# Please, help, my soap is too soft



## salute2015 (Apr 1, 2017)

Hello,
could you please, help me.
I made a soap with hot process. it's a nice soap with lather, not a drying one, but it gets too soft in shower, and after awhile it gets broken to pieces.
I made this recipe myself with soapcalculator.
I don't have notes about water %, but I think it's 38%.
here my recipe:

olive 56%
castor 24%
coconut 4%

shea butter 15%
fragr 4%

thank you a lot


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## Scooter (Apr 1, 2017)

The castor oil seems a little high. I use castor around 5% or a little less. Also, the OO plus castor percentages make for a high amount of liquid oils...

How long was your cure? With that much OO I would think it would need a cure of many months.


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## Zany_in_CO (Apr 1, 2017)

olive 56%
castor 24%
coconut 4%
shea butter 15%
TOTAL = 99% <<< add 1%

1) Is that a typo? Typically I would expect the % of castor & coconut to be switched. 
2) The base oils add up to 99%, so you need to add 1% somewhere. 
3) The total soft oils = 80% <<< soft bar!
4) Do not include Fragrance in the soap formula. It's an additive.

I think you'd be happier with a minor adjustment -- something like
olive 56%
coconut 24%
castor 5%
shea butter 15%

HTH   :bunny:​


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## lenarenee (Apr 1, 2017)

Hi salute,

With 56% olive oil, how long do you cure your bars before you use them? 

Olive oil soap can "drink" a lot of water so the bar needs to dry out as much as possible between uses.  

If you try the recipe Zany suggested, I would actually not suggest a big jump to 24% coconut oil as you're used to 4%. Try 10 - 15% first because coconut oil can be stripping/drying. (You commented on how your soap wasn't drying so that seems to be important to you). 

I agree that the amount of castor is high and isn't helping your recipe.
Try reducing it to 5 - 8%.

I would suggest your recipe look closer to this:


5% castor
10% coconut (or up to 15)
15% shea butter
70% olive oil

as  for water: I'd try a 32% lye concentration

Cure for about 6 months. (thanks to all that olive oil)


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## salute2015 (Apr 1, 2017)

Hi guys, thank  you for replies!!!!!
yes, that was a typo,
here is the right %:

olive 56%
castor 4%
coconut 54%

shea butter 15%

it was a hot process soap, passed the zip test, and it lathers good, but gets soft in the shower, and then breaks.

lenarenee, thank you I will make your recipe today!

lenarenee, can I make your recipe with hot process?
and in general, can I use cold process recipes for hot process?

thanks a lot for replies, they make my day!

something is wrong with me, made a type again, here is corrected recipe :

olive 56%
castor 4%
coconut 24%

shea butter 15%


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## earlene (Apr 1, 2017)

That's a lot of Coconut Oil!   My skin would be as dry as a bone if I used that much CO in my soap!  Oops, no that was in response to the type number of 54%.  But even with 24%, and not a high SF, it would dry my skin too much.  *What was your SF?* (SF=superfat)

Besides that, did I miss it, or did you address the question about *how long you let the soap cure before you started using it?
*
Cure time is very important to evaluate how well the soap will perform.  Brand new soap with that much OO does need a longish cure.  No matter what, though, I would not bathe with that soap until it is 3 or 4 months old or longer.  I'd probably try it as a hand soap at about 2 months, then observe how it performs over time.   Some may test sooner, but I prefer soap to have a longer cure because it just really performs so much better with a long cure.  For me, I usually let soap cure a full 6 months prior to use in the shower, and for high OO soaps, I let it cure longer.  For full OO soaps (Castille) a minimum of one year cure is what I have learned, but am experimenting with longer cures for Castille soaps.

Not *lenarenee*, but yes, any soap recipe can be made HP.  But be warned, HP soap requires just a long a cure as, if not longer cure than CP soap.  I know there are people out there in the world that claim you can use HP soap right away, but they fail to address the issue of a proper cure.  Curing improves soap performance, and it takes time, not heat to cure soap.  Until someone invents a time machine, we'll just have to wait for soap to cure sufficiently to produce that fine, mild soap that we have come to love so much.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Apr 1, 2017)

You're experiencing what I found was the very top reason for curing a HP soap - Water.

If I made the same recipe HP and CP, the HP batch would be milder etc sooner than the CP, but the CP bar would be harder and more "resilient" in use than the HP one.  As Earlene and others have said, you need to cure your HP.  The way it changes over the cure time might not be exactly the same as CP, but that does not mean it is not required.  As you are experiencing yourself.


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## Scooter (Apr 1, 2017)

salute2015 said:


> something is wrong with me, made a type again, here is corrected recipe :
> 
> olive 56%
> castor 4%
> ...



That looks a lot more like a recipe I frequently use for my own soap. And my soap dissolves pretty easily if not cured for a long time. As others have mentioned cure for several months, six or more is probably good. You can also experiment with this yourself. Make a batch of six bars or so and see how different cure times impact their longevity in the shower.


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## salute2015 (Apr 1, 2017)

great information, thanks
the cure time actually is more than 6 months now, but I should tell you that cure time didn't change properties! when we started using my soap few weeks after cure, it was very much the same

superfat is always 10%

also, I added superfat after the soap was done, it passed zip test, but still was warm, so I added mango oil and olive oil, mixed very well and poured to the mold


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## newbie (Apr 1, 2017)

If it has cured for 6 months, that soap should be hard as a rock. If it is soft in the shower, my guess would be that it isn't drying between uses. What is your set up for the soap in the shower? Does it sit in a soap dish? If it sits in water in any way, that is likely the problem. You'd have to find something that gets it completely up and off of any water, or perhaps even take it out of the shower between uses.


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## lenarenee (Apr 1, 2017)

I've never made a soap with a sf higher than 5% (except for salt bars), so I wonder if a 10% after cook sf contributes to the soap's ability to absorb water.

Olive oil soap can absorb water like a sponge - one of the reason I don't use much (I like a nice crisp bar).  You sound happy with your recipe, so maybe alternating 2 or 3 bars of soap in the shower would help give more time for the soft bar to dry out between uses. Use it one day, shelve it while using a different bar, switch again?

Oops! EMERGENCY correction: Even though I knew you hot processed, I advised using a lower lye concentration. DON'T!


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## salute2015 (Apr 1, 2017)

newbie, 
yes, it's sits in water practically, but I bought handmade soap and it's not getting soft that much. I don't know the recipe of that soap, but it's not a drying soap! 
I am puzzled with it. I made my recipe in such way that it would lather and an the same time be conditioning, but something is not right with the recipe

lenarenee,
you triggered my old feelings that superfat contributes to softness of the soap when in use, I feel  it retains water somehow. I will make my recipe today without superfat at all, just to see the difference.


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## earlene (Apr 1, 2017)

Really, your soap would benefit from sitting outside the shower between  uses on a soap saver that keeps it up off of any pool of water.  All  soap lasts longer if they don't sit in water.  My husband leaves his  soap in the shower, but I keep my soap outside the shower.  All my  soap dishes all over the house include the addition of a soap saver of  some type to facilitate drying between uses.

Here are some examples of soap savers that I have used and give to  family to use inside of or in place of traditional soap dishes:


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## cmzaha (Apr 1, 2017)

Any soap that sits in even a little water will get mushy on the side that contacts the water. I tell all my customers to make sure their soap sits on a draining soap dish and to get max mileage from a soap remove it from the shower so it can air dry without the dampness of the shower. Please remember, soap is not conditioning/moisturizing, it is a rinse off item to get us clean. Instead of 10% superfat try dropping it down to 3-4% and use a moisturizer after the shower or a light mist of an oil if you like direct oil on your skin. I personally do not like to shower with oil and my plumbing hates it. Soap alone is hard on my plumbing without the added oils. My plumbing would be much happier if I used Syndet bars


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