When the new year rung in in Jan of 2017, I was making soap for the street fairs and farmer's Markets coming around. I had made lots of soap, I mean LOTS. Lavender was my fav. I had ordered some Alkanet root, and was infusing sunflower oil to add into my Lavender Haze Soap. I was not happy with the Saddlewood powder that I had been using for over a year; so I decided to do the infusion thing.
I got good results with the Alkanet, nice color, my EO smell great. All my soaps were good looking. When my first street fair come around in early May, I started noticing that my soaps were a different color. An ugly yellow, like massive DOS. the lavender was the worse, to the point I stopped putting it out for sell. Soap that I had never had an issue with, ever, had DOS; but the Lavender was the worse. I couldn't figure out what was so wrong. I managed to get enough soap, to skinny by 2017.
Since September, I havent sold any soap, I needed to find out what was going wrong. I bought, new blenders, thinking that it was the Hand held blender gone bad. I got rid of, yes; threw out, 2 ounces of Lavender EO, and bought new. Got rid of any old pipettes and started over with new ones ( I usually clean and save my pipettes). Posted pictures on this forum, to no avail. I tested so much soap, that I had more soap then food! All were awful, the alkanet root took a turn for the worst, it turn absolutely brown after just 2 weeks. I was going to quit and just sale everything I had, every soap had a problem now. It looked as if I didn't know what I was doing.
To make matters worse, I had two Boxer dogs that had cancer, I euthanized one in Oct and the other in Nov. I shared my life with them and they shared theirs with me. I euthanized my last on Nov 20th,Thankgiving week.
By now, I had a clue of what was going on though, thank God because I was in no shape to think; my test batches were beginning to talk to me.
I remembered that in Jan of 2016, I bought new lye, I thought that maybe it was the lye because I had changed everything and still was coming up with the same results. Brown soap. I talked with the manager from the chemical company, I wanted to know where did the lye I bought came from, and if there had been any other complaints. He assure me that there wasn't, if it made me feel better he was going to give me a 50 lb lye bucket. I figured since it was Sept, and the batch was from Jan, why not.
Then I started thinking again, what if it does the same thing, how would I know? I decided to order a small amount from Bulk Apothecary. I got the lye from Bulk, made a test batch, and what do I get......brown soap! Now I knew, it wasn't the lye, so what was it?
I remembered that I was having an issue with my batter tracing really fast, I posted on this forum about that. Some asked the % of lye to water, if I soaped at full water I wouldn't have an issue with tracing. So I started soaping at full water. Worked good, that was in 2015, at end of 2016 is when I ran out of the old lye, that's when I started the new lye from that Chemical company that I had called bout the lye. I hated to buy from them because it was more money for the lye, but the old lye I had been using come from some guy, that I met at the back of some store.
When I started to think about the new lye, I realized that I was still soaping at full water. My new lye water was RT, and my oils were not very hot, I started to wonder if I was soaping to cold. I started a test batch with my lye at 120 and the oils at about 80. It was better but within a week I could see DOS coming.
I finally got it, it was the blending, my soap wasnt even tracing, the new lye that I had was different from the first. So the next test batch, I blended the crap out of it and I could barely get it to trace, but I knew it had saponified. I could see the difference. It was Lavender with Alkanet infused oil, by the 4th week, I had one little DOS mark, God only knows where it come from; the rest was perfect.
I don't know if the first lye was a lower grade or what. I just know that, it took this long to figure something out when it comes to soap. I was totally depressed because of the disappointment.
I guess that not all lye is the same, the one thing I learned, I will be staying with companies that are reputable and test each time I get a new batch of lye....no matter what.
My apologies for this post being so long. Its been a while.:headbanging::headbanging:
I got good results with the Alkanet, nice color, my EO smell great. All my soaps were good looking. When my first street fair come around in early May, I started noticing that my soaps were a different color. An ugly yellow, like massive DOS. the lavender was the worse, to the point I stopped putting it out for sell. Soap that I had never had an issue with, ever, had DOS; but the Lavender was the worse. I couldn't figure out what was so wrong. I managed to get enough soap, to skinny by 2017.
Since September, I havent sold any soap, I needed to find out what was going wrong. I bought, new blenders, thinking that it was the Hand held blender gone bad. I got rid of, yes; threw out, 2 ounces of Lavender EO, and bought new. Got rid of any old pipettes and started over with new ones ( I usually clean and save my pipettes). Posted pictures on this forum, to no avail. I tested so much soap, that I had more soap then food! All were awful, the alkanet root took a turn for the worst, it turn absolutely brown after just 2 weeks. I was going to quit and just sale everything I had, every soap had a problem now. It looked as if I didn't know what I was doing.
To make matters worse, I had two Boxer dogs that had cancer, I euthanized one in Oct and the other in Nov. I shared my life with them and they shared theirs with me. I euthanized my last on Nov 20th,Thankgiving week.
By now, I had a clue of what was going on though, thank God because I was in no shape to think; my test batches were beginning to talk to me.
I remembered that in Jan of 2016, I bought new lye, I thought that maybe it was the lye because I had changed everything and still was coming up with the same results. Brown soap. I talked with the manager from the chemical company, I wanted to know where did the lye I bought came from, and if there had been any other complaints. He assure me that there wasn't, if it made me feel better he was going to give me a 50 lb lye bucket. I figured since it was Sept, and the batch was from Jan, why not.
Then I started thinking again, what if it does the same thing, how would I know? I decided to order a small amount from Bulk Apothecary. I got the lye from Bulk, made a test batch, and what do I get......brown soap! Now I knew, it wasn't the lye, so what was it?
I remembered that I was having an issue with my batter tracing really fast, I posted on this forum about that. Some asked the % of lye to water, if I soaped at full water I wouldn't have an issue with tracing. So I started soaping at full water. Worked good, that was in 2015, at end of 2016 is when I ran out of the old lye, that's when I started the new lye from that Chemical company that I had called bout the lye. I hated to buy from them because it was more money for the lye, but the old lye I had been using come from some guy, that I met at the back of some store.
When I started to think about the new lye, I realized that I was still soaping at full water. My new lye water was RT, and my oils were not very hot, I started to wonder if I was soaping to cold. I started a test batch with my lye at 120 and the oils at about 80. It was better but within a week I could see DOS coming.
I finally got it, it was the blending, my soap wasnt even tracing, the new lye that I had was different from the first. So the next test batch, I blended the crap out of it and I could barely get it to trace, but I knew it had saponified. I could see the difference. It was Lavender with Alkanet infused oil, by the 4th week, I had one little DOS mark, God only knows where it come from; the rest was perfect.
I don't know if the first lye was a lower grade or what. I just know that, it took this long to figure something out when it comes to soap. I was totally depressed because of the disappointment.
I guess that not all lye is the same, the one thing I learned, I will be staying with companies that are reputable and test each time I get a new batch of lye....no matter what.
My apologies for this post being so long. Its been a while.:headbanging::headbanging:
