Monday, April 14, 2008

1 out of 2 aint bad!

I had another bad batch of soap last night. Honestly, I don't know what is happening. This one is usable, it's just cosmetic but this is the third batch where this same thing has happened. Fellow soapers if you can offer any advice I will gladly take it...basically, I pour the soap into the mold I cover it and put it aside and then I start cleaning up. Within about five minutes the soap starts to expand up and over the mold, pouring out the sides, making a HUGE mess! It then starts to go back down and kind of collapses on itself making the top of the soap concave. It's purely a cosmetic issue, the soap works fine but I can't figure out why this is happening and there was nothing to be found online when I did a search for "soap expanding in mold," or "psychotic soap" I thought maybe the temp was too high but last night I poured it when the lye and oils were at exactly 120 degrees which I have processed soap at before without a problem. I was so happy when last weeks batch came out perfect and now I am back to square one...this has never happened before and I have made A LOT of soap. I'm starting to wonder if I got a bad batch of lye or something.

4 comments:

Joanna Schmidt said...

Of course, I can not be any help, but I feel for you. 50% of my batches flopped, so I understand frustration. Gracefruit may have an idea....? She was very helpful with me when I had a YUCK batch and it was saved, albeit superfatted and not real sudsy.

Candice said...

Thanks for the tip Joanna! I think the problem may be the temperature I am processing it at. I made a batch last night and I did the lye the night before so it had plenty of time to cool down and then I made sure the oils were at 100 degrees before I mixed the two, it seemed to work, no explosions this time!

Anonymous said...

I also think that it may be overheating. This can happen if you use additives like honey. Try to stick the mold in the fridge to avoid gel and overheating. Hope this helps!

Candice said...

Thanks for the tip Nordea, I will try that!!