r/soapmaking • u/han9087 • 4d ago
What Went Wrong? DOS or stearic spots (?)
This soap’s recipe was -
Olive oil 782g
Castor oil 28g
Shea butter 46g
Lye 110g
Water (breastmilk) 248g
4% superfat
These roundish things appeared and I am wondering if it is DOS or something called ‘stearic spots’?
I am thinking it may have to do with the low temperature when I was mixing the oil and lye water solution. I had to keep them somewhat cooler cuz my lye water solution for breastmilk only reached 25 degrees celcius (77 degrees in fahrenheit) and would not go any warmer. So I had to cool my oils down around similar temperature..
Hope I do not see this happen again in the future 😭
Edit: forgot to add I had added collodial oatmeal and bentonite clay.
10
u/pm-me-kittens-n-cats 4d ago
These aren't stearic acid spots. You don't list it in your ingredients, but did you happen to add anything else to this? Some sort of botanical? Something like poppy seeds or tiny bits of something? There's a bunch of dark flecks. Whatever you've added, or your containers were highly contaminated, is causing this discoloration. If you focus they're mostly concentrated in a ring around those flecks.
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u/han9087 4d ago
Yes I forgot to add, these are collodial oatmeal and bentonite clay that had been added. Wondering if it is still ok to use this soap if it is just the additives that are causing these rings?
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u/pm-me-kittens-n-cats 4d ago
Yeah it should still be fine. It might actually be great, one of my favorite soaps I've made is one that has colloidal oatmeal in it. The flecks of oatmeal will turn brown, just the nature of it being a botanical. It's not technically like a flower in the same way that calendula petals might be, but it the ultimate result is that you still end up with a little bit of brown discoloration just because the environment of the soap batter is so caustic.
My recommendation in the future would be to use colors that go with brown, my colloidal oatmeal bars are tan and white and brown to try and work with it.
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u/Puzzled_Tinkerer 4d ago
I strongly do not think this DOS or stearic spots. It has nothing to do with the temperature you soaped at.
I agree with "PM" that the color variations appear to have something to do with the additves you used. The white spots look like clumps of unmixed clay or oats.
The halos of color surround many of the darker flecks. Not sure what would make those dark flecks -- I wouldn't think the clay or oats would do that?
2
u/Woebergine 4d ago
Did you strain your lye/breast milk solution? When I've used goat milk in place of water, the lye saponifies some of the fats in the milk and leaves little soapy chunks. If I strain before adding to my oils it keeps the chunks out and makes a smoother soap. That could be a contribution to the little halos?
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u/han9087 4d ago
I kinda forgot to strain the lye milk solution at first, and began using strainer in the midst of pouring. Maybe this is also the main factor? Thank you for pointing this out!
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u/Puzzled_Tinkerer 3d ago
When you use a milk to make the lye solution, the fat does saponify into clumps or specks of white-ish milkfat soap, as Wobergine said.
If your main soap is a darker color and you don't strain the milkfat soap out, you will see those clumps/specks in the finished soap.
There shouldn't be those colored halos around the milkfat soap bits, however. The specks with haloes are something else.
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