it should be 4.45 oz NaOH/ 4.45 oz water.

To use the remaining masterbatch you have, just weigh 10.53 oz of your masterbatch solution and add 6.08 oz of liquid more to it when you're ready to soap.

I got the number 10.53 by doing 12.16x3= 36.48 then dividing that by 6 (the amount of batches you're doing)= 6.08 oz then I added that to 4.45 oz of lye to get 10.53.

ETA: I got sidetracked from why I came to this thread... I made my own soapy mistake today. I was a little impatient and soaped 10 degrees too hot. My FO turned to thick batter (like my banana bread this morning...) and I had to mush it in the mold. It's gelled now already though and it bubbles up! So at least it smells great and does what it's supposed to. I'll post a picture when I cut it because it's going to be SO ugly.

 

[amd]

Thanks WB and Galaxy! This does make more sense. Sometimes I have to try things the wrong way to understand the right way

 

[galaxyMLP]

This is the soapy mistake soap




I told my BF it looked like meat and he goes "I don't know what kind of meat you're eating but I don't want anything to do with it".

It has holes through the entire loaf... This ones going into the "sale soaps" bin... I've used this FO before and it's well behaved so it must have been the extra 10-15 degrees.

 

[Soapsense]

Grrrrrr Made two six pound batches yesterday, one overheated, and I know that fragrance does, and still didn't check it, then I unmold it and drop it on one end completely destroying the end. Second batch I dropped on the other end. Just am a klutz today.

 

[grassyriver]

Grrrrrr Made two six pound batches yesterday, one overheated, and I know that fragrance does, and still didn't check it, then I unmold it and drop it on one end completely destroying the end. Second batch I dropped on the other end. Just am a klutz today.

I'm sorry you're having a rough soaping day.

I once cut several bars of round soap and placed them on their round edges to transport to the curing rack for some reason. Of course they all rolled right onto the floor as soon as I turned around to walk there.

 

[MoonStruck]

I didn't math. First batch in months and I didn't calculate my mold's volume so I had to very quickly make another half batch, which may or may not have worked. Because this was an EO blend, I didn't feel like I had time to mix up more so it might be really underscented.

Only bright side is that my Chai blend did not accelerate to a significant decree so if I need to repeat it I can plan accordingly.

 

[amd]

Just an update on my masterbatching oops.... I turned on my brain and figured out the math to rebatch with the correct amount of lye (and then had two people smarter than me check it). I now have usable soap! It's not pretty but it will be lovely to use in about 8 weeks.

 

[soaring1]

Forgot to put my PKO in a batch. Saw it the next morning all weighed out. Took the soap out of the mold cubed it up gave it a shot of coconut milk and put the missing PKO in and had to rebatch. It was a charcoal and white soap so it is all gray now. After I took it out of the mold and beveled, it looked like a gray boulder.with variations in it. So thats what I am going to call this soap. " Boulder" Today, I forgot to add my FO in. Sitting right there all measured out. One time, I didn't add it to the oils so I took a whisk poured it into my soap in the mold and whisked the pudding out of it. Thankfully soap was still pretty fluid. I imagine it messed up my color I had on my impression mat. Will have to wait and see. We are busy starting spring planting in the fields and getting gardens ready. Maybe I should just not make any soap for a few days. Don't know if I can stand it though.

 

[tinycyclops]

This was from a few weeks ago, but long story short I over fragranced two batches.

Back when WSP had their big fragrance sale back in January I ordered a whole bunch of stuff and finally had the chance to use them about two weeks ago. I usually use my fragrances at 5%, so when I made these soaps I printed of my recipe sheet and went about making my soaps. I went on the website after they were made to see something, and realized the usage rates on one was 2% and 3.9% on the other.

So, now I'm not sure what to do with them. I've used both and they seem okay, but I won't be able to give them away. They smell good at least. :/

 

[penelopejane]

This is the soapy mistake soap

I told my BF it looked like meat and he goes "I don't know what kind of meat you're eating but I don't want anything to do with it".

It has holes through the entire loaf... This ones going into the "sale soaps" bin... I've used this FO before and it's well behaved so it must have been the extra 10-15 degrees.

It looks like chocolate to me. But then everything looks like chocolate to me so I can't be 100% sure. It doesn't look like meat though. It looks lovely and smooth.

 

[penelopejane]

Just an update on my masterbatching oops.... I turned on my brain and figured out the math to rebatch with the correct amount of lye (and then had two people smarter than me check it). I now have usable soap! It's not pretty but it will be lovely to use in about 8 weeks.

The first one looks like it would have been a really pretty colour combination. I hope you try it again.

 

[artemis]

Today I am trying to resist my usual soapy mistake: cutting the soap too soon!

 

[TwystedPryncess]

I managed to make a rice mess last night. Still going back through my notes to see what I might have done wrong just in case I can't blame it on the FO. My colors also turned out whacked. There is oil on top of the batch and it's still super soft although it hasn't been 24 hours yet. I was trying to do a circling Taiwan swirl to get a lotus flower look and I am thinking that may be the only thing that come out right.

Ah well, more soap for the laundry bucket I suppose.

ETA photo but can't figure it out on my new phone. And here I thought I might get away without a double post since the cat isn't head butting me at the moment....

 

[TwystedPryncess]

 

[JasmineTea]

Actually, it looks kind of like it should smell of chocolate raspberry.

 

[penelopejane]

I managed to make a rice mess last night. Still going back through my notes to see what I might have done wrong just in case I can't blame it on the FO. My colors also turned out whacked. There is oil on top of the batch and it's still super soft although it hasn't been 24 hours yet. I was trying to do a circling Taiwan swirl to get a lotus flower look and I am thinking that may be the only thing that come out right.

Ah well, more soap for the laundry bucket I suppose.

ETA photo but can't figure it out on my new phone. And here I thought I might get away without a double post since the cat isn't head butting me at the moment....

Doesn't it drive you batty when soap doesn't work out?

 

[fuzz-juzz]

Ok, so today I:

- breathed in lye steam, burned back of my throat
- put too much purple in my lilac soap, it's like full on dark purple
- smeared raw soap on my forearm
- used rancid oil and realising afterwards
- got partial gel.... arghhhhh

All in a space of 30mins and with one 800gr batch of soap.

But I made BB Lilac work, little acceleration and no ricing
Smells wonderful.