Soap Makers Help!

Zap is what happens when you still have un neutralized lye in your soap. Sometime this happens because the saponifcation process is not completely done, such as when you don't gel your soap, it always takes a few days longer to complete the chemical reaction. Or it can happen if you have too much lye in your soap or if the lye was not completely mixed in and you have areas that are lye heavy.

Floap is soap that will float because air has been whipped into it.

Seized is your soap thickens up fast on you. It can like thick puddening or even cement. I have even had oen that seized so badly it was actually hardening up in the pot and had to be broken up with a spoon. Some fragrances will cause soap to seize, spices and floral are usually the cause. Some essential oils will also. It can also be because you soaped at too high a temp and the heat is making the saponification process speed up.

I now know why that you have posted the recipe why it took your soap so long to trace. You only used enough lye to react to the amount of olive oil in your recipe. Your recipe is 60% OO and 40% lard. but instead of having enough lye for all the oils in your recipe, you only had enough for the OO and then added a 40% superfat to your soap. WAY WAY to high. You should have used 5.23 oz of lye. The would give you a 5 % superfat. use this calc next time

http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

Here is what you need to know about superfatting. you should always include all your oils in the calculators when figuring out your lye. The lye will react with all the oils and you have no control over which ones it reacts with, the only exception is when you hot process or rebatch.
When you use the online calcs, you will see that there is a section to enter the superfat %. What this does is discount the lye by that %. Generally you shouldn't go over 10% max when you superfat(there are a few exceptions I can tell you about later) I usually superfat at 8% unless it's a milk soap then I drop it down to 5%. So your recipe was way overly superfatted and that combined with two slow tracing oils is what happened. It should be ok to use, though I would watch it very closely for signs of going rancid.

Try this recipe next time
Olive Oil 23oz
Lard 16oz
Water 8 oz
Lye 5 oz
Milk 6 oz

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Looking forward to your soap pix, dun chick! Coloring your soap is an art form and the more you practice it, the better you'll get at it. And, you'll probably make a few "mistakes" along the way as well. But remember, unless it looks really, really bad, only YOU know what you wanted to do. Feel free to run your questions and thoughts by us and perhaps one of us will have an idea or two for you.

I FINALLY soaped again today, the first time in weeks. I did a Yuzu Grapefruit and Poppyseed batch. I should be soaping a lot in the next week or so.
 
so how would I rebatch this soap I made? even thought its starting to "harden" its REALLY greasy!!! I didnt want that. I wanted the soap to be very lathery and easy on the skin... I poured 12 moulds and I still have over half the mix in the bowl all hard like custard....(maybe a bit thicker) I was thinking of curing the 12 that I poured and see how they turn out. and seeing about rebatching the left over.. can I do that?
 
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Hmm, there are a couple of things you can do.

How greasy is greasy? Is there oil on the top or just a greasy feeling bar? With that big of a superfat it does not surprise me that it feels that way.

Is this soap hard enough to hold it's shape? Or can you still stir it?

here is what I would do, and if anyone has any other ideas, please chime in. I would put everything back into the pot and put that in the oven on very low temp (200 or less) and then i would start to make another batch, that was actually lye heavy. you are going to have to time this right so that you are tracing the new soap as soon as the old soap is melted. Then I would pour the new soap into the melted old soap and mix and then pour.

You could try adding the remaining amount of lye(mixed with water of course) to your melted soap, but I'm not sure how that would work, i'd be worried if you didn't get it mixed all in.

You might not be able to save it, and Idon't know that it will work out with that high of a superfat.
 
itas holding its shape quite nicely.. and its not so greasy that once its cured it wont be "useable" will ahve to keep you all informed I think the rest is just gonne co bye bye... lesson learned superfatting not so good!!
 
OK, I must have misunderstood, I thought it was mushy and was leaking a lot of oil. In that case, I would just let the soaps stay in the open air for a couple of weeks to cure, in that time it should stop feeling greasy.
 
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Can I just say that I officially hate Fed Ex right now. I *still* have not recieved my molds and the tracking is saying that I may not get it untill Monday!!! WTH! It was coming from Cedar park anout 3 hours away from my house!

ETA:

AAA-chemical is having a sale where you get 15% off your order. It ends 9-7-09. Use coupon code:
aaa-summer-2009
 
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