Zany's no slime castile

[Arlo]

This is what my soap looks like 18 hours after making it. Not sure what I did wrong. I sprayed it with alcohol, covered with plastic wrap, a cardboard cover and wrapped in a towel. When I peaked at it 4 hours later, the top was crinkly. And although the top seems hard now, when I removed it from the mold, the bottom was soft So it’s back in the mold. A pH strip says it’s around 11. Any thoughts?

 

[Zany_in_CO]

When I peaked at it 4 hours later, the top was crinkly. And although the top seems hard now, when I removed it from the mold, the bottom was soft So it’s back in the mold. ... Any thoughts?

It's hard to say. To troubleshoot, we need more info. It's best to share your detailed recipe and blow by blow description of your process.

 

[LynetteO]

This is what my soap looks like 18 hours after making it. Not sure what I did wrong. I sprayed it with alcohol, covered with plastic wrap, a cardboard cover and wrapped in a towel. When I peaked at it 4 hours later, the top was crinkly. And although the top seems hard now, when I removed it from the mold, the bottom was soft So it’s back in the mold. A pH strip says it’s around 11. Any thoughts?
View attachment 61553

Have made 4 batches of ZNSC (1just about 30min ago) & all previous batches got very hard, very fast. The only time I’ve seen “brain” like top once was with a palm, OO & CO batch & we decided the top was brainy from possibly overheating our oils. But we were guessing. Soap was fine just a skosh lumpy. What recipe did you choose?

 

[ResolvableOwl]

the top was crinkly. And although the top seems hard now, when I removed it from the mold, the bottom was soft So it’s back in the mold. A pH strip says it’s around 11. Any thoughts?

Alien Brains! are a purely cosmetic issue. You can plane it off if you dislike how it looks, or just leave it as is. As long as your recipe is sound (when in doubt, cross-check with a different lye calculator), and you've got to stable emulsion, it's fine soap. Give it a few days.
ad pH: Don't mind. Besides this, it's much too early to worry about lye-heavy soap anyway. Wear gloves when handling it, and you're on the safe side. Do a zap test after a week or so.

 

[Arlo]

It's hard to say. To troubleshoot, we need more info. It's best to share your detailed recipe and blow by blow description of your process.

Ok, here goes! As per soapcalc:
500g olive oil (Costco olive oil; not EV)
115g Faux sea water
68g NaOH

I infused overnight about 75g of the oil with about 1 Tbsp broken up bay leaves thinking I'd get a greenish tinge, but the oil did not change color at all.

Lye and oils were within the 103F - 105F range.
Stick blended until very light trace. [I know the recipe said "until emulsion" but I was not sure enough of myself on this. The trace was really, really light. I SB'd by pulsing/stirring/momentarily resting for about 10 minutes.]
Poured into mold; tapped; sprayed w/99% alcohol.
Covered w/plastic wrap, then covered with cardboard, then wrapped in a bath towel.

I did see something recently about alien brains on EverydayElly so I will try to find that. And will do other research.

If this is only cosmetic, I'm not that concerned as I saw this as experimental.
Thanks for everyone for their input.
Edit: room temp was about 64F.

 

[AliOop]

We've got some interesting threads here on SMF about alien brains - you can find them using the search bar at the top of the page. Typical pH strips are not very helpful for testing soap, as they are not likely to be very accurate. They also don't tell you whether the soap is lye-heavy or not. If that's what you were trying to check, a zap test is going to be your best bet.

 

[LynetteO]

Author states that recipe without color & scent, is safe for even the most sensitive skin. I keep trying to color my ZNSC batches & just can’t get the color to stick. Pretty sure the faux sea H2O is to blame. Rather than adding more & more color when I clearly wasn’t “seeing” any purple hues, after adding mica premixed w/ glycerin. I decided to let it be. Glad I chose that path considering even the purple confetti shreds aren’t showing & overall result matched confetti shreds better this way.
Also worth mentioning that the fragrance is different with the loaf bars that went thru gel phase. The scent is basically non existent. Where as, the cavity molds that did NOT gel are lightly scented. I used “earth meets sky” by Nurture Soap. I was prepared for a light scent with only adding 15g F/O to a 900g (oils) batch.

 

[Catscankim]

i am a castile soap hater LOL. But I followed ZNSC recipe and I have the most wonderful soap ever. I used no colorants and no fragrance. It is a nice white, super hard bar. I love this soap. It is so pretty all by itself.

Out of the mold it had an odd OO color, but the longer it cured, the whiter it got. My bars right now are about 6 months old. I never used them because like I said, I hate castile soap lol. But this one sent me over the top. I have regular castile soap that I made a year and a half ago, and I won't use it to even wash my hands at the sink.

i am waiting on my order of essential oils, so I might make another batch with Lavender EO this week, but I love the white so much, that I am not going to add any color to this one either.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Ok, here goes! As per soapcalc:

I'm sorry your batch turned out the way it did. From what you wrote, you did good. I don't see anything wrong with your process. With a little more experience you may be able to figure it out for yourself.

I infused overnight about 75g of the oil with about 1 Tbsp broken up bay leaves thinking I'd get a greenish tinge, but the oil did not change color at all.

Hmmm. It t'were me, I would have used 28g bay leaves in the total 500g olive oil the same way I make Carrot Tissue Oil to achieve a nice green. However, the one time I used comfrey infused oil to make ZNSC, the color faded. I suspect the salt water is the culprit. Just guessing.

I keep trying to color my ZNSC batches & just can’t get the color to stick. Pretty sure the faux sea H2O is to blame.

That makes 2 of us.

I love the white so much, that I am not going to add any color to this one either.

Me too. It kinda stands out against the riot of color going on in other threads.

 

[Bubble Agent]

I keep trying to color my ZNSC batches & just can’t get the color to stick.

...I used “earth meets sky” by Nurture Soap. I was prepared for a light scent with only adding 15g F/O to a 900g (oils) batch.

Aha! I thought my Black Raspberry vanilla was a bit dull compared to how it usually is!

I have made 2 colored batches of ZNSC (I did 80% olive, 15 coconut, 5 castor.) One was with Black Raspberry vanilla from Nurture, with colors that were red, black and white, but after a few days turned into pink, grey and white

(I may re-name into Bland Razzmaybe Vanill' ish)

The other one was sharp yellow, turned into a soft yellow (not a biggie that one). This has never happened to me before, the colors are always so crisp and bright in my recipe, so when the faux seawater was mentioned here I realized that would be why my colors went pfffth...!

The duller yellow color works out just fine, I was testing my own blend of essential oils I use in my cleaning spray for the kitchen, to see if it works in cp soap, which it does. So that color ended up perfect for the blend anyway.
(I should go and add that blend to EO calc, it is a total sticker at 3% in soaps.)

15 grams of fragrance in 900 grams of oils, that was not a lot, I agree. That is in the ballpark of 1.6% fragrance, or something? (right?)

Btw - fun to try the faux seawater! I have made olive, coconut, castor soaps before many times, but never with this type of water. Fun!

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

Just made my first batch of @Zany_in_CO’s NSC with 5% castor and 10% coconut. I made the quart of faux sea water, making sure to dissolve all sea salt and sodium bicarbonate. When I added sodium hydroxide, I could not get all of it to dissolve. Of course, I didn’t realize that until I had poured it into my oils. I went ahead and stick blended everything and stuck it in the oven to keep it mildly warm since it is a small batch. I anticipate that I will have to throw it out tomorrow.

So now I am starting over, this time making sure I can get the sodium hydroxide to dissolve in the faux sea water first. Unfortunately, not all of the beads of sodium hydroxide have dissolved. In fact it appears that some of the salt and sodium bicarb are coming out of solution. Has anyone else had problems getting the faux sea water + sodium hydroxide into full solution?

Maybe I should also mention I used tapwater, which is hard in my community.

 

[Bubble Agent]

Just made my first batch of @Zany_in_CO’s NSC with 5% castor and 10% coconut. I made the quart of faux sea water, making sure to dissolve all sea salt and sodium bicarbonate. When I added sodium hydroxide, I could not get all of it to dissolve. Of course, I didn’t realize that until I had poured it into my oils. I went ahead and stick blended everything and stuck it in the oven to keep it mildly warm since it is a small batch. I anticipate that I will have to throw it out tomorrow.

So now I am starting over, this time making sure I can get the sodium hydroxide to dissolve in the faux sea water first. Unfortunately, not all of the beads of sodium hydroxide have dissolved. In fact it appears that some of the salt and sodium bicarb are coming out of solution. Has anyone else had problems getting the faux sea water + sodium hydroxide into full solution?

Maybe I should also mention I used tapwater, which is hard in my community.

Sorry to hear about your troubles
I think you will be right to throw out the soap if it has undissolved lye crystals in it. I don`t know if it is any point to rebatch it if you are not sure if you can get it to dissolve properly if you do, and it is a small batch, as you said.

And I don`t know for sure if your hard water could be the cause or at least contribute a great deal to the issue of the water, but it really doesn`t do you any favours in this case either.

Can you get a hold of distilled water? Or demineralized water/de-ionized water? (the type you can use to refill the water in a car battery)

When I made the faux seawater I had no issues, the water was cloudy but no undisolved grains of salt or the bicarbonate. The lye dissolved just fine when I portioned out the part to use as my lye water. The rest of the quart I set asside in the fridge.

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

Sorry to hear about your troubles
I think you will be right to throw out the soap if it has undissolved lye crystals in it. I don`t know if it is any point to rebatch it if you are not sure if you can get it to dissolve properly if you do, and it is a small batch, as you said.

And I don`t know for sure if your hard water could be the cause or at least contribute a great deal to the issue of the water, but it really doesn`t do you any favours in this case either.

Can you get a hold of distilled water? Or demineralized water/de-ionized water? (the type you can use to refill the water in a car battery)

When I made the faux seawater I had no issues, the water was cloudy but no undisolved grains of salt or the bicarbonate. The lye dissolved just fine when I portioned out the part to use as my lye water. The rest of the quart I set asside in the fridge.

All the salt and bicarb dissolved before I mixed it with lye. I came back out and tried mixing the clear faux sea water (tap) with lye beads again. Once again, all of the lye did not dissolve and the sea salt and sodium bicarbonate started to come out of solution.

So I dumped out all of the first sea water made with tapwater and started over again with distilled water to make faux sea water at a more concentrated strength in order to mix it with my masterbatched lye 1:1 solution. This time the solution was dissolved and clear when I mixed it, but then…

The solution turned cloudy, and then flakes started appearing on top and eventually in the solution itself as I measured out the oils. I went ahead and blended everything together anyway and poured it into the molds.

I will see what I have in the way of soap in the morning. Somewhere in the house among soaping supplies I have phenolphthalein to test for excess lye. I won’t try to re-batch because I doubt sodium hydroxide beads would dissolve and incorporate into the soap during a cook.

Thank you for your advice!

 

[ResolvableOwl]

When you're working with (hard) tap water, (bi)carbonate will precipitate some of the Ca/Mg. It appears as if some of the “faux sea water minerals” have precipitated, but it's actually limestone. Lye made with tap water is cloudy (that's one of the reasons why one shouldn't use hard water for soapmaking).

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

When you're working with (hard) tap water, (bi)carbonate will precipitate some of the Ca/Mg. It appears as if some of the “faux sea water minerals” have precipitated, but it's actually limestone. Lye made with tap water is cloudy (that's one of the reasons why one shouldn't use hard water for soapmaking).

Except for the faux sea water, I always use distilled water. My thought was that some of the natural minerals in tapwater would make it even more like sea water. Something precipitated out of the sea water made with distilled water, too. When he gets out of his meeting online, I can ask the resident hydrogeologist about water used to make faux seawater.

 

[Bubble Agent]

I will see what I have in the way of soap in the morning.

You`re welcome, sorry I couldn`t be of better help! Hope it works out for you, and that it works out somehow. Don`t give up!
Oh, and you have an hydrogeologist stashed around somewhere? How convenient

When you're working with (hard) tap water, (bi)carbonate will precipitate some of the Ca/Mg. It appears as if some of the “faux sea water minerals” have precipitated, but it's actually limestone. Lye made with tap water is cloudy (that's one of the reasons why one shouldn't use hard water for soapmaking).

Ok, so limestone eh? Interesting! I`ll bear that in mind so I can smack someone in the head share that info next time someone keeps asking me why I "feel the need" to use speshul water, "when water is seriously just water, no need to get so fancy..."

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Except for the faux sea water, I always use distilled water.

Hmm. Then I'm not sure what's happening. The chloride and carbonate are close to their solubility limit in a 1.7:1 hydroxide lye. Maybe it's a matter of temperature fine-tuning? Gritty precipitates, even if harmless, don't make well in a soap that is intended to look smooth and clean.

@Bubble Agent
Well yes, carbonate will remove dissolved calcium from solution. Regardless if it's from soda ash (old home remedy for water softening), ZNSC faux sea water (carbonate from bicarbonate + hydroxide), thermal decomposition of bicarbonate (aka scale in boilers, washing machines, and kettles), or burping plankton, building up limestone deposits on the ocean floor over the eons.

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

You`re welcome, sorry I couldn`t be of better help! Hope it works out for you, and that it works out somehow. Don`t give up!
Oh, and you have an hydrogeologist stashed around somewhere? How convenient



Ok, so limestone eh? Interesting! I`ll bear that in mind so I can smack someone in the head share that info next time someone keeps asking me why I "feel the need" to use speshul water, "when water is seriously just water, no need to get so fancy..."

I have been contemplating the best way to get the resident hydrogeologist to engage in the finer points of making soap. Or to engage in any part of making soap at all. My thought is to hand Kevin Dunn’s book to him and have him read through the chemistry part. Any other ideas?

 

[Zany_in_CO]

I anticipate that I will have to throw it out tomorrow.

Obviously, I have problems with anyone throwing a batch out. Haha I suggest you give the soap a chance to do its thing. Put it somewhere and forget about it. Over time, you may be surprised. At the very least, you'll learn something.

Has anyone else had problems getting the faux sea water + sodium hydroxide into full solution?

This is a new one for me. Perplexing (scratches head). Once the NaOH is added to the sea water, it should heat up enough for the beads to dissolve. Is it possible the NaOH is old or maybe flat due to being exposed to the air?

So I dumped out all of the first sea water made with tapwater and started over again with distilled water to make faux sea water at a more concentrated strength in order to mix it with my masterbatched lye 1:1 solution.

Okay, I don't understand what you're doing here. Are you adding NaOH to faux sea water at a ratio of 1.7 water to 1 NaOH and then adding that to your masterbatched lye solution? If so, don't do that.

Somewhere in the house among soaping supplies I have phenolphthalein to test for excess lye.

Phenolphthalein drops work well to test liquid soap. There's really no need for them in hard bars (as far as I know).

I won’t try to re-batch because I doubt sodium hydroxide beads would dissolve and incorporate into the soap during a cook.

Earlier today I came across this thread about COLD PROCESS REBATCH. It involved a 3-month old batch of Castile soap. Might be an option? Not sure. But it wouldn't hurt to wait 3 months before deciding.

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

Helloooo from the bottom of the rabbit hole! Guess what happens when you blend sodium bicarbonate with sodium hydroxide in solution? You get sodium carbonate + water. (washing soda)
“Sodium bicarbonate reacts with bases such as sodium hydroxide to form carbonates: NaHCO3 + NaOH → Na2CO3 + H2O.”
More info: Why is a mixture of NaOH and NaHCO3 incompatible?
So this gets me wondering about what’s going on with @Zany_in_CO’s special blend.

I don’t think it would’ve made a difference, but I did not let the Sea salt and baking soda age overnight. I spoke to the resident hydrogeologist, who thought that some of the soda or salt could have precipitated out based on very high pH. Tomorrow I will repeat mixing faux sea water for ZNSC and take pictures as it ages for five minutes.

@Zany_in_CO, The NaOH and sea salt and sodium bicarbonate are all fresh. My master batch of lye, used in the 3rd try, is a 1:1 solution. For the soap, I made a concentrated faux sea water and added .7% to make the total a ratio of 1.7:1 for the lye solution. (not sure how to explain it, but I hope you get the idea.) The formula ended up with the right amount of water and lye for the soap according to your recipe.
But wait. If mixing in liquid at 1.7, some of that weight is sea salt and sodium bicarbonate, not water. My understanding is that is how you formulated your recipe, correct? Technically the water ratio is not actually 1.7, but that is the amount of the faux sea water?

My understanding is that
Phenolphthalein can be used to test for excess Alkali in bar soap by first dissolving the soap in distilled water. Do you think that would work?

I plan to repeat my sea water and lye mix tomorrow in the daylight and take pictures. I noticed that some other people very early on in the thread had some strange reactions in their water. And now I want to know what is happening with turning the lye and bicarb into washing soda and what that does to a soap recipe.

Oh, and the resident hydrogeologist informs me that we have naturally soft water. I guess my first two flaky solutions were not due to high mineral content in the water after all.