We are always willing to help with any questions you have regarding making soap at home, or any particular issues you are having with your soap making process.

Recently we were contacted on our Facebook page by JJ May with an issue she has been having:

…to get rid of the white bubbles that appear on the top of the soap once poured, [I’ve been told] you should spritz with surgical spirit. This is all well and good for getting rid of the bubbles but it’s also making my soaps stink like Deep Heat rather than the beautiful fragrance they were intended to be. Can you suggest any other methods?

To help out JJ May, here are a few suggested remedies, which we also cover in our comprehensive Ebook “Soap Making Made Easy”.

Firstly, spritzing with rubbing alcohol is a very common and widely recommended fix for white bubbles in your soap, perhaps the surgical spirit you are using isn’t suitable for soap making. Do a quick search on Amazon or at your local craft store for a suitable rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle, that may be your only issue. When spritzing the soap, hold the spray bottle about 15cm from the soap and give the surface a light spray only.

The problem with bubbles in soap stems from mixing too vigorously, and as always prevention is better than cure.

You could try using a combination of a slower mix speed on your stick blender (if you are using one), or combine it with some hand stirring. However, I would suggest just using a taller, narrower container for the mixing, so that you can get the blender deeper in the container, introducing less air and therefore producing less bubbles.

When you have poured the soap into the molds, try to resist the temptation to open the molds to look at how the soap is setting. Make sure they are well insulated and don’t cool too quickly, as this can also cause bubbling to appear on the surface. Checking the molds by opening them encourages them to cool too quickly.

Lastly, be careful not to mix your soap batter for too long, as you are only increasing the chances of too much air being added to the mix.

I hope these tips help you JJ! Good luck with your next batch of soap, I would love to hear the results.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Keith Williamson.

If there are any questions you would like to have answered here on the blog, simply contact us and we will help out wherever we can.