This week, I am going to be talking about naughty soap, but really, this should post should be titled, "SOAP: WHY DID IT DO THAT?"
I've had more inconsistencies on my soap journey than not and it's frustrating. To be fair, half of my frustration comes from my own inexperience and errors, and in those cases I know what I did wrong. However, the other times I'm like, "WTH ?!!!"
Example #1 - Colors aren't always what they seem.
I made a gorgeous lavender essential oil soap this week and I wanted purple in the design. You would think I would use a purple colored natural pigment (mica) right? Well my friends, this is an example of how colors can morph during saponification and using it to your advantage.
In this case, I knew this BLUE color would turn PURPLE, as it happened to me by accident in another batch. This is why it is so important to take good notes!
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When blue = purple |
Example #2 - What are those white splotches/streaks?
This one has been wracking my brain for a while. What is it? Aesthetically annoying soda ash? Stearic streaks? Lye pockets? Every once in a while I get a batch of soap that has these in them and it forces me to do a "what did I do differently" run-down of my process and ingredients in my head.
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Mystery streaks |
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What is it? |
Cold process soap is naturally alkaline with a pH of around 9-10. This pH helps to gently clean the skin. All of my soaps average around 9.5 to 10.5, which is awesome!
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Perfect pH |
Example #3 - What are those bumps?
These are some 100% olive oil soaps that I made in my cube mold. After a while, these bumps appeared on only one side of the bars; what are they? Again, I pH tested the cubes to be sure they were not lye-heavy. They were a perfect 10 for pH.
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Weird bumps on soap |
I can simply use a planer to plane off the bumps or give them a wash to make them pretty.
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These cubes were super soft |
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