Wine soap seized before I poured the wine?

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In regards to the lye solution getting hotter when you stirred it right before adding it to your oils... was your stirring utensil 100% clean and dry, or did you happen to stir something else with it immediately beforehand without cleaning it off? If you used it to stir something else without cleaning and drying it before stirring the lye solution, it wouldn't surprise me at all that the solution warmed up some. But if it was clean/dry, I have no idea why it would have heated up. Mine never does that unless I add something extra to the solution.



Besides the clove EO (which is a notoriously naughty accelerator), I believe the clay you added to this particular batch may also have played role in how fast things moved, due to it's super absorbency powers- especially in light of the fact that you were basically adding a severely reduced amount of liquid to your oils at first (before adding the wine). I'm thinking the absorbent clay sucked some of that water into itself, in effect increasing your lye concentration (the higher the lye concentration added to ones oils, the quicker the soap batter will come to thick trace).

The white dots look like classic stearic spots to me.


IrishLass :)

not going to lye, but what is stearic spots?

When using clove I usually keep it around 2-3% since it is a potential irritant. Knowing me that is unusual for me since I even use peppermint at 6%, but I have a healthy respect for clove and cinnamon in soap

Yes, I am redoing my blend. I already started testing a new eo blend.
 
not going to lye, but what is stearic spots?

:lol: Stearic spots are blotches of stearic acid from your fats that precipitate out of the mass of melted oils/fats when the soap batter doesn't stay warm enough in order for the steric to stay in melted solution long enough for the lye to be able to react with it so that it saponifies homogenously with the other fatty acids. Whew- that was a mouthful, and that's no lye! ;)


IrishLass :)
 
:lol: Stearic spots are blotches of stearic acid from your fats that precipitate out of the mass of melted oils/fats when the soap batter doesn't stay warm enough in order for the steric to stay in melted solution long enough for the lye to be able to react with it so that it saponifies homogenously with the other fatty acids. Whew- that was a mouthful, and that's no lye! ;)


IrishLass :)

Good to know you'r not a lye-er!:lolno:
 
:lol: Stearic spots are blotches of stearic acid from your fats that precipitate out of the mass of melted oils/fats when the soap batter doesn't stay warm enough in order for the steric to stay in melted solution long enough for the lye to be able to react with it so that it saponifies homogenously with the other fatty acids. Whew- that was a mouthful, and that's no lye! ;)


IrishLass :)

does that make the soap bad, will it hurt some one?
 
Stearic spots annoy me so I usually soap my oils and lye about 110F. I find that usually keeps them at bay but there are times they show themselves anyway. Usually it's with a badly behaved FO.:evil:
 
Stearic spots annoy me so I usually soap my oils and lye about 110F. I find that usually keeps them at bay but there are times they show themselves anyway. Usually it's with a badly behaved FO.:evil:

This is a first all the way around. I have never had them, I knew that my oils were cold, didn't believe it mattered. Will be watching for that.
 
This is a first all the way around. I have never had them, I knew that my oils were cold, didn't believe it mattered. Will be watching for that.

I'm not a RT soaper because I use PO as opposed to lard or tallow. Since I've never used lard or tallow I can't speak to those but from what I've read and personal experience, the stearic spots appear if the palm is too cool. It's made a big difference for me soaping warmer when I use PO. I recently purchased a bit of PKO to experiment with so will probably soap warmer with that too.
 
I just made wine soap today. I simmered the wine for 8 minutes last night, then froze in an ice cube tray. Today I added the lye to the frozen wine (NO added water) then added to my oils. Even with color and fragrance I had no acceleration or seizing. Nice trace and was able to separate into 2 batches - one I added TO and the other I added a mixture of micas to get a burgundy color. So somehow, you may have mismeasured something, because mine was very forgiving. So sorry you had such a hard time with yours. This was the first time I ever made wine soap! Forgot - I also made my soap at room temperature.

merlot wine.jpg
 
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