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
Quote:
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
Quote:
Last edited: