Teach Soap

Hello everyone,

This was my first attempt at goat's milk soap. I've been making soap for a year, and I'm a professional chemist (like it helps :/)

http://imgur.com/Zf1eBM2

My recipe:
5 lbs, 5% superfat
Coconut Oil, 28%, 22.4 oz
Olive Oil, 28%, 22.4 oz
Palm Oil, 28%, 22.4 oz
Castor Oil, 6%, 0.3 oz
Shea Butter, 8%, 0.4 oz
Beeswax, 2%, 1.6 oz

Lye 11.26 oz, goats milk 30.4 oz

1 tsp salt
2 tsp honey

I froze an ice cube tray worth of goats milk. Added the cubes to my plastic pitcher, with more milk to add up to a 1:1 lye:milk weight ratio. I then added the lye slowly here and there and let it react. At the end I added table salt.

Melted my more solid oil stuff, and then added the liquid oils and the other part of the milk. I read online that splitting the milk allows for a colder reaction between the lye and oils.

Mixed until trace, and poured 3/4 out into my shoebox. Added the honey to the remaining part and poured it on top. Brought my box outside so it could react out at 7 degrees C (45F).

I cut it 3 days later. I have no clue what to do with it...do I chop it up and rebatch? Do I remove the brown liquid, which is probably burnt sugar?
If I could go back, I wouldn't have added the honey :/

TL;DR My soap has a brown liquid on the bottom, and the top area has a layer of unreacted oil(?) throughout.

With gloves on, chunk it up and rebatch it.
It's possible that the solution got too cold and the lye could not react with all the oils.
I can't do 1:1 lye:milk weight ratio. I get undissolved lye that way. I use more liquid like water.
My goat's milk soap is made with minimum water required to dissolve the lye, let cool like normal.
I add the rest of the liquid as milk as soon as the lye water and oils are mixed.
I prefer not to gel, so my soaps go in the fridge or the freezer.
It's also possible that due to the natural sugars in the milk and the honey, your soap overheated.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

I mix the lye with minimum water required, then add the rest as room temp milk when the oils and lye water have been mixed.
With that said, I live in the desert, so my room temp is most likely higher then yours. If that's the case, I would warm up the milk just slightly.
If the soap was still warm a couple of hours later, my bet is that the soap overheated due to all the sugars.
I would try rebatching without the brown liquid. It's possible that the brown liquid might contain some unreacted lye, so the soap might start out soft.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.