Making Soap – Some Questions

Hey again, folks.
(Lots of posting today).

I’ve been trying to re-stock my soap supply of late, and I’m having trouble getting the stuff to trace. I’ve spent part of the morning looking up the effects of using rancid oil when making soap (none, apparently – see here for details), in case that was the problem.

Now that I’ve ruled that out, I’m wondering if I’m using too much water in my lye solution. (Or, alternatively, if lye loses it’s potency over time…?)

I’m wondering this because, when I try to make soap, the lye solution sinks and doesn’t mix well with the heated oil (which, I’m assuming, is because oil floats on top of water) – so I’m wondering… if I made a lye solution that was more concentrated (same amount of lye crystals, but, say, half the suggested amount of water[1]), would that solve my problem?

Right now, I have something like ten bars of soap that Didn’t Quite Work. The kind of stuff I’ll happily use around the house, but which probably aren’t an option for setting out at my craft sales. I’d prefer to actually get some successful, fully saponified soap out of this deal, and sooner rather than later, as May is coming up quickly and I’d like to have some summer-scented soaps available for any shows I do over the summer months.
As such: If you have any ideas, please let me know! 😀

Thanks a heap,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

[1] I always super-fat, so I don’t think this would cause problems — if you know it would, though, please let me know what to expect and how to avoid it.