What soapy mistake have you made today?

[penelopejane]

And, if the soap batter is on a yellowish side, IT IS false trace... lye water probably was too cold, my guess, it's quite cold here in southern Australia.
...

So sorry to hear this.
It is so cold! I've been heating my masterbatch lye and even the OO in an effort to start the saponification process early.

 

[penelopejane]

I caught the edge of the mold on the oven rack as I was putting it in.... Good thing we are looking at new ovens.

I didn't mean to hit like.
I am so sorry this happened to you. So easy to do.

 

[fuzz-juzz]

So sorry to hear this.
It is so cold! I've been heating my masterbatch lye and even the OO in an effort to start the saponification process early.

It didn't come together even after cooking for 3h on high setting.
Water and oil kept oozing out. It was brine soap, so I think salt might have played the part that. I've rebatched few times but it always turns out fine. I tried stickblending but that didn't help either.
Definitely very strange and my biggest soap fail... It's in the bin now hahaha. It made me so furious I didn't want to look at it anynore.

 

[klbowden]

Soap looks like dog food. Lol

A little madder root, some white milled soap for a rebatch....what could possibly go wrong? It looks like raw meat! Ew....help! Lol

 

[Selaine]

Today, I weighed out my OO sitting on a scale with only two feet on a surface...... recipe called for 17 oz OO and boy was it taking forever to get that much! I dumped what i had into the oil bucket when I had 12 oz and went back for more when I realized it was weighing all wrong!! but now I have close to 55 oz of oils in the bucket but not sure how much of it is OO..... Math, math math and I sure hope I got it right lol.

 

[penelopejane]

My computer died, I backed it up and sent it to be repaired. Everything I was working on I saved on the mini computer I have. Then we had an internet drop out for a few days. I made 10 soaps in 10 days and had dutifully typed the recipe variations in my soap diary. They were all castile with slight variations. I got my computer back and my soap diary was corrupted. I always print out any updates to the diary but without the internet the printer doesn't work. That's ok I have two back ups. One back up didn't work, panic started to set in, back up two didn't work. How is this possible?

Luckily I am a very messy person and hadn't thrown out the hand scribbled notes for each of the recipes. Except for the last two. I was called away by a family emergency just as I was mixing my last batch. i didn't have time to do anything more than scribble notes. Actually I don't think I even scribble notes, or I threw them out because there is no sign of them and I can't remember what I did at all. It's castile soap, that's all I know.
Moral of the story - try and be a bit more organised. :headbanging:

 

[MySoapyHeart]

Aaaaaargghhhhh...!!!

*phew* nice to have that out my system.

I was testing 4 x 1oz fragrances from Natures Garden (Black Ops, Deadly Weapon, Light Blue type for Men and Opium Fields (Smells just like Opium perfume)

FORGOT to take out the opium fields fragrance and put it on the counter next to everything else, hence I poured Black ops fragrance in the batter that were SUPPOSED to be divided in two (brainfart) so the fragrance got poured in twice as much batter as it was supposed to. So 1oz fragrance was added to 2.2 pounds of soap, which made the scent really weak. And the fragrance wasn`t one of the strong ones OOB from the beginning. We`ll see how it smells after cure, but so far it is really, reeeeeally light.

Had it been 1oz of Like a Boss from NG, that 1oz to the doubble batter had been more than enough, as that one is supah strong!

Just a sidenote for the Light Blue Men fragrance:

My recipe always gives me plenty of time to work with, it is a recipe I developed almost 2 years ago and it is one my faves to make to this day, and it was developed specifically for my picky hubby. Well, I had the batter to emulsion as I usually do, so I can add colors and stickblend it in without getting puddin`trace. I got a lovely, even colored batter and still thin trace - perfect, lets add the light blue fragrance, shall we?? I handwisked it in as I expected acceleration because of the heads up from NG, in the description. Well, it was an accelerator. BIG time! I managed to plop it in the mould, but I expect some airbubbles even though I bumped it on a surface.

So if you try this, color your batter first, add fragrance at emulsion/thin trace and get pouring STAT - preferably sooner... : P

ETA: I used 33% Lye Concentration, things will probably go a bit slower if soaping with full water.

 

[toxikon]

My computer died, I backed it up and sent it to be repaired. Everything I was working on I saved on the mini computer I have. Then we had an internet drop out for a few days. I made 10 soaps in 10 days and had dutifully typed the recipe variations in my soap diary. They were all castile with slight variations. I got my computer back and my soap diary was corrupted. I always print out any updates to the diary but without the internet the printer doesn't work. That's ok I have two back ups. One back up didn't work, panic started to set in, back up two didn't work. How is this possible?

Luckily I am a very messy person and hadn't thrown out the hand scribbled notes for each of the recipes. Except for the last two. I was called away by a family emergency just as I was mixing my last batch. i didn't have time to do anything more than scribble notes. Actually I don't think I even scribble notes, or I threw them out because there is no sign of them and I can't remember what I did at all. It's castile soap, that's all I know.
Moral of the story - try and be a bit more organised. :headbanging:

Argh that sucks.

I store all my recipes and soaping notes in my OneNote. There's no way to lose it unless Microsoft goes under, everything is stored on the cloud and accessible from any of my devices. Definitely recommend it.

 

[NsMar42111]

My soapy mistake......realizing I had enough in Paypal to cover some extras from Rustic Escentuals' scent sale. Welp, there goes the extra payapl funds! :headbanging:

Seriously though...I will have to get way more organized this year on the scent trials to keep the RE thread going!

 

[annalee2003]

Not today, but yesterday when I cut into my first pencil line soap.

I realized two things:

1. I got a bit heavy with the coffee grounds that I used for my lines, so some bars are coming apart a bit on the edges.
2. Couldn't figure out why the bars were a bit crumbly when I cut them. Until I realized that I completely forgot to SF (80% coconut oil bars). So now I'm not even sure the bars can even be used since they'll be extremely drying.

Ugh.

 

[penelopejane]

Argh that sucks.

I store all my recipes and soaping notes in my OneNote. There's no way to lose it unless Microsoft goes under, everything is stored on the cloud and accessible from any of my devices. Definitely recommend it.

I have a new external HD with an auto back up and didnt use it properly I think?
But it doesn't explain the failure of the second backup drive. I don't like storing my personal stuff in the cloud but its a good idea for The diary.

 

[penelopejane]

Why is raw meat coloured soap the easiest default colour to make???

 

[kath4553]

My mistake, today...
Had a great idea to use a funnel pour mistake for embeds and fix it into a beautiful new loaf, but...
1. Didn't use enough TD
2. Forgot fragrance, again
3. Misjudged amount for base, too little
4. Soaped too soon, should have waited for more of a pudding texture
5. Now I can't get yesterdays soap out of it's mold!!!!!
Argh, this just isn't my day:headbanging:

 

[JuliaNegusuk]

I've just made some dodgy lavender and silk soap. Sure the recipe worked fine last time but this time could not get the silk to completely dissolve. Might have used too much (2g to an oil weight of 600g) or last time I used sliver this time noil, so perhaps the coarser stuff doesn't dissolve as well. Anyway I was quite happy that a bit of silk in the soap probably wasn't going to kill anyone so I mixed it and blitzed it and poured as usual. Then it occurred to me that the undissolved bits of silk might have "held on" to the lye resulting in lye heavy spots in the soap. So I guess I'll have to trash it, or at least not sell it, keep for personal use, but I have about 10 years supply of soap experiments at the moment! When I make it again I'll try sliver and run the lye through a sieve to catch the odd bits before mixing it all in.

 

[penelopejane]

I've just made some dodgy lavender and silk soap. Sure the recipe worked fine last time but this time could not get the silk to completely dissolve. Might have used too much (2g to an oil weight of 600g) or last time I used sliver this time noil, so perhaps the coarser stuff doesn't dissolve as well.in.

2 g of silk is excessive. I use a tiny pinch of silk for a 2.5lb batch of oils.
Cut it up finely soak it in your water then add your lye. Stir until completely dissolved. Strain. I have a 100g bag of silk which looks like it will last a lifetime. I probably use 1/10th of a gram per ppo but that's a guess because it's far too small to weigh.

 

[Cellador]

Not necessarily a "soapy" mistake....but while my son was napping and my daughter was having her tablet time, I decided to make a batch of emulsified sugar scrub. I had everything melted and mixed, except for the sugar and oils. Then my daughter walks over and pulls the oil container over to investigate. And, yup, seconds later my daughter and kitchen are covered in oils!

Luckily, the oils were cool enough that it didn't hurt or burn her...just scare her. I'm thankful she's ok, but I'm mourning the loss of my ingredients & time.

Never making a recipe around my kids again.

P.S. Anyone have any tricks for cleaning oils out of clothes?

 

[earlene]

Yesterday's batch was sort of disastrous. Well, not disastrous in the literal sense, but quite disappointing and maybe just plain a 'bad soap day' for me. First, it traced faster than I wanted, but that's my fault for not decreasing the hard oils and increasing the soft oils. Second, the FO accelerated and riced, so swirls were out. Colors worked okay, but by that time the batter was pretty much at the 'plop it into the mold really quick' stage and only the first mold turned out looking like it would be decent soap. For the second mold, I gave up put it back into the bowl and added a bit of extra liquid and tried to HP it with a bit of SL to loosen it up enough to mix it with some soap confetti I had been wanting to use up this week. I used the microwave oven to HP it (I hate using the MW for this purpose; prefer the crockpot for HP & rebatch) and pressed it all into another mold.

Well then during CPOP the 'good soap' leaked. It was in a not-so-tightly sealed wooden mold lined with freezer paper and this was probably the second time I had used the freezer paper. My [lye concentration] was only at 33%, so not even full water, and it leaked through the freezer paper and out the bottom of the wooden mold on one end. Joy! I got to learn how lye eats away at aluminum foil. As it happens, I keep a pizza pan in my oven, covered with heavy duty Aluminum foil (at all times) and then place a towel over top of that before putting my soap molds into the oven for CPOP. I used to also put cardboard between the pizza pan and the towel, but had become lazy and stopped doing that recently. Well, let me tell you, the cardboard layer is going back in again, and something else to catch possible leaks to prevent this from happening again. The lye soaked through the towel, interacted with the Aluminum foil, creating a sort of blackish substance that soaked back into the towel and then began eating away at a spot on the pizza pan. I smelled it, so went to investigate and saw I now have a shiny sort of pock-marked surface area on my pizza pan as well as the rest of the mess to clean up. Not too bad clean-up-wise, but disappointing as I said.

Later that night I checked them after they had come down to about 90-something degrees F and the first soap was decent, so I cut them and put them out to dry. I think these bars will be okay. But the second one just crumbled as I removed it from the mold and so did the bars as I cut them. I just put all that into a bucket & covered it. When we get back from the eclipse trip, I'll re-evaluate if it's even worth my while to re-batch that portion. I'll re-evaluate the bars I think will be okay, too. Maybe they will; maybe they won't.

I remember having bad computer days when I was in my 40's and 50's; they don't seem to happen so much anymore. (Like bad hair days, but with a computer.) Now I seem to have bad soap days. I wish there was some way to know before starting to actually make the soap that it's going to be a 'bad soap day' so I can just avoid making soap that day.

 

[dibbles]

My DIL and a friend wanted to learn to make soap. So yesterday was the day. It all went pretty well, and I might have gained a soaping buddy or two. Normally I have to encourage my soaps to gel, even in summer, by putting the mold on a heating pad and insulating. I didn't account for the extra heat from two loafs sitting together. Got up this morning and saw that I had my first ever cracked top with oil sitting on top of one loaf. This was in a Nurture mold with a cover. I don't know if it would have been a full on volcano if the cover hadn't been there. I'm so disappointed for my DIL - both girls were so excited about their soaps.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

I wish there was some way to know before starting to actually make the soap that it's going to be a 'bad soap day' so I can just avoid making soap that day.

Ah, wouldn't we all?! I'm sorry all that happened to you, Earlene, but thank you for taking time to write up the events as they happened. There's a few juicy tips in there that probably wouldn't show up any where else. Now I'm scared to make soap... the "Soaping Gremlins" seem to happen in threes. I'm going to sit on my hands and wait from the epidemic to pass. :mrgreen:

 

[Zany_in_CO]

P.S. Anyone have any tricks for cleaning oils out of clothes?

Yes! Polysorbate 80 removes oil stains -- soak the stain for at least 5 minutes, give it a good rub, and toss it in the washer. With a large amount of oil like I suspect happened, I would air dry instead of using the dryer (that might "set" the stain). If the stain is still there, I would soak in OxyClean overnight.

HTH :bunny:
​