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Crazycoffeecats

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Hello all! I finally made my first batch of soap and it doesn't look good at all. The recipe I used was 6 ounces of virgin coconut oil, 1 ounce of beeswax, probably 15 drops of essential oils, 1 ounce of lye and 3 ounces of milk.

I warmed some of the milk then added to the lye and the color of the milk changed to orange. I let the lye mixture cool then added it to the melted fats. I hit it with the immersion blender for about 5 minutes and it got really thick fast.

I have let it cure for about three days and this is what it looks like.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
 

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You used way too much beeswax. The most you would want to use is 5%, you used almost 15%

Also, you never warm any liquid before adding your lye. If anything, you want to chill it. The milk turned orange because the sugars in it burned.

Throw it out, its not any good. What oils do you have? We can help you come up with a good recipe.
 
I would guess it overheated. The sugars in the milk tend to make things warm, and also they can scorch with the heat of the lye-water reaction. Most people will freeze their milk before adding the lye to avoid it heating up so much. Lye and water combining is a HIGHLY exothermic reaction (produces a great deal of heat) and can be really dangerous if you warm liquid before adding lye to it. It could boil out of the container and scald you, as well as give you severe chemical burns from the high alkalinity. Not to scare you, but it's incredibly dangerous and I'm glad nothing happened to you with this batch.

This is not a very well-balanced recipe. I ran this through a soap calculator (soapmakingfriend.com) and came up with a 14% superfat, which is ok with 100% coconut oil, but with the added beeswax it might have caused some issues. You have to soap pretty warm with beeswax otherwise it has a tendency to set up faster than the other fats and separate out. As Obsidian said, you've used 14.3% beeswax in this recipe and that is far far too much to make this a decent bar.

It probably thickened up fast because of how much beeswax you have and also the amount of coconut oil. CO tends to move pretty fast and the beeswax definitely did not help things.

I also want to touch on the stick blending for 5 minutes thing - that's gonna be way too much. You'll want to watch how much you blend if you want to have any workability with the batter while it's fluid. It can be helpful to watch some YouTube videos of people making soap so you can see what their batter looks like when they start to work with it. Royalty Soaps is one of my favorites. Beginners are often recommended SoapQueenTV but she tends to only promote her own product and uses glass/Pyrex bowls which can be dangerous with the high alkalinity - so take those with a grain of salt.

As Obsidian has said, let us know what oils you have access to and we can help you develop a better, more balanced recipe! I see you're in the USA - you can buy plenty of oils and supplies locally at a Walmart or something similar for pretty good prices and make lovely soaps. A recipe similar to mine that I suggest:

45% lard/manteca
35% olive oil
20% coconut oil

5% superfat
33% lye concentration (not water as % of oils if you're using soapcalc)

You can find all those fats in the baking aisle of Walmart and it should give you plenty of working time even if you over-blend a little. Freeze your milk into cubes and add the lye granules s l o w l y and stir well. You can put the container you're mixing in into a bowl filled with ice water to keep it even cooler. I suggest starting with plain distilled water for a few recipes before you graduate to milk soaps. It'll help you get the hang of the process without having to worry about what temperature the solution ends up at - the water won't care if it gets hot!
 
Hello there!

How did you decide on this recipe for soap? Did you use a soap/lye calculator? It is unusual to use beeswax in such a high amount in soap, especially with coconut oil being the only other oil. Both produce really hard soaps, and coconut oil is a super cleansing oil, meaning it can strip the natural oils from the skin unless you have a high superfat level.

Secondly, I am concerned that you warmed the milk and added it into the lye.
1. You should always add the lye to the liquid "snow on the water" and never liquid to the lye.
2. Milks contain a lot of sugars which can cause your soap batter to overheat. Most people freeze their milk before adding lye...it's really unnecessary to heat it.

What temperature did you mix your oils & lye solution?

Also, 5 minutes of stick blending is a lot for any recipe, let alone a mixture with 14% beeswax. I am not surprised it got very thick on you.

Basically, I think your recipe probably overheated due to your overall oil choices and the milk.

I hope I'm not being too frank or discouraging, but you would probably really benefit by watching some basic beginning soap-making videos on YouTube (Soap Queen's are good) and researching how each oil affects your soap properties. And, there's a lot of good info in the Beginner's Soap Making Forum Stickies too. :)
 
Thanks for all of the repsonses. I found this recipe on pinterest; I know there can be a lot of wrong information on there. I did run the recipe through a soap calculator but it didn't say anything about too much beeswax.

As for the lye, I am a professional baker and it just seemed wrong to add frozen liquid to lye. I have just kinda went in circles with recipes for a while and finally just decided I would try it and see what happens.

The only oils I have are coconut oil, beeswax, and some almond oil. I wouldn't mind getting olive oil, shea or a budget friendly oil. I definitely want to keep the milk as I have large supply of frozen breastmilk.

Thanks!
 
A soap calculator is only there to tell you how much lye you need and how much liquid. It gives some ballpark properties but the best method of knowing what is going to make a good soap is drawing on your own and on others’ experiences.

Soaping and baking are not so dissimilar! It’s a good background to have but important to know the nuances. Sweet almond oil is a great oil for soaping but can get expensive. Olive or rice bran oil are great and cheap bulk oils and you can even use Crisco.

Breastmilk will work nicely in soap, but like I said above, try a couple batches without first just to get the hang of it. Then you won’t waste such a precious resource!
 
As for the lye, I am a professional baker and it just seemed wrong to add frozen liquid to lye. I have just kinda went in circles with recipes for a while and finally just decided I would try it and see what happens.


I "ice" my water for the lye mix. I hit the crushed ice button on my fridge and measure out how much weight with ice and cold water.
For those who only use distilled water - I have a whole house water softener and a full range filter on my fridge. It is the same as distilled but I can get ice with it.
 
A soap calculator is only there to tell you how much lye you need and how much liquid. It gives some ballpark properties but the best method of knowing what is going to make a good soap is drawing on your own and on others’ experiences.

Soaping and baking are not so dissimilar! It’s a good background to have but important to know the nuances. Sweet almond oil is a great oil for soaping but can get expensive. Olive or rice bran oil are great and cheap bulk oils and you can even use Crisco.

Breastmilk will work nicely in soap, but like I said above, try a couple batches without first just to get the hang of it. Then you won’t waste such a precious resource!

Thank you for all of your advice. I will go for more of a blend in oils and watch some videos. I am definitely going to check out this forum a bit more in depth. You didn't come off as discouraging at all. I am definitely interested in the science of soapmaking, and as far as the lye goes I have worked with it for years in pretzel making.

Thanks again!
 
"...whole house water softener and a full range filter on my fridge. It is the same as distilled..."

Filters, even porous block activated carbon filters, do not remove dissolved minerals. Softening the water adds sodium to the water while removing some of the dissolved minerals such as calcium and magnesium. Distilling removes all dissolved minerals, so it doesn't have any calcium, magnesium, sodium, etc.

If you want to use filtered and softened water to make your soap, that's perfectly fine. No argument from me. I simply want to point out it's not the same thing as distilled water.
 
Filters, even porous block activated carbon filters, do not remove dissolved minerals. Softening the water adds sodium to the water while removing some of the dissolved minerals such as calcium and magnesium. Distilling removes all dissolved minerals, so it doesn't have any calcium, magnesium, sodium, etc.

If you want to use filtered and softened water to make your soap, that's perfectly fine. No argument from me. I simply want to point out it's not the same thing as distilled water.[/QUOTE]

Thank you, I stand corrected. I have had great success with the water from my fridge/freezer.
 

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