What makes soap seize

When using sodium lactate, add around 1 teaspoon for every pound 16 oz of oils in a recipe, stirred into the cooled lye solution.

For example, if your soap recipe has 32 oz g of oil, then use 2 tsp of sodium lactate. Reason: Olive oil and other soft oils like canola, sunflower, safflower, etc are extra conditioning but can feel slimy if used in high amounts and not cured for an extra long time. Solution: You can either increase the amount of hard oils in your recipe lard, tallow, palm, cocoa butter, kokum butter, coconut oil, babassu oil, etc or you can keep the amount of olive and other soft oils high so the bar is extra conditioning , just be sure to give the soaps a sufficient amount of cure time too.

Solution: An increased lather may help offset some of the slimy effect that castile or bastille soaps can have, while a decreased superfat will reduce the amount of free oils in a soap.

Reason: Coconut oil is very cleansing when turned into soap and can be drying for some skin types. This increases the amount of free oils in the soap, making it more conditioning. Double check that you used the correct amount of lye and that your scale is accurate.

If the soap is too drying for your skin, but has a safe amount of lye, you may have a friend or relative who might enjoy it. Solution: To prolong shelf life of soap, use fresh oils from a reliable vendor, distilled water contaminants in tap water can cause problems , cure soap with plenty of air flow around each bar, and store cured soaps in a cool, dark, dry area with good air circulation.

Most of my recipes work out to requiring 1 grams per batch. Be sure to read his paper on Dreaded Orange Spots for more information and options. She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her family and a menagerie of animals, where she enjoys brainstorming creative things to make with the flowers and weeds that grow around her.

Thank you very much for all the information from your article. What do you think is happening with my soap? Thank you! Hi Jeannina! Hello — Thank you for all the information. Can I use Theraputic essential oils in soap making? Hi Theresa! I have never seen my soap so oily the next day the oil is oozing out I have used the same ingredients a dozen times what can be wrong I hope I can still use it thanks for the advice.

Super great article. Love it, Love it. Thank you Diana W. Hi Jan Wonderful post, thank you. Can I remelt it, then add some other color and scent? It is a full milk soap. Hi Melody! Yes, you can grate or chop it, then melt it down in your crockpot with a tablespoon or two of water if needed. One drawback about rebatching milk soap is that it may turn darker with the heat, so you want to use a darker colorant rather than try for something like pale pink or lavender.

Hi Jan, thanks for another great post. Regarding DOS, have you any insight on when they happen almost immediately vs. Infused oils may impact it? Hi Jen!

That might help us troubleshoot a few ideas! Thank you so much for this helpful treasure found! Now there is again light at the end of this tunnel! Hi, so much info. Am i putting too much coconut oil in? Should I super fat more? I do appreciate any help you can give. Hi Pennytoes! I would do a combination of less coconut oil and higher superfat.

You can add more olive oil to replace the reduced coconut oil amount, or use another oil such as sunflower or sweet almond. It looks like the makings of a really great recipe! What can I do to prevent my soap from heaving in the middle of the mold? It is a plastic mold 16 bar I love the size and quantity in one batch but they are always uneven! Hi Sigrid! That could come from overheating. Is it forming sort of a hill in the middle of the soap?

Do you see any cracks in the top? Hi Jan. Thanks, Debbie. Hi Debbie! If you want to share the recipe here, I can double check that for you too. Hello, l have a question about cold processed soap preservatives. Can anyone recommend a natural preservative that l can safely add to my natural soaps that l will be selling in retail shops over summer? Really appreciate some feedback. Hi Janet! The oils will eventually go rancid though, so to extend shelf life that way, you can add ROE rosemary oleoresin extract or rosemary antioxidants to your soap.

Can I halve the lavender in a recipe and make up the other half with lemongrass? Many thanks. Hi Patricia! That sounds like a great combination! Thank you, this is so helpful. I just made soap and it has oil floating on top. Is this soap safe to use? Appreciate if you can please respond. Hi Bindu! Can you tell me more about the soap and the recipe you used? It will be easier to troubleshoot with more details.

Hi Vahid! It should be a nice hard bar of soap! Hello, i made a cucumber, ginger and punk salt soap. Yes i used actual items not scents and two my bars turned yellow and dont smell anything like the rest. They are in there third week sof curing … what should i do? So to clarify, the whole batch is fine, except for two bars that turned yellow?

Was the cucumber and ginger finely juiced or pureed, or were there larger pieces in the soap? Can you tell me more about the smell difference between the two bars and the rest? Do they smell like old oil, or unpleasant? Or a good smell each, just different from each other? They smell and work fine. I tested the PH is all around 7. They are stored in a dry place with ventilation. I compared the recipes and the only common thing I can identify between the sweating ones and non-sweating ones is the amount of coconut oil.

Hi Asmin! I think you have a good idea of what could be the reason! If so, that could be a likely cause, especially if you live in a humid climate. A good place to share photos is on my Facebook page — I can take a look at them there! I have your book, Easy Homemade Products. Bought it after my good friend, Carmen, showed me how to make soap the hot-processed way using this book. First step complete. This is a super book, simple, East and the photos are very helpful and beautiful.

Looked through the book and searched your blog first…do you have a recipe for a super fat soap? Can I follow one of your recipes, and add additional fats willy-nilly a little bit of this and a little bit of that? After trace? Reason: discovered an awesome homemade soap in Nova Scotia. It has 12 different fats in it. I would like to recreate it perhaps with just half of the fats. I have searched and seen many different soap makers videos and blogs. All of them made soap in their kitchens, with kids around, and seemed to be unsafe.

I finally found you… a trustworthy soap maker. Hi Claudine! So happy to hear you like the book! Help please! And great blog, thanks!!!! Hi, Katie. I've never tried adding the lye to half of the milk and then adding the other half at trace - I've always added the lye to the full liquid amount - so I don't know much about that technique from personal experience. I would think, though, that the lye solution would be stronger using only half of the liquid and that could lead to trace acceleration.

It also sounds like your soap overheated. The natural sugars in milk can cause the soap to heat up and go into a super hot gel phase. I find that it helps to measure out and freeze the milk ahead of time, and then I add the lye to the frozen slushy milk to keep it from scorching. The lye will melt the frozen milk. I also stir my lye solution in an ice bath to keep the temps low and to cool the lye solution faster.

It also helps to soap cool. I try to soap around 85 degrees F when using milks, beer, wine, etc. As far as what to do about your soap, I always err on the side of caution.

If the soap zaps or has lye pockets it's unsafe to use. Rebatching can salvage a batch gone wrong, particularly if you are sure that your measurements are correct.

Otherwise I'd trash it if I had any doubts about its safety. You're right, you don't want to hurt yourself or anyone else with your soap! I hope that helps. Okay, thanks so much! I'll remember to freeze the milk next time I make soap. I'll rebatch the soap tonight and hopefully it turns out the way I want it to. Thanks again! I just tried my first hot processed past night. Fractionated coconut oil, evoo. Everything was going right then next thing i know it got too hard to stir couldnt figure it out.

Didnt get a chance to use fragrance or color. I just scooped into mold, now praying for the best. Smells good though. Hi, Jessica! I'm sorry to hear that your batch seized. I've never soaped with fractionated coconut oil, so I don't know how it affects a batch. I hope that you can salvage the soap! Hi Jenny Rose! I made my first batch of CP soap with beer Guinness I think a little too quickly.

It is quite lumpy looking now Even before I had a chance to put in my essential oils and honey it looked kind of like really wet scrambled eggs. Not sure if I should re-batch this soap, or let it be Hello again, Katie! Sorry to hear about your batch going wrong! Alcohol can make soap seize. To avoid this problem, I bring the beer to a boil and let it simmer for about 10 minutes to cook off the alcohol. Keep in mind that you will lose some liquid to evaporation, so either start with more beer than you need, or replace the evaporated liquid with water.

The sugars in beer can also lead to trace acceleration and overheating to the point of scorching or lye volcanoes.

When I make beer soap, I usually simmer it the day before and then let it chill in the fridge or freezer until I'm ready to use it to keep the temperature of the lye solution down.

I also soap cooler when using beer. I hope that helps! Hi again! I let the beer sit out for 3 days before to make sure it was flat, and then froze it before I added any lye to it.

I will rebatch it within the next few days! I made sure I followed the recipe correctly, so hopefully when I rebatch it, it will be fine. I feel like I'm always bothering you! I just wanted to make sure How do I tell if I have lye pockets in my soap? I know that I always carefully follow the measurements, so nothing is lye-heavy I have a bar of soap that I was looking at the picture just now I thought maybe, OMG i hope those aren't lye pockets I sold one of these bars already!

I quickly ran downstairs and grabbed a bar and started licking it all over, and i didn't get any zaps I've had one batch where I ended up with lye pockets. When I cut the soap, there were white spots and little holes in the bars that oozed a clear, zappy fluid.

Sometimes you may get streaks of unsaponified lye in your bars, too. You can check for zap by using the tongue test or pH strips. I'm not really able to say with certainty if your soap is completely safe or not.

Use your own judgment - if in doubt, throw it out! Thanks for the reply. I did the tongue test, and no zapping I've also been using one of the bars to wash myself with and I haven't had any issues so I'm going to say it is okay I'm new to soap making and made a batch this past weekend which seized on me.

I got it to light trace then poured in a mica for color and a mixture of fragrance oils when bam! It started hardening and became like mashed potatoes. I quickly tried to put it in my loaf mold but it was getting harder and harder. I was pushing it with my hands in gloves to try to get in the corners when I noticed portions were getting extremely hot but also much softer.

I believe it was entering the gel phase. So I grabbed my stick blender and started working it. The good news is that this allowed me to get it better mixed and into the corners of the mold. The top just looks like a crumb topping for a dessert. So when I cut the bars I had some small air pockets but not bad overall. I tell u though it was discouraging and made me think twice about if I can do this soap making stuff.

I think the lesson is to know the source of the fragrance oils. Hi, Eleanor! I'm sorry to hear that one of your early batches went so badly! That can be discouraging for any soapmaker, but especially in the beginning stages. Don't give up - these things happen every once in a while. It does sound like maybe the fragrance oil made the trace accelerate, causing the batch to seize and go into gel phase quickly. Sounds like you did good, though, working it into the mold like that.

I'm glad that you were able to save the batch and that it wasn't a total loss! It definitely helps to know as much as possible about your fragrance oils before soaping with them. Vendors like Bramble Berry, Nature's Garden, and Elements Bath and Body - just to name a few - usually test their fragrances and make notes about how each one behaves so you know better what to expect.

The good news is that this has happened to me only once in the past five years, so hopefully you just got it out of the way early! Keep soaping, and thanks for reading! So the castor oil creates a ball with the powder. If this can work, what percentage of base oils can I use? OR can I resolve this otherwise without access to liquid essential oils? Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Featured Video.

Related Topics. Read More. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for TheSpruceCrafts. That can help emulsify that soap fully. I have been making soap for a year or so and learn new things every day.

I love your site. I had a quick question. I made a hot process bar soap and completely messed up on the amount of lye I was supposed to use! According to the soap calculator I should have used 8.

I realize now after fully cooking the soap that I had a dyslexic moment and weighed the lye at 5. What result will this have on the soap and is it possible to fix it? With less lye, your soap will be on the softer side. Some soap may not even want to set up fully. How is your soap doing now? Is it set up? If your soap is not wanting to set up, you can try rebatching it. Rebatching helps cook out the excess moisture. Thank you for the response! It did not set up, so I will try re batching it.

Should I expect the soap to be less sudsy than normal? Also, the lather will be less sudsy. The extra freefloating oil can inhibit lather. It does feel great on your skin though. Hello so I had this new problem with my soap. I made a wood mold and tried out a batch of some new soap and got a lava tunnel through the soap with a clear oil oozing from the holes and was on the exterior as well.

Pleasee help. I belive this is from over heating. I mixed oils and lye with both being degrees and then just covered with a piece of wax paper on top and left in oven over night. The black soap is the only part that had the holes in it. Sorry for the novel. Thx Brandon. Thanks for all that helpful information! It sounds like that soap got a heat tunnel.

That happens when the soap gets too hot. If so, you may want to turn the oven off. You can also place your soap in the freezer or fridge for hours to keep it cool. Thanks for such an awesome website. I just tried to make my first large batch of soap using the online calculator and what a disaster it was. Everything looked great up to even pouring them into the molds.

I was going for an Avocado soap and it looked great with my green finish. About an hour later I went back to check the soap and it was all smuggy with oil leaking out of the wooden mold. How is this possible using the soap calculator. I was making a 10 pounds batch. All these was done using the soapcalc. Need to try this again but need some tips as to what could possibly have gone wrong.

I double checked your recipe with our Lye Calculator and got similar calculations, so I think your amounts are just right! How long did you stick blend your soap? Also, what temperatures did you use, and how did you store your soap? Hi, I made a batch of oats milk and honey. I added all the ingredients at a very low temp but made a mistake of adding milk into oils at the same time as lye.

I was worried but when I started to blend it was turning to be good. I split the batch into 2 and mixed honey in one half and oats powder into the other half.

I put the soap in the fridge overnight. Soap looked all beautiful, I left the soap outside to get to normal room temp. It was a slab of soap I am now noticing drops that are coming out from different spots that look like honey. I did touch it with hands and it was not bothering my hands or anything. The one mistake I can think of is maybe there was more honey added.. It will be great if you can help. Thanks, Je.. After a soap has been in the fridge and then moved to room temperature, it can form condensation.

That is completely normal! After a couple days, that moisture should evaporate. Also, how long did you stick blend for? I did stick blending till it reached light trace which was for a long time as I had started soaping at room temp. But when I split the batch I added the honey in one half and mixed it, not sure if it was good enough.

All the soaps out of the silicone mold turned out perfect with no issues. The holes had something like glue running out of it. I am not sure if this soap can be used. It sounds like that soap has a heat tunnel. The natural sugar in honey can cause that soap to overheat. This is especially the case in wooden molds, which tend to hold heat more than silicone molds.

That will prevent the soap from getting too hot. You can leave the soap in there for hours. Then, take it out and let it sit at room temperature for a couple more days. I was able to successfully make one batch of cow milk recipe loved it! All went smoothly and I was doing the happy dance after placing my soap in the freezer and finished cleaning my kitchen.

The mistake : I sat down And realized the 2 oz of energy remained untouched. The mixture became a light trace consistency and I continued to mix then poured it back in.

Do you think the soap is ok? Or is it possible I added too much fragrance since I only added it to the top layer. As long as that fragrance was mixed in well, I think your soap should be OK! That works out just fine for us! That just means the soap will need to be in the mold a couple extra days. I would recommend waiting days then checking on it. You can rebatch that soap to help it blend together. I just made my first batch of soap. I had some problems along the way where I allowed my lye to cool down to 74 degrees F before I poured it into my mixture of fats at 82 degrees F.

I did allow 24 hours before cutting the soap. Everything seems fine. But I am concerned. Will this cause a problem with my soap while it cures because of the temperatures of the lye water and fats? If everything seems fine, your soap is probably fine to use!

We recommend soaping around F because that ensures all the oils stay melted and you have lots of time to work with your design. However, some soapers prefer hotter temperatures, while some soap at room temperature. Whichever way works best for you is the one to go with.

What I ended up pouring into the mould after the overflow seemed fine, but is it? Can the overflow have gummed up the PH? Sometimes the soap can double in volume if it gets too hot. In that case, take it off the heat and stir, stir, stir until it goes down. The soap should be just fine to use though! You can check the pH of your soap to be extra careful, but your soap should be OK. I have had a few batches that have had liquid that looks like water left in the mold or on the surface of my soap when I unmolded the soap.

It is just a small amount but I am wondering if this is serious or not. If you put your soap in the fridge or freezer, then move it to room temperature it can form little beads of liquid.

The liquid should evaporate out in a couple hours or so. I mixed lye and oils around Poured and CPOP for 30 minutes then shut off and left overnight. This happened to me. Is it a lost cause?

It may be that the soap is separating, leaving that liquid at the top of the soap. Generally, it takes seconds of stick blending for your soap to emulsify. However, that depends a lot on the recipe. For instance, a recipe with a lot of soft oils will take a bit longer to emulsify. Can you tell me a bit more about your recipe, and how much essential oil you used? Also, how long did you stick blend for, and what were your soaping temperatures? My soap recently is cracking during the saponification process.

Even before I wrap it up, while I am still spritzing it with alcohol during the first 90 minutes after the pour. What is causing this please? Typically, high temperatures, temperature changes or a large amount of butters in your soap can cause cracking.

Then I can help you troubleshoot. I made my basic CP recipe coconut, olive, palm oils and added some carrot and calendula extract for the first time with the Bamboo fragrance oil. It turned out great — smells great, color is great — but is is ashy on top. Can I fix the ashy top somehow?

It sounds like the soap has soda ash. Soda ash occurs when unsaponified lye reacts with naturally occurring carbon dioxide in the air. You can get rid of it though!

To get rid of it, you can scrub the soap with an old pair of nylons or use a steamer. Everything looked great when I poured but when I removed from the mold after 30 hours, it came out like peanut butter, very oily with most of the corners sticking to the inside.

The batch is definitely not sellable, although possibly useable. Is it possible that mixing the two different Lavender oils caused this to happen? The essential oils may have needed a bit more mixing. You can use the Hot Process Hero method to get everything mixed in well. It may also just need to sit a little bit more! We typically leave our soap in the mold for days, or up to 2 weeks depending on the recipe.

They are using my two different perfumes in two different soap, both are green translucent with same hot n pour method. But now they are facing some problem while making soap with only one particular perfume. According to the client: They are following same process for making both the soap, they use coconut oil in both of them, one is absolutely fine but in other one some white cloudy ring is forming as it cools down.

They are pouring it in hollow cylindrical barrels for cooling and This never happened before. Do your perfumes contain alcohol? If so, that may be the culprit. Our fragrance oils work wonderfully in soap! Hi Thanks Kelsey But all our perfumes are free from alcohol. I also like to mention that my client is using same perfume from my company since 7 years and never such thing happen. There is even no change in the formulation of perfume as well. The formation of white cloudy rings is totally unanticipated and left me stunned.

Please help. Thanks so much for clarifying! The fragrances that we sell are specifically formulated for bath and beauty products like soap. They are thoroughly tested in a wide range of applications.

You may want to try out some small test batches with your fragrance oils to see if you notice the same discoloration. Sometimes heat plays a role in discoloration! I recently made a liquid castile soap using naoh with great success- but — when i poured some into a container to try scenting it i used a cactus flower scent as its supposed to be great in cp soaps and now my liquid soap has got solid bits all through it… Any ideas how to rectify this?

NaOH, or sodium hydroxide lye, is used to make solid bar soap. When making liquid soap, we recommend using KOH, or potassium hydroxide lye. I did a little test batch of the soap with lemon in it, and it worked great, and smelled like lemon without any fragrance!

Next step, the coconut water! Let us know how the coconut water soap turns out. I have a few questions about adding fresh fruits and liquids to melt and pour soap. Can you put pureed lemon and lemon juice in melt and pour soap? Could you put coconut water in melt and pour soap? Thanks, Cadence. Adding fresh fruit and coconut water to your soap can be a bit tricky. They may not mix in very well with the melted soap base. They can make your soap greasy or oily.

Also, the ingredients are natural, so they will turn brown in your soap. If you do, I would recommend adding a smaller amount — about 1 tsp.

Also, a small test batch is very helpful! Any way to salvage this batch?? Oh darn! I have definitely had that happen before. The great news is you can rebatch your soap!

Ive been anxiously waiting for my 4 weeks and zap test to be over for my first ever olive oil castile soap to be ready to use. Today we tried our first batch and it worked great for the first 10 seconds then it developed a thin jelly like film over it. Thanks so much for that recipe! I ran it through our Lye Calculator and the suggested amounts were 6 ounces of lye and 15 ounces of water.

Also, castile soap by nature is very soft. It typically takes several weeks to unmold and up to a year to fully cure. To speed this process up, you can add 1 tsp. I think letting that soap cure for another month or so will make it a little firmer and leave less residue. However, it will still leave some residue. That is the nature of handmade soap, especially softer recipes. We think the way it feels on your skin is totally worth it though!

One of our customer uses Talc Powder a different grade than yours to manufacture soap. But recently they have informed us that the soaps melt very easily when in contact with water i have pictures but no option to send them.

Previously they used 5. I am very confused about this and I do hope that you can help me understand what can cause this problem or what can be done to resolve this problem? Looking forward to hear from you.

Any feedback on this will be very helpful. Do you mind telling me a bit more about their recipe, including what oils they use? There are strange white rings around my green I did not do the squirt bottles, just a line pour back and forth, alternating colors. The green had green oxide, the other soap had a little yellow oxide. Some of the white-ish lines around my green were a bit crumbly.

I soaped at a very low temp 95 , my lye was the Roebic brand powder, the zap test is fine, the cabbage test is a pretty blue. Could it be soda ash? And how do I prevent that next time? Thanks for your help! It sounds like it may be soda ash. Cooler temperatures and thin soap can contribute to soda ash. It has never happened until recently.

I thought it might be the palm oil but reworked the recipe without palm and still have the issue. I tried it with another tried and true recipe and am now having the same coloring issue.

It is not spots at all so not DOS. I am guessing one of my oils is bad but none look or smell off. DOS usually appear as spots, but can also appear as long streaks or clumps of color.

If your does does have DOS, one of your oils may be past its shelf life. It may help to label all your oils with the date you got them. Thank you for the fast response. In a few days it reappears. Could it be ash of some sort? I am completely baffled and sincerely appreciate your help. My oils have all been purchased with the last yr. Can you send a picture of the streaks to my email address?

That way I can take a look at them and help you out. I have many numerous attempts at olive oil liquid soap last recipe: 8oz olive oil, 1.

It never goes through the phases described, and I can never get it to the transluscent vaseline stage. Cloudiness usually happens when there are unreacted fats in the soap. That typically means it needs to cook another hours. Liquid soap can take a long while to reach the translucent gel phase — up to 8 hours or more! Let that sit overnight. Our liquid soapmaking online video may be helpful for you!

It includes step by step instructions from start to finish. Hi, I just made my first ever batch of soap today, and all went well until I poured it into my mold. When it reached trace, I put about 40 drops of peppermint EO in, worked that in, and poured my batch into my mold. I put newspaper on top because I didnt have a towel to get dirty, put it in a cardboard box, and covered the box with a towel.

What is happening? Here is what I did: It took me little over an hour to reach a good trace. I think it might be something to do with the amount of lye and water I used, that part of making a recipe still confuses me. Please help! I double checked that recipe in our Lye Calculator and it looks like all the amounts are correct!

Soap typically takes 2 days or up to 2 weeks to fully harden. I believe your soap is just fine, it just needs a little more time to set up. To help that soap unmold faster, you can add 1 tsp. Hi, A weird thing happened to my Calendula Cleansing Bar soap.

I used the recipe from the soap crafting book and I used the Lemongrass EO in it. I poured the batter into my new BB silicone soap molds individual oval bars. The batter took much longer to set up and then the bars turned white some all over — some on just the top.

The texture is strange too. I thought that maybe it was soda ash on top but all over? I would let these soaps sit out and cure for weeks and then do a pH test or tongue test to determine if they will become laundry soap or are good to use.

If the batter took too long to set up, I would also look at your scale and weigh a stick of butter to ensure that your scale is calibrated correctly; also, look at your lye — how old is it?

Is it possible it took on water? Those are the things that come to mind first for me! Happy Soaping! Soapqueen you are a great tool for newbies, thanks for helping us… in my case I made a soap using no EO or FO, but the result was the exhibit B with lighter vesrsion of discoloration from your example. I simmered 1 whole lemon with fresh sage in water to make a water infusion, cooled and frozen. I took the zest of a lemon and allowed to completely dy.

I dissolved NaOH in the frozen infused water -delayed to melt, but did. Melt and mixed the oils, added prowdered zest and sage, added lye, blended and molded. The next day, some lemon looked like DOS and when cut a fine color discoloration ring around the border of the soap… The soap now 3 days after, looks rusty at the lemon zest and not really attractive. I cut a piece and the ring is around… any ideas? Thank you. When sodium hydroxide lye is added to liquids, it can change the color.