Common Soap Making Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Common Soap Making Mistakes and How to Avoid Them | Bramble Berry

Starting your soap making journey is exciting, but it can be a little intimidating, too. There are always mistakes that can happen. Having a successful first batch can help you maintain that feeling of excitement. Here are some common mistakes and ways to avoid them. We hope this will help you make your first (and second, and third) batch of soap a success.

 

Starting without researching

Yes, soap making is a very creative activity, with all the shapes, colors, and fragrances. You can really make a unique bar of soap! But at its heart, cold process soap making is about chemistry. Knowing about cold process soap and all the science and technique involved is going to help make this wonderful science project a success.

The good news is that there are a lot of resources out there. On our YouTube channel, you’ll find all the information you need to get started. You’ll need to make sure you know about lye and lye safety, the ingredients and tools you need, and how to clean up. That’s what you absolutely need to get started, and we cover it all in our Beginner's Guide to Cold Process Soap.

We carry four books about soap making, plus several digital resources. These make great references to keep handy while you get started on soap making. We also have a ton of articles on brambleberry.com that cover everything from the basics to advanced techniques.

With all this information at your fingertips, you have all the information you need to get started making soap successfully and safely.

Not starting with a basic batch

More advanced soap making can be really tempting, especially with all those gorgeous designs and colors. We recommend that you start with a basic batch of soap first, though.

Once you’ve done enough research to be confident in making your first batch of soap, start with something easy. This will help you get personal experience with the basic techniques involved. 

Common Soap Making Mistakes and How to Avoid Them | Bramble Berry


The most basic soap will be simple, unscented, and without added color. It’s just a basic blend of oils, distilled water, and lye. The distilled water is because you don’t know how chemicals in your tap water could interact with your soap ingredients. A great recipe to try is the Simple and Gentle Soap Project.

If that basic batch of soap isn’t exciting or fun enough to hold your interest, add in one color and one fragrance. Make sure you use a fragrance oil or essential oil that has been tested in cold process soap making. All of the oils we offer have been tested, and the ones that we recommend for cold process soap making are marked on the product page, so you know that the one you choose will work well.

Measuring ingredients by volume


For soap making success, the amount of oils, water, and lye is really important. Measuring these ingredients accurately is vital. To measure accurately, you must measure by weight.
What’s the difference between weight and volume?
  • Weight is determined by the mass of a particular item. It’s measured using a scale.

  • Volume is the amount of space that an item occupies. It’s often measured in cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, etc.

Volume is a less accurate measurement.We all know that oil is lighter than water, but different oils also have different weights. Because of this, attempting to measure by volume can actually give you the wrong amount of oil. The same material in different states occupy different volumes; for example, frozen water has a different volume than liquid water per given unit of mass.

Common Soap Making Mistakes and How to Avoid Them | Bramble Berry

There’s a temptation to measure in cups or teaspoons, especially if you don’t already have a kitchen scale at home. You can get away with this often in cooking, but not in soap making. If you need a kitchen scale, check out Bramble Berry's Perfect Scale!

Wrong amount of oils and lye

On the topic of measuring, making sure you have the correct amounts of oil and lye is one of the best ways you can avoid soap making disaster. In cold process soap, adding the lye, water, and oils together starts a chemical process called saponification. Essentially, the lye turns the oil into soap.

You have to have the right amount of oil and lye because if you don’t, whichever is left over after the saponification process will stay in your bar. If you have too much oil, you can end up with soap bars that are greasy and soft. These may never fully harden into a good bar of soap. If you use too much lye, some lye remains in your bar, and it can be irritating to the skin.

If your soap is lye-heavy, it means it’s more alkaline than normal soap. Lye heavy soap can reach alkalinities of 11-14, which is bad for your skin and can even cause burning.

To avoid this, always measure your ingredients by weight and use a tested recipe. We also have a lye calculator on our website that will help you know for sure how much lye you should use. Just enter the amount of oils you’re using and it will calculate the needed amount of lye.

You often know right away if your soap batter is lye heavy, because once you start mixing, the mixture will become very thick very fast.

Temperature problems

The saponification process is an exothermic reaction, which means that it produces heat. This also means that temperature is a big factor in soap making.

You want to monitor the temperature of both your lye water and your oils. Also, consider the temperature of your room. While saponification is occurring, a hot room can cause your soap to get even hotter. A cool room will cause your soap to become less hot, and can even prevent gel phase from occurring.Fortunately, most temperature mistakes only impact the appearance of your soap.

Common Soap Making Mistakes and How to Avoid Them | Bramble Berry


If your soap becomes too hot:

  • Your soap may go through gel phase. Gel phase is great, because it results in a harder bar of soap and brighter colors. But if you want more muted colors, or are using milk in your recipe, this may not be desirable. Learn more about gel phase here.

  • Hot soap can also cause glycerin rivers. These are clear or translucent veins of glycerin in your soap. This does not make the soap unsafe or less effective, it just may not be the look you were hoping for.

  • Hot soap can actually volcano out of the soap mold. This may be something as minor as cracking on the top of the soap, or it can result in the soap rising up out of the mold and spilling over.
If your soap is too cool:
  • It’s more likely to develop soda ash. Soda ash forms when unsaponified lye reacts with the carbon dioxide in the air. Your soap will still be safe to use, but of you have a beautiful design in your soap, the powdery soda ash on the surface of the bar may obscure that pattern. Soda ash may also make your soap feel crumbly. Learn more about soda ash here.

  • Cooler temperatures may also mean that you have to wait longer to unmold your soap, and it may still be a bit soft. This is because the heat helps evaporate the water in your soap. This is usually not a problem with the finished, cured soap, but it’s a good thing to know.

  • Cool soap may prevent your soap from reaching gel phase. Gel phase results in a harder bar of soap and brighter colors. If you’re making a soft colored bar, you may want to avoid gel phase entirely. 

Using a fragrance oil not tested in soap making

Fragrance oils are synthetic oil, and they contain a wide array of both natural and artificial materials, and since saponification is a chemical process, these can change how your soap turns out.

Some fragrance oils can accelerate the saponification process, causing your soap to thicken more quickly. Some fragrance oils can discolor your soap. Some can even cause your soap to become grainy, or to separate. Learn more about ricing, acceleration, and more here.

The saponification process can also change the fragrance of your oil, or kill it altogether. At Bramble Berry, we test all of our fragrance oils in soap making. We make sure that fragrance oils don’t cause soaps to morph in any way, and we check to make sure the fragrance lasts through the soap curing process. You can check out our selection of fragrance oils for cold process soap here.

When you’re purchasing fragrance oils for soap making, make sure you’re buying from a reputable supplier and have been tested in soap making. Also make sure that they’re safe for soap making. We have testing notes for our fragrance oils on the product page for each. You can make sure that the fragrance you’re using is appropriate and safe for soap making.


Stick blending too much or not enough

This is a common mistake for beginning soap makers. The more you stick blend your soap, generally the thicker it becomes. Thicker soap batter isn’t necessarily a problem on its own, but if your planning on doing swirls or other designs in your soap, a thick batter can make this very difficult. On the other hand, not blending enough can cause your soap to not emulsify enough. This means that your soap may turn out oily or even separate.

Common Soap Making Mistakes and How to Fix Them | Bramble Berry


To avoid this, use your stick blender sparingly and pay attention to the thickness of your soap. First, pour the lye water down the shaft of the stick blender. Burp the blender on the bottom of the bowl to get rid of bubbles. Then, give the blender a few short bursts. Then, use the blender to stir. Give it a few more short bursts and stir.

You can always stick blend more to make it thicker, but once soap reaches a thick texture, there is no going back! Using short bursts and stirring rather than turning your stick blender on for 10-20 continuous seconds will help you gradually build up to the correct trace. Check for trace often. Learn more about trace here.

This overview should give you the information you need to make your soaping adventure a success. Always remember that everyone, even soap making veterans, makes mistakes. Most of these mistakes will still result in a usable bar of soap. The Bramble Berry website has lots of articles about soap making so that you can answer any questions that come up.

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