Learn2Soap - We Never Stop Learning

The Dreaded Orange Spots (DOS) happen when extra oils or free fatty acids in handcrafted soaps go rancid or oxidize.  They usually happen on soap that has been over superfatted, however they can appear on soaps containing very little extra oils.  It’s really sad when this happens, the soaps are not so pretty, and sometimes they smell a bit rancid too.   But the soaps are perfectly good to use, they just don’t look so hot.

If your soap has small orange spots on the surface of it and you have not added anything orange to your soap, chances are you have developed DOS, the dreaded orange spots, rancidity.   What causes these DOS to appear? 

Heat and light and moisture and oxygen all can play a part in the process, but rancidity is basically oxidation of the free fatty acids in the soap.  Storing your soap and a warm humid area will exacerbate the problem and speed up the process tremendously.  If you intend to store your soaps for any length of time, a cool, dry, dark place is idea.  Using a corrugated cardboard box will also help when storing soap.  It won’t trap moisture like a plastic container, corrugated cardboard insulates well, and also will help keep the soap dry by absorbing what moisture may be present inside the box.

Adding antioxidants to your soaps should help stop the oxidation.  There are many things that can be added to your soap to help slow down the process.  Adding tocopherols or vitamin E which has antioxidant properties will help.  If you don’t mind yellow soap, or even if you want yellow soap, you can beta carotene which is vitamin and also an antioxidant.  There’s also lycopene which is a powerful antioxidant.  Lycopene is from tomatoes, red fruits and veggies, etcetera and like beta carotene may be pigmented so it may or may not color the soap.  A few more additives to help in stopping or slowing down DOS and rancidity are Selenium and Co Q-10.  Take a look at your local vitamin or health food store, they’ll have tons of antioxidants.

There’s also grapefruit seed extract (GSE) and rosemary oleoresin or rosemary oil extract (ROE) which are also good antioxidants, but last time I checked they were kind of expensive for soaping.  GSE may speed up trace time in soaps.

Also, using oils that have BHT or BHA or whatever it is they put in vegetable oil at the grocery store seems to help with the rancidity problems.  But then you have the question of “Do you want that in your soap?” and “Do you care since it is a rinse off product?”.  Many people don’t mind, but some people have very strong opinions about BHT and BHA and may not like it in their soaps.  It really just depends on your marketing niche.   BHT or BHA or whatever is also available at the health food store. 

Perhaps you are an experienced soap maker and you stumbled upon a soap calculator that expresses the hardness, cleansing, conditioning, lather, iodine, and INS numbers for your soap.   If you did and you started doubting your soap recipe, you’re not the first soap maker to have this happen.  There are several things to think about, consider and keep in mind about soap quality numbers.  But, the most important thing to do right now is to quit doubting yourself.

Even if you get the perfect numbers, what does it mean?  Absolutely not a thing if you ask me.  There are so many factors involved from the water that is available in the area where the soap is used to how humid it is in the geographic area.  You know, a soap that works really well in Biloxi, Mississippi, will not work the same or even be a soap you may want to use in Houston, much less West Texas or even Arizona.

And there are even more factors than those listed above.  Many, many years go I participated in a soap swap where we all made the same soap recipe.  The results was that everyone’s soap was different.  How could that be?  Well, I like to think that we all have different ways of doing things and we all put a little of ourselves in the things we make.

Additionally, numbers are just numbers because with each season, with each batch of oil and fats that are pressed from seeds or somehow rendered, the oils and fats will be unique from time to time, batch to batch and will have different exact sap numbers and iodine numbers due to growing conditions and things like that.  So the numbers are just guidelines, they are not exact.  The chances of an oil you have on the shelf having the exact same characteristics as the numbers listed in a calculator somewhere are very slim.  It’s just not something that you can be exact about unless you send the oil to a lab to be analyzed.  And then there goes your budget if you know what I mean.

The harder the soap bar, the lower the solubility and the less lather you have.  Some people like lots of lather, some don’t and some have no preference, they just want the soap to clean.  So, numbers are still just numbers.  You know what you like, so don’t go second guessing yourself. 

Like when you use the MMS calculator, you go with what you already know, stuff that you learned along the way in your soap making journey and you draw from that knowledge when you plug in the numbers for the amounts of oils.  The truth is you know a lot more than you think you do. 

The only really crappy bars of soap that I’ve seen have been either soaps that were way too superfatted, were way under-cured before they were wrapped, or were one oil soaps like 100% cottonseed oil soaps.  100% cotton oils soaps suck!  LOL  They go rancid very fast.

Further, everybody’s opinion of what the perfect soap recipe is will be completely different no matter what the numbers are.  Opinions about soap are like finger prints, everyone has a different one, but we all have them, unless we don’t. LOL  But that’s not all bad.  So, take what you learned about oils from Soap Calc and at some point in time I bet that even without know it you’ll use some information you learned there and use it in a future soap recipe without even knowing you’re actually using it.

If you’re subtituting rice brand oil in your recipe for the more expensive olive oil and are worried about the soap ending up too soft, then toss in a little stearic acid or castor wax to make the bar harder.   How much?  Well, not a lot or the it would make the soap too hard.  So I’d start with about an ounce per pound of rice brand oil used and go up from there if you’re not pleased with the results.

Soap making is science, but not rocket science and it’s not meant to be.  Use what you know, use your intuition, relax and have some fun.  I say numbers are just numbers.  If you like your soap, I bet others will too.  If don’t like it, well, that’s just part of the spice of life.  We all have different ways of doing things, our products end up different… and just think how boring it would be if we all made things that were identically the best. 

So, don’t forget that knowledge comes from experience, numbers are just guidelines, and guidelines are no substitute for knowledge gained thru experience.