Yikes! What happened?

[AshleyR]

I never thought a simple castile batch would be my first batch to go this wrong! LOL

What the heck happened???

I know it looks like a partial gel (maybe?) but I used my TOG log mold for this and every other time I've used it, my soaps have fully gelled very quickly. This one turned white almost immediately after I poured it into the mold. I expected the whole bar to be white but when I cut it it looked like this inside!

I soaped at room temperature and did not superfat. If it were a partial gel it wouldn't have the white spots all through it, would it?

I'm totally confused! Will the whole thing eventually turn white when it cures?

If anyone knows what might have happened, I'd love to hear it!

 

[jcandleattic]

Did you tongue test it? If you didn't superfat there is a possibility that it might be lye heavy - maybe?
Other than that, I really don't know. sorry.

 

[AshleyR]

Tongue tested - no zap!

:?:

 

[digit]

That's different. Maybe the soap fairies left Deda's and went to your house? I hope they turn out fine for you!!

Digit

 

[AshleyR]

I did use two different kinds of olive oil in this recipe. Maybe that was the problem.

They were the same brand, but one was "light" olive oil, and one was regular olive oil. I only used a bit of the regular olive oil, which might explain the white?

This traced VERY quickly too. I almost did not even have time to mix it really well (with the SB) because it traced so fast. I didn't expect this with castile soap since olive oil is liquid at room temp. I was expecting it to take a long time to get to trace.

What a weird experience making this soap!

 

[Barb]

from the picture it looks crumbly on the top, like it is covered in ash and has streaks of ash thru out the soap.

did you do a large water discount? i've had a couple of batches do that, this time of the year when i was doing a deep water discount and it is so dry here during the winter.and i think sometimes it cools off to quickly. you could make another batch exactly like this one tommarrow and have it turn out ok and never fiqure out what went wrong.

sometimes making soap makes you feel like a mad scientist doesn't it!

 

[AshleyR]

Hi Barb, that is exactly it! It is very ashy on top.... actually, all of the white parts feel like ash. It is soft and powdery. I ended up cutting most of it off with my potato peeler and the "inside" is much harder and more like SOAP!

I didn't do a water discount. I used soapcalc.com to figure out how much water and lye to use. As far as I know I measured properly, but I guess there's a chance I didn't! :?

 

[jcandleattic]

Did you use tap water or was your water different than it normally is? I get more ash when we haven't filtered the osmosis water or if we are running low on salt in the water softener.
That 'could' be part of it, but who knows. I don't think the different OO's would be the problem, but I don't use OO at all, so couldn't tell you on that one. ...

 

[AshleyR]

Did you use tap water or was your water different than it normally is? I get more ash when we haven't filtered the osmosis water or if we are running low on salt in the water softener.
That 'could' be part of it, but who knows. I don't think the different OO's would be the problem, but I don't use OO at all, so couldn't tell you on that one. ...

I did use tap water, but I always do and never have this problem!