The lemon and ginger soap failed!!

This blog uses soaper jargon - here's a glossary.

Cold process: one form of soap making

Lye: the active ingredient to the soap making process - also know as caustic soda.

Saponification: the technical term for how oil and caustic soda form soap

Trace: the point at which the soap mixture ceases to separate.

Seize: a sudden onset of the trace point.

Discounting: reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe - not for the inexperienced!!

This batch was an experiment. I started by discounting the liquid. This should have been fine. But the appearance and texture of this batch indicates three things went wrong - the batch maintained an uneven temperature, the batch failed to mix sufficiently and the batch used a little too much lye.

First thing I noticed in the outside was the traces of soda ash. This is harmless. Soda ash appear, from what I have read, when the soap super heats inconsistently. This is because I don't insulate my soap (I rarely need to). The orange spots and the internal colour differentiations are signs that the soap mixture was not mixed properly when it went into the moulds. However, I had achieved a proper level of 'trace' so the oil was properly emulsified with the liquids. What I suspect happened is my mixture is it ' seized' in the mixing process. I have never had a mixture seize before. I now know it from the description. It is what happens when a soap mix forms a sudden heavy 'trace'. I think this has happened because I used a mixed liquid base and discounted the water. This has meant that the soap has pockets where it is oil rich and pockets where it is lye rich. This can be solved by re batching the soap but there is a third problem with this batch.

I made a classic mistake when I was mixing this lot. I measured too much lye. The 'superfat' level is only 1-2% which means the resultant soap is in this case too crumbly to hold together. Superfat is a term used to describe the percentage of oils level un-saponified during the cold process.The irony is I have made a block of soap with 0% superfat and it turned out perfect. But then every recipe acts different.