I made soap that ended up with undissolved lye crystals. I don't know how that happened because I poured the lye solution through a strainer. Scent combination was bergamot, lemon and ylang ylang and it smelled pretty good. The batch was pretty big(for me) about 2100 gms of oils, plus about 600 gms water and round about 295-298 gms lye.
I started off with a vessel too small to hold all the ingredients when mixed...mistake no. 1.
I couldn't find a big container so decided to split the oils into two steel vessels and add the lye solution accordingly...mistake no. 2.
Taking the help of a hand-blender...mistake no. 3.
Soaping in the afternoon heat....mistake no. 4.
The soap and lye solution in the bigger container came to trace quite fast, so I quickly dumped all the essential oils into the smaller container hoping to have enough time to pour the soap back and forth into the two containers to achieve a homogeneous soap mixture...HA!!
The soap in the smaller container seized the minute the essential oils were added. I hurriedly tried to mix the two soaps and hand stir them. It didn't work, so I decided to use the blender. All the while my mom was running around in the kitchen trying to help. She found a plastic container big enough to hold the whole messy mass and we quicklypoured dumped and scooped the soap into it. Hand-blend, hand-blend, hand-blend. The soap was pretty(very very) thick by now. We rushed and again scooped the whole thing into the mold. I bashed and banged the mold on the counter and very optimistically went to bed last night. The only thing that got left behind were the soap balls I had planned to add to make this a polka dotted soap. Or so I thought.
Today morning I peeked and thought all was well, but noticed a small orange spot on the soap. I thought it must be some essential oil that seeped out. An hour back my heart broke. I took the soap out of the mold and cut a few slices to see orange spots in quite a few places(almost every slice of soap). Zap test....OUCH!! I might just grate up the whole thing and give it to my mom to use as laundry soap. Would that be ok to use as laundry detergent? Any kind souls out there with any ideas?
I started off with a vessel too small to hold all the ingredients when mixed...mistake no. 1.
I couldn't find a big container so decided to split the oils into two steel vessels and add the lye solution accordingly...mistake no. 2.
Taking the help of a hand-blender...mistake no. 3.
Soaping in the afternoon heat....mistake no. 4.
The soap and lye solution in the bigger container came to trace quite fast, so I quickly dumped all the essential oils into the smaller container hoping to have enough time to pour the soap back and forth into the two containers to achieve a homogeneous soap mixture...HA!!
The soap in the smaller container seized the minute the essential oils were added. I hurriedly tried to mix the two soaps and hand stir them. It didn't work, so I decided to use the blender. All the while my mom was running around in the kitchen trying to help. She found a plastic container big enough to hold the whole messy mass and we quickly
Today morning I peeked and thought all was well, but noticed a small orange spot on the soap. I thought it must be some essential oil that seeped out. An hour back my heart broke. I took the soap out of the mold and cut a few slices to see orange spots in quite a few places(almost every slice of soap). Zap test....OUCH!! I might just grate up the whole thing and give it to my mom to use as laundry soap. Would that be ok to use as laundry detergent? Any kind souls out there with any ideas?
2 comments:
Oh, that is funny :) I've been there, done that - the mad rushing about to save soap that starts to seize... I have used 0% superfatted soap for laundry and also in the dishwasher. I haven't had soda crystals, so I'm not sure about that. But the soap worked really well in the dishwasher, which surprised me. I would think that it would be fine as laundry soap, especially if you grind it or even do the liquid kind.
Ambra...glad you had fun reading about my soap fiasco! :D Well it is really is funny how we have to rush like mad to try and save a batch of soap. Luckily I rebatched mine and could save it. The orange spots were indeed essential oils. Will post pics of the new rebatched soap. :)
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