My soap has white spot

by Ming
(Malaysia)

Soap

Soap

HI there,

i am new in soap making. i do not know who to ask and i found your website :)
i have read up on the similar scenario on your web. but i am not sure if it is the same problem. I have attached a picture with it.

It has been about 2 weeks since it is out of the mold. The white spot is only on 1 surface but not the other. There is no air on those spots. It is just flat white dots. And i have tested with a tissue dab with water and "rub" on the white spot, there is no brown color sign.
Is it because i am using a hand blender instead of stick blender? Could that be 1 of the cause? (stick blender over my place is very expensive.. so i am still thinking about that)
So i really do not know if this soap is ok to use? or do i have to throw it away? (i just throw 1 batch away just now. but that is because the soap has DOS and is only 2 weeks since it is out of the mold. I am not sure what is the reason.. so i am getting a little frustrated..)
Your advice is greatly appreciated... :)
Good day.

Regards
ming

Answer:

It's hard to tell by the picture but it looks like water has condensed on the soap while it was insulating and left marks.

Next time keep an eye on the soap until it has fully gelled. Then open the soap up to breath and cool down. I like to direct a fan to the top surface of the gelled soap so that all the evaporating water is blown away from the surface. This seems to also help with reducing the bloom that can occur.

Since Malaysia has such a humid climate, you may need to store your soaps in air tight containers that have silica packages in them. Silica gel is a desiccant which is a substance that absorbs water and water vapour from the air. Keeping the soap cool and dry is a must since warm humid air shortens the life of homemade soaps drastically.

Store your oils for soap making in a refrigerator as well. Oils will also be affected by hot weather making them decay much faster than in a cool climate.

Good luck,
Cathy

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starstarstarstarstar 		hot process white spots
by: vica

I have a similar problem, but in hot process. I have a suspicion it might be the organic shea butter that I added for superfatting my soap in the latest stage of saponification. It might be that I did not mix it properly and it dried in clumps when it cooled down. I will do a pH test on the spots later on as it still needs to harden. If you have any ideas what else it could be, please let me know.
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starstarstarstarstar 		White spots (significant)
by: Linda from AR

I made a dark colored soap with cinnamon and goat milk. I have a few size of a pencil head eraser spots in my soap. Really white ones. There is no liquid and they scrape with a fingernail. The stuff I scrape of feels waxy when dry and soapy when wet. I am sure it is not lye heavy (mostly sure) and I added the goat milk as well as the cinnamon after a light trace. Oh I did add a bit of sweet almond oil at trace also.
Any idea on what could have caused it? Maybe scraping the sides of my pan to get all the soap out of pan?

Answer:

If they were lye chunks, they would burn when you used them. To do an easy check, cut one out of the soap and wet it. Place it on a paper towel making sure that the white part comes in contact with the towel. If the towel appears to have a burn like mark on it, the chunk will be lye.

Lye chunks are usually hard and brittle. Not usually waxy. Did you use a wax in the recipe? Or palm oil that had waxy bead like bits it in? Waxes and palm oil must be completely melted with the oils in order for them to disburse through the soap properly. Otherwise they will become solid wax pearls in the final soaps.

Cathy

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