What could make the inside of my soap so gooey/nasty?

[Jason Biggs]

Hot process soap. Make in a crock pot. The outside hardens normally, but the inside looks like this gooey mess. For weeks. What might I have done wrong?

Thanks!!!

 

[Yooper]

It doesn't look like the soap was saponified. What is your process to know when it's ready to place in the molds?

 

[kandra]

It's hard to say without know your process and ingredient details.
I'm going to guess at too much liquid. Maybe.

Here's a video of my process:

And more details in this tutorial: The Ultimate Natural Soapmaking Course | Soapy Friends

hope that helps!

 

[Jason Biggs]

It doesn't look like the soap was saponified. What is your process to know when it's ready to place in the molds?

Add oil to crock pot. Turn on crock pot. Weight distilled water and lye, add lye to water. 0% superfat, no additives of any kind (fragrence, color or otherwise). Once lye was fully dissolved into water, add it to oil in crock pot. Blend very well with stick blender. I actually kept blending over time, several times. Thinking the more blending the better. Keep doing the zap test. When the zap test came back with no zap, still let it cook a good 10 min at least longer.

I didn't actually pour it into molds, I just turned the crock pot off and let it cooled.

I am pretty sure saponified happened - like I said I waited until the zap test gave no zap and then cooked it a good bit longer.

Thanks for the help Yooper!!!

 

[Jason Biggs]

It's hard to say without know your process and ingredient details.
I'm going to guess at too much liquid. Maybe.

Here's a video of my process:

And more details in this tutorial: The Ultimate Natural Soapmaking Course | Soapy Friends

hope that helps!

Thanks kandra, I'm going to go pick up a pizza from my favorite place a good bit away so I will listen to this while driving! I'm sure I'll be back with questions - thanks!!!

 

[Yooper]

Add oil to crock pot. Turn on crock pot. Weight distilled water and lye, add lye to water. 0% superfat, no additives of any kind (fragrence, color or otherwise). Once lye was fully dissolved into water, add it to oil in crock pot. Blend very well with stick blender. I actually kept blending over time, several times. Thinking the more blending the better. Keep doing the zap test. When the zap test came back with no zap, still let it cook a good 10 min at least longer.

I didn't actually pour it into molds, I just turned the crock pot off and let it cooled.

I am pretty sure saponified happened - like I said I waited until the zap test gave no zap and then cooked it a good bit longer.

Thanks for the help Yooper!!!

How much water, lye, and oils (and types)? A recipe would be helpful.
That looks like soap paste, the kind I make for liquid soap and I use KOH so I wonder if your lye is at fault or if there isn’t enough so that is why we need to see a recipe. My hot process soap, using NaOH, is very firm and is even a bit hard to pot until molds because it’s pretty solid. No way I could let it cool in the crockpot- it would be rock solid.

 

[Jason Biggs]

Thanks Yooper!

100% flax oil. 38% water to oil or whatever that is (the default at soap calc). No superfat, no fragrance or anything else.

Thanks!

 

[Yooper]

Thanks Yooper!

100% flax oil. 38% water to oil or whatever that is (the default at soap calc). No superfat, no fragrance or anything else.

Thanks!

Well, that explains it. That is a nice oil, but no more than about 15% should be used in solid soap (probably much less for a solid bar, like 5%). It won’t get hard.

 

[ChrissieM]

probably need to read on the properties of the oils you want to use before deciding whether that is what you need for the result you want.