Monday, January 11, 2010

Honey, I think we're better off separated...

Ugh.

I hate when I lose a batch of soap. All the work, all the expensive oils and ingredients wasted. Makes me a crazy person. I'm also a giant moron, because this one could have been prevented. Months back, I got a bad lot of sodium hydroxide. At the same exact time, my digital scale battery was on the verge of dying and causing some wonky measurements. After a couple of failed batches, I checked the battery, replaced it and all was right in the world again. I figured there was more of a chance that the mismeasurements from the scale caused the batch failures than the likelihood of several pounds of bad lye so I set the cans off to the side, bought new lye and carried on with successful soap. Why I didn't throw them away right then is a testament to my inner goober but also a glaring example of my cheap-assedness. :)

Yesterday, I ran out of lye again, and thought "Ahh what the hell - the lye is probably okay, and it was just the bad battery before" and proceeded to use it in my soap tonight. Yeah, you can probably guess what happened, eh?

Total separation. .  Notice the layer of clear liquid floating on the top of the soap, glimmering my the light of my dining room chandelier.  Ahhhh ambiance.




I've tilted the mold to one side in this next picture so you can see just how much liquid rolled to the back side of the mold. 



So....this batch is a bust.  Damn.  Lesson learned, but I still cringe that it happened because I know better.  I should have 86'd that lye months ago but I  was too cheap to just toss it. 

So how many of you have gotten bad lye and soap disasters because of it?  Share your horror stories in the comments section.
Thanks for reading...

::plays a haunting rendition of Taps:::

6 comments:

  1. Oh no! That is a gorgeous batch too. Well, your batches always are but those colors and glitter are stunning! I haven't had any bad lye yet. I sure hope I don't ever!

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  2. So sorry! Maybe if you leave it alone for a while the oil will re-absorb?

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  3. I drained it off, but it was a lot. I cut it up to see what happens, but I'm not holding out too much hope...lol.

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  4. Ack. I still have some bad lye in my garage. It was the only time I bought a 50-lb bag of it too! I double bagged it in a plastic bucket and thought it was sealed, but the bags were punctured. Ruined a double batch of castile soap - yeah. Olive oil.

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  5. Oh that's terrible, I've been able to rebatch my soaps that haven't turned out in the past.

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