I made a total of 10 batches and here are the results from my first venture into soapmaking. Wow! I can’t believe I made this much soap.
Batch #1: Yesterday I shared that my first batch of soap volcanoed right out of the mold. Yikes! It turned out that my lye and my oils were too hot when I mixed them together. I had to put a piece of plastic wrap on the top and press the soap down. It would rise and bubble again and I would have to press the soap down all over again. I had to do this for several minutes until the soap stopped rising. I do not know what the temperatures of my lye and oils were because I did not use a thermometer. Due to the volcano, this soap was cosmetically challenged and had some glycerin beads inside the soap. These glycerin beads are not caustic and will re-absorb into the soap after some cure time. Batch #2: My second batch was much easier and I used cooler temperatures, but I still didn’t use a thermometer. This batch behaved very well and when I cut the soap it had a thick layer of soda ash on the top of the soap. This soap had an excellent appearance otherwise. Batch #3: Because I was feeling more confident in my soapmaking skills, I used a thermometer to record the temperature of my lye solution and oils before combining them. This allowed me to keep notes about temperature. My oils were 130° Fahrenheit and my lye solution was 150° Fahrenheit. This batch behaved very well and when I cut the soap it had a thick layer of soda ash on the top of the soap. Other than the soda ash, this soap looks great! Batch #4: For this batch, my oils were 130° Fahrenheit and my lye solution was 140° Fahrenheit. This batch behaved very well and when I cut the soap it had very little soda ash on the top of the soap. This soap looked great. I’m doing much better! Batch #5: For this batch, my oils were 168° Fahrenheit and my lye solution was 160° Fahrenheit. This batch behaved very well and when I cut the soap it had very little soda ash on the top of the soap. However, this soap did have an odd white and off-white swirling pattern. Hmm, this is very interesting. Batch #6: For this batch, my oils were 148° Fahrenheit and my lye solution was 148° Fahrenheit. This batch was very thick (about the consistency of pudding) and grainy when I poured into the mold and I was worried if this soap would turn out at all. When I cut the soap it had very little soda ash on the top of the soap. Batch #7: For this batch, my oils were 118° Fahrenheit and my lye solution was 160° Fahrenheit. This batch behaved very well. When I cut the soap it had a very thick layer of soda ash on the top of the soap. This soap looks much better than the last batch. Batch #8: For this batch, my oils were 170° Fahrenheit and my lye solution was 180° Fahrenheit. This batch was thick and grainy when I poured it into the mold and when I cut the soap it had a thin layer of soda ash on the top of the soap. This soap did have an odd white and off-white swirling pattern just like soap number 5. Batch #9: For this batch, my oils were 180° Fahrenheit and my lye solution was 180° Fahrenheit. This batch was more like the fluid trace I see when it was poured into the mold and when I cut the soap it had very little soda ash on the top of the soap. This soap did have an odd white and off-white swirling pattern just like soap numbers 5 & 8. Batch #10: For this batch, my oils were 132° Fahrenheit and my lye solution was 134° Fahrenheit. This batch behaved very well and when I cut the soap it had very little soda ash on the top of the soap. This soap looked awesome! I’m impressed with all this soap that I have made! Overall Analysis: I discovered that my soaps did the best if the temperatures of my lye and oils were close in temperature. When the soaps had a large temperature difference, there was a heavy coat of soda ash on the final bar of soap. Most of my batches were mixed when they were too hot and this created an odd white/off-white swirl in the soap. I found I was too impatient to let my materials cool down! My overall best looking bars were batch numbers 3, 4, 6, and 10. I think that while some of these did have some indication of the gel phase as it cooled, and I like this because it adds some fun character to the finished bar of soap. I can’t believe that I’m finished with my first 10 batches of soap! Now, what will I make next? |
Thanks for sharing your adventures! I’ve honestly never poured my lye and oils so hot before so this was interesting reading about the experience of what different temps do.
I just wondered which recipe you were using while doing your newbie soap experimentation?
Each batch of Taylor’s used the following:
6 oz of Hydrogenated Soybean Oil
6 oz of Palm Kernel Oil
4 oz of Sunflower Oil
2.2 oz of Sodium Hydroxide (Lye)
6 oz of Water
I hope this helps! I have pulled this information from her posts in this series.