I try to keep my posts as "family friendly" as possible, but some crazy shyte happened to this soap, and I need some answers. I used what I thought was a really basic recipe-pomace olive oil, fractionated coconut oil, and Castor oil. It's a very small batch-only 32 oz total. When I added my lye solutions to the water, it almost immediately traced. I whizzed for about 30 seconds and my soap was the consistency of cake batter. It was really thick! Then it had these little white particles all throughout (lye, perhaps?) I proceeded anyway, and added about 2 oz of Pear Glace FO that I bought from Wholesale Supplies Plus. After I added the FO, the "batter" was basically set. I had to literally scrape it out of my bowl into my mold. When I un-molded it today, it was rock-hard. When I cut the first slice, it literally crumbled as you can see in this pic. Can anyone tell me where did I go wrong, and is this soap salvageable?
5 comments:
Anything's salvageable! :) Break out the crockpot, chunk this up into, well, chunks, add a touch of water (maybe 1/8 cup) and set on low for several hours, stirring every now and then (but not too often) so the heat is evenly distributed. It *should* melt down and be okay. You can always add a bit more water a tiny bit at a time in the crockpot if it's really drying out as it cooks. (Sorry I'm not more technical!) I didn't check your recipe - did you run it through a lye calculator? Good lucj!
Thanks for the tips. I'll give it a shot because I hate to waste good oils:-)
My very first batch of CP crumbled on me. I just re-heated and re-molded and it turned out fine. I HATE to rebatch. Subsequent batches have not turned out so nice. Scents can tend to morph. Give it a shot though! It's good practice. :)
Thanks Amy,
I'm going to give it a shot. I tried re-batching once, and it was a total disaster! I have nothing to lose at this point!
Sometimes that's from too little water or mis-measuring an oil. In a recipe that small, even being off a few ounces could have set off the bad reaction.
I agree with Sherrie though - anything is salvageable =) You can definitely get it to melt down in a gloppy oatmeal and treat it like a rebatching soap.
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