Teach Soap

Hello everyone,
I'm looking for some feedback as to why my soap melted during shipment to a customer. I made a soap a couple weeks ago fragranced with turkish mocha fragrance oil. The fragrance worked wonderfully. I used 20 ounces of liquid-10oz water, 5oz eggnog and 5 oz brewed coffee. I added the eggnog to the oils. Everything about making the soap was perfect. No issues whatsoever. I mailed out two of the soaps to a customer 4 days ago. According to tracking info, the package went to new jersey before returning to NY for delivery today. I got an email saying the soaps had melted. I don't know how that happened. The soap was not fully cured, however it was very hard when it was shipped out. I also put a use after date on the soap. Could the soap melting have anything to do with the eggnog? I used southern comfort eggnog. The ingredients are: milk, cream, sugar, corn syrup, egg yolks, fat free milk, natural and artificial flavors, spice, guar gum, salt, carrageenan, mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin. Thanks for your help. Picture will be attached. I even took a shower with the soap earlier just to check it out again. It soaps beautifully.

Cold processed and it melted? Like really melted? In the winter time even? That sounds very bizarre. I didn't think a whole bar of soap could get melted. They can sweat in the heat. But we're not exactly at the height of summer right now.

Did it get wet maybe? I hope someone more experienced can shed some light. I'm super curious.

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"Effective questioning brings insight which fuels curiosity which cultivates wisdom"

Hi Sephi,
My friend said the soap melted. But looking at the pictures she sent, it looks more like the soap deflated. You would think it was hollow inside. I have been trying to post a picture but so far haven't been able to.

Try using www.photobucket.com to load your pictures online, then use the [IMG] link option they give That will get your picture to us! Could the soap have been crushed? I've never heard of an entire bar of CP melting, and it shouldn't have had enough air in it to deflate.. Chances of 2 large air pockets being central to only those bars would be.. umm.. astronomical.

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

Whoa. That is truly odd! I've never seen that before!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

Hestey, It's just so strange to me. It was only cured for 2 weeks. However i know the customer and so i put a use after date on the label. I always do a water discount, so my bars were pretty hard. After i received the pictures i took a shower with one and it lathers beautifully. No issues whatsoever. There were four other soaps in the package(not these) and they are perfectly fine. I use this recipe all the time with no issues. The only addition being coffee, the eggnog and just a bit of nutmeg. Could have been something in the coffee. Next time i should probably do the eggnog from scratch. I can't imagine what could have happened during shipping that could affect this soap and not the others. Maybe it would hold up better with a full cure before sipping. Pic below of soaps in their original form.

Kind of looks like it got squished.

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Genny

I agree; it looks like damage in shipping to me. Even though it will cost a lot of money ($8, at least) to get back, you might consider getting it back just so you can see for yourself what happened.

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Happy Soaping!

Anne-Marie
blog: www.soap-queen.blogspot.com
supplies: www.brambleberry.com

Thank you guys for all your help. I may have to start putting "handle with care on all my packages." The post office must have really thrown my package around for this to happen. Not surprising i guess if you consider that the package left NY going to an address in upstate NY, but detoured to NJ for a couple days before final delivery. I don't know if my friend kept the damaged soaps. I felt so bad it never occurred to me to ask. I am very happy however that the extra ingredients didn't cause my soap to deflate.

I have read that writing things like that on packages can almost guarantee that the package gets handled even rougher. Because they're supposed to be careful with all of them, it's not like its okay to smash some of them if they don't say "fragile" or "handle with care" with on them. So certain people along the line of handling your package will either see it as meaningless, or possibly purposely be more careless with it out of spite.

However you sent it, you should report that it was damaged in shipping, even if you won't get anything out of it. And in the future perhaps change up your packaging and/or include insurance on your shipments so that if soap gets damaged in the future you are covered for the reimbursement or if you send another bar as a replacement (even if you're not selling, a lot of money and hard work can go into making the soap and even if you're giving it away it still sucks for a bar to get ruined because the carrier damaged it)

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"Effective questioning brings insight which fuels curiosity which cultivates wisdom"

The pits in the soap don't look like shipping damage to me, but the second picture where it is squashed does. In the first picture there are clear pits in the soap, like you'd find in "ice soap" done with MP. I wonder if the package was kept somewhere super wet? Looks like some of it dissolved somehow. Very odd. I would report it to the shipping company anyhow.

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

Thanks Sephi. I will definitely refrain from writing handle with care on my packages then. I have a ton of foam peanuts, and just got some more bubble wraps in. I will certainly do my best to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Hetsy, the first pic does look a bit funny doesn't it. That's how the tops of my brownies look after i bake them. Thanks much for the feedback.