# My soap won't harden



## soapandco (Jul 15, 2014)

I am using this recipe for my soap making, but it didn't harden after 24 hours, instead it has become gooey. 300g olive oil, 200g rice bran oil, 200g sunflower oil, i also used chlorophyl as colorant, ground sesame as scrubs, ylangylang and rose geranium EO. I ran the lye calculator and worked out my NaOH to be 89g with 6% superfat, I have been using the same calculator and it has always been reliable. Please help, thanks.


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## LuckyStar (Jul 15, 2014)

Olive oil, rice bran oil and sunflower oil are all VERY soft oils, two of which delay trace. Its possible you may have only gotten a false trace. 

Although, when i run your recipe  i only get 87.5 grams of lye, so 88 at best. 

A picture might help if you have one


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## kylie_au (Jul 15, 2014)

Im on my tablet but if nothing else you are only using soft oils and they take longer to harden.
I will check amounts and lye when im in front of laptop.


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## soapandco (Jul 15, 2014)

I also suspect a false trace, I always have this problem if I use more than 30% of olive oil in my recipe. It looks like this:





:?


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## soapandco (Jul 15, 2014)

The problem is I am not sure it will ever harden


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## Susie (Jul 15, 2014)

And if you ground sesame seeds for scrubbies, then you added more oil right there.


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## cmzaha (Jul 15, 2014)

89 grams of lye would equal a 4% superfat in soap calc which is fine for this type of soap. If you used what is considered full water of 38% that would answer why your soap is soft. It should harden but will take time if you actually got it to trace. Be patient and see if it starts setting up in a few days, if not you can rebatch it in a crock pot, double boiler or oven. I always use much less liquid with my 100% castille soaps


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## Dorymae (Jul 15, 2014)

Even soaps made with soft oils will eventually harden.  Granted it will not harden in a few days.  It probably should have been left in the mold for longer.  However when you add the proper (or more or even slightly less, ie superfat) amount of lye to oils you will get soap and it will eventually harden.  That is just chemistry.  However keep in mind that 100% olive oil soaps can take months to harden to a decent level and are sometimes kept for over 8 months before they are considered cured. (I have seen people say 6 months but for me that is still too soon. Really 8 months or more is much better.)

So the good news - it will harden.  The bad news - don't hold your breath!


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## soapandco (Jul 15, 2014)

Thanks so much for the help, I will try to adjust the recipe, probably too much water as well, I added 250g water because I wanted to do a swirl, my previous experience was it traced too fast for me to do anything fancy and even having difficulty to transfer it to my mold. Maybe will try re-batching it and see how it turns out. I have never thought that soaps will take days to harden and months to cure!! LOL...


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## soapandco (Jul 16, 2014)

It starts to harden, should've waited longer before I unmold it. But the colour changes, I am not sure it is called "discoloration" in soaping term. I would have tossed it away if not because of you guys here :-D


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Jul 17, 2014)

Can I ask where the recipe came from?


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## eucalypta (Jul 17, 2014)

soapandco said:


> It starts to harden, should've waited longer before I unmold it. But the colour changes, I am not sure it is called "discoloration" in soaping term. *I would have tossed it away* if not because of you guys here :-D


 
 More sad news.... Prepare to throw it out anyway.

 Two of the oils u used are prone to get DOS. (Dreaded Orange Spots) a.o. due to the short shelf life they have; they get rancid quickly. 

 So my prediction is that the spots will appear even before this soap is totally cured.

 If you like those oils in the soap, consider buying the "high Oleic" type, or don't use more than 10% of the weight of oils in the soap. 

 Chlorophyl  will turn brown, almost all botanicals do..

 How much of those expensive EOs did you put in your soap?
 (Just to check; any value < 3% of the oil weight in your batch is a loss.
 In fact in general 5% is standard).


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## soapandco (Jul 17, 2014)

I created it :-| so, I guess I have got everything wrong in this one.


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## soapandco (Jul 17, 2014)

ok :sad:... 

I put about 3% in total of EOs, wanted to do something different this time. Usually I will use cheaper and more common EO like Eucalyptus, peppermint, ginger, sweet orange....




eucalypta said:


> More sad news.... Prepare to throw it out anyway.
> 
> Two of the oils u used are prone to get DOS. (Dreaded Orange Spots) a.o. due to the short shelf life they have; they get rancid quickly.
> 
> ...


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## soapandco (Jul 17, 2014)

soapandco said:


> I created it :-| so, I guess I have got everything wrong in this one.



Normally I will add castor oil and/or coconut oil and/or palm oil and/or shea butter and/or cocoa butter and most of the time my soaps will turn out well. This time I totally omit any of those.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Jul 17, 2014)

soapandco said:


> I created it :-| so, I guess I have got everything wrong in this one.


 
Not really wrong as such.

I usually ran any new ideas through here first - I don't think people find it annoying (maybe they did!) and it certainly doesn't take away from learning.  As in this case, you now know that OO and RBO are almost the same, that some hard oils can help in a recipe and so on.

I found that asking here first saved me a lot of oil


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## seven (Jul 17, 2014)

I suggest you look into this bit of info about common soapmaking oils by soapqueen: http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-b...s-guide-to-soapmaking-common-soapmaking-oils/

It also has a 2-page free pdf that you can print out. Really valuable esp when formulating your own recipe. 


Sent from my iPhone using Soap Making


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## Dorymae (Jul 17, 2014)

Hey you don't have to throw it out even if it develops DOS.  You should never sell dos soap but most of the time it is not horrible and is fine to use for your personal use. Live and learn.  Personally I LOVE sunflower oil, so I make adjustments and know there is a higher risk of failure.  Does not mean I don't use that oil.  If we all followed all the rules all the time what boring soap we would all make.  It would all be basically the same.  So don't let one failure discourage you from trying different things.  Always check your lye value but other than that have fun.


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## hmlove1218 (Jul 17, 2014)

Dorymae said:


> Hey you don't have to throw it out even if it develops DOS.  You should never sell dos soap but most of the time it is not horrible and is fine to use for your personal use. Live and learn.  Personally I LOVE sunflower oil, so I make adjustments and know there is a higher risk of failure.  Does not mean I don't use that oil.  If we all followed all the rules all the time what boring soap we would all make.  It would all be basically the same.  So don't let one failure discourage you from trying different things.  Always check your lye value but other than that have fun.



I completely agree. Sunflower oil is amazing in soap and I notice a difference even at 5% in a recipe, so I use at least that in most of my recipes. And yes, what a boring soap world it would be if we all followed the guideline rules and had the same recipes.. :screwy:


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## seven (Jul 17, 2014)

i also love sunflower, but i agree, you gotta use it in small percentage to avoid DOS and the likes. like hmlove, i'm only using around 5-7% in my formulations.


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## eucalypta (Jul 17, 2014)

Don't get me wrong people, I do love sunflower and RBO in soaps!
 Just the better quality and in low amounts.

 Experimenting is fun, and doing a recipe outside the box is perfect.
 I do it often enough.
 What I do take into consideration though,  is the behaviour of the single oils in soap.
 It served me well.


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## soapandco (Jul 17, 2014)

I have adjusted the recipe to reduce the amount of sunflower oil to 7%, added castor oil, shea butter, red palm fruit oil and coconut oil to it and made one batch of this avocado soaps (I used avocado puree), it turned out great! I am still very unconfident in using any olive oil in my soaps, so I totally omitted that. See how they turn out later after curing.


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## hmlove1218 (Jul 18, 2014)

No need to worry about the olive oil.  I frequently use 40%-60% in my recipes and I can usually unmold and cut in 24-36 hours.  I think that the main reason you had problems with the first batch posted was that there weren't any hard oils.


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## CaraBou (Jul 20, 2014)

eucalypta said:


> More sad news.... Prepare to throw it out anyway. Two of the oils u used are prone to get DOS. (Dreaded Orange Spots) a.o. due to the short shelf life they have; they get rancid quickly.  So my prediction is that the spots will appear even before this soap is totally cured. If you like those oils in the soap, consider buying the "high Oleic" type, or don't use more than 10% of the weight of oils in the soap.



I assume you meant sunflower and RBO. But my notes show RBO has a long shelf life - up to 2 years. And I've never heard of HO RBO. Am I missing something?

ETA:  Looking around, I see a variety of values listed for shelf life of RBO: 2 years, 1 year, 6 months.  What gives with that??

Here are a couple of contrasts:
http://alfaone.ca/rice-bran-oil-faq/
http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/soapmakingoils/tp/qualitiesofsoapmakingoils.02.htm


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## jensenconferido (Aug 13, 2015)

Hi there

I also facing the same problem here, the soap won't get harden.
I have been making many batches of soap and all came up so well. But what happening right now is i follow all the process and ingredients, the soap is difficult to get trace, even though using hand held blender for about 40 mins to get medium trace. I then pour into the mold, the soap still feels warm and heat up just only few hours and immediately cool down.

I totally making 4 batches, all were failed. Addition note : weather in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is Raining Season, 26 - 31 Celsius, for some reason, i do believe the weather would affect the soap ?

My recipe is simple, total of oil weight : 400 gram / 2 teaspoon of Lemongrass EO. 

Almond Oil, sweet        4 gram
Canola Oil     50 gram
Soybean Oil     50 gram
Coconut Oil 60 gram
Castor Oil     2 gram
Palm Oil     234 gram

I would happy if someone able to shed me a light!


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## IrishLass (Aug 13, 2015)

Welcome Jensen- You may want to start a new thread seeing as how this one is over a year old, and also introduce yourself in the Introduction forum. For what it's worth, though, the oils/fats part of your recipe looks fine to me. I'm curious, though, as to how much lye and water are you using in your recipe, and more importantly, which type of lye are you using- NaOH (sodium hydroxide) or KOH (potassium hydroxide)? 


IrishLass


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## Susie (Aug 13, 2015)

That looks like overheated soap to me.  Not that the weather has anything to do with it, more likely other causes.  

Could you post your entire recipe(including water, additives, colorants, and NaOH) in weights, and describe the process of what you do with it once your pour it?  That will help us figure it out faster.

Mods-could someone possibly consider moving this to start a new thread?  This one is a year old, and may get overlooked.

EDIT-Typing same time as IL. Sorry.


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## jensenconferido (Aug 13, 2015)

IrishLass said:


> Welcome Jensen- You may want to start a new thread seeing as how this one is over a year old, and also introduce yourself in the Introduction forum. For what it's worth, though, the oils/fats part of your recipe looks fine to me. I'm curious, though, as to how much lye and water are you using in your recipe, and more importantly, which type of lye are you using- NaOH (sodium hydroxide) or KOH (potassium hydroxide)?
> 
> 
> IrishLass


Thank you! Please see the new thread here 
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?p=536372#post536372


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## Tendai (Nov 1, 2018)

soapandco said:


> I am using this recipe for my soap making, but it didn't harden after 24 hours, instead it has become gooey. 300g olive oil, 200g rice bran oil, 200g sunflower oil, i also used chlorophyl as colorant, ground sesame as scrubs, ylangylang and rose geranium EO. I ran the lye calculator and worked out my NaOH to be 89g with 6% superfat, I have been using the same calculator and it has always been reliable. Please help, thanks.



Lye should be 10% by mass, water 20% and oils 70 %. ratio should be 1:2:7 if your oil does not have water. if it has reduce amount of water. in this case just gently heat until is thick like meshed potatoes the leave to dry


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## amd (Nov 1, 2018)

This is an old thread. Please be cautious of dates when replying to threads.


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## shunt2011 (Nov 1, 2018)

Tendai said:


> Lye should be 10% by mass, water 20% and oils 70 %. ratio should be 1:2:7 if your oil does not have water. if it has reduce amount of water. in this case just gently heat until is thick like meshed potatoes the leave to dry



This post is from 2015.   The person you quoted hasn't been here in years.   Welcome to the forum, please go to the introduction forum and tell us a little about yourself.  Also, read the stickies in the forums which will help you out on navigating the forum as well.


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## DeeAnna (Nov 2, 2018)

@Tendai -- The ratio for lye to fat that you provide night be acceptable for the boiled method of soap making, but it is not sufficiently accurate for cold process or hot process soap making. Furthermore, the ratio you suggest is a rough estimate for NaOH only. It is not a even close to a reasonable guesstimate for KOH. We recommend using a soap recipe calculator for more accurate information.


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