# Deanna, I have a question...



## AnnaMarie

I have an Andalusian recipe for castile soap that is lye heavy, but makes the BEST castile soap and does not get gooey. The bar is wonderful, long lasting, and hard. I know it's the amount of lye responsible because I have made plenty of castile soap since and even with the long cure times (couple years) they get gooey. It isn't a recipe I sell for obvious reasons, but a few months ago I read a Soap Queen post featuring Kevin Dunn as the speaker. In the post he talked about how lye heavy soap will eventually become milder because (if I remember right) the oxygen will eventually eat up the extra lye. As I speak I have an experimental batch of my lye heavy castile curing in my soap work area which I will test the ph on eventually. My other batch of this was never stingy or anything. I had made it as a new soaper before I really was educated in lye heavy soaps. Anyway, it's been a few years since this batch, but I still remember how good it was....perhaps you have a few thoughts on this or can confirm Kevin Dunn's statements? 
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## seven

wow very interesting about how lye heavy soap will become milder with time. 

AnnaMarie, how much more lye did you add to your castile if i may ask?


----------



## AnnaMarie

Get ready to croak soapers...
1 quart (yes, quart) of olive oil
1 quart water
3/4 cup water (to dilute lye)
6oz lye

Yep! Yep! Yep! On all of it. Mix the quart of water and olive oil. Mix the lye in 3/4 cup water. Combine it all (no heating) and it will trace in approx. 20 min. Makes the best castile!
Ill brace myself for the lectures


----------



## eyeroll

No lectures here. I am VERY curious to hear more about this.


----------



## Gratitude

That reminds me of old fashion lye soap recipes. Water added to oils and heavy lye. Can't wait to see what your results are.


----------



## seven

wowza... that turns out to be what.. at least -30%SF??? zomg!

on a slightly different note, the recipes on making mp base by kayla fioravanti also have a slight more lye than what's needed to have a 0% SF. the soap turned out fine. no burn, no itch, no nothing.


----------



## AnnaMarie

It turns out so nice! It's even fun to cut. It's pure white initially and slices like cheese. Ooo la la!

Best of all, no gooey ness! At all!


----------



## The Efficacious Gentleman

I suppose if you have to wait 3 months for a "normal" Castile anyway, then you could also wait for the mildness to come


----------



## cmzaha

seven said:


> wowza... that turns out to be what.. at least -30%SF??? zomg!
> 
> on a slightly different note, the recipes on making mp base by kayla fioravanti also have a slight more lye than what's needed to have a 0% SF. the soap turned out fine. no burn, no itch, no nothing.


 
more like -40. Not to sure I will even go there...and I am not one to superfat high if at all


----------



## seven

cmzaha said:


> more like -40. Not to sure I will even go there...and I am not one to superfat high if at all



i know, i was like my jaw dropped when i plugged in the numbers on the calc. initially i thought it was only a slight excess, like when i made my mp base, but wowza -40 *gulp*

that's why i am very very curious about this. let's wait for DeeAnna to explain this from science pov. 

but then AnnaMarie had used this soap w/o a problem.. hmmm...


----------



## AnnaMarie

There's a blog post about this on Soap Queen as well, but I'd like to hear what scientist Deanna has to say.

The tracing of this recipe is also interesting. It doesn't trace like normal with a gradual thickening. This one becomes a vanilla pudding when it traces- right away. You have to be careful because it seems like it might have traced before this, but it hasn't (made that mistake in one experiment). The soap mixture starts to rice heavily and then all of a sudden you have this thick, rich looking soap batter. Really cool!


----------



## neeners

how interesting!!!  can't wait to hear results!


----------



## DeeAnna

The thing about a lye-heavy soap "getting milder with enough time" is true. Kevin Dunn did some nice work on this subject; he summarizes his findings in his Scientific Soapmaking book for those with an interest in the nitty-gritty of soap chemistry.

Free sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in the soap will slowly react with carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air to form a milder salt. This salt is sodium carbonate, Na2CO3. It is the same chemical as the white ash that sometimes forms on the top of CP soaps. Sodium carbonate is also the same stuff as the washing soda that is often added to homemade laundry detergent. Although sodium carbonate is basic -- it has a pH above 7 -- it is a much milder chemical than sodium hydroxide. A soap in which free sodium hydroxide has been converted to sodium carbonate will be much gentler to the skin.

Because a bar of soap is a big chunk of stuff, it will take time to convert the excess lye within the soap. If you want to encourage this process, I'd recommend storing the soap so it is exposed to the open air. It's my guess that packaging soap in plastic, for example, might not be the best idea. On the other hand, you don't need to go to the other extreme and run a fan either. Just store the soap on a shelf or in a loosely covered box or whatever and have patience.

Here's the chemistry. First step is for the CO2 to combine with water (from the soap itself or water vapor in the air) to make a weak acid:

CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3 (carbonic acid)

Next, the excess sodium hydroxide (a base) in the soap reacts with the carbonic acid to make sodium carbonate and water:

2NaOH + H2CO3 -> 2H2O + Na2CO3

Yowza! My personal soap calc is coming up with a -43% lye "discount" with AnnaMarie's recipe. The old soap makers would have "boiled and salted" this soap to remove the excess lye, but AnnaMarie's experience clearly shows this soap can be fine as a CP soap if the maker has the patience to let the CO2 do its magic. 

edit: I want to add that the old industrial soap makers knew that lye-heavy soap, which was pretty common back then, did become milder with time. But time is money, so they generally didn't cure soap long. They often deliberately sold lye-heavy soap (but NOT this lye heavy!) for laundry and general household use. end edit.

I don't think this recipe would be something I'd unleash on a beginner or someone who doesn't have sufficient patience. I also don't think I'd use this "give it time" approach for a soap that was poorly made -- for example, one that had layers of lye-heavy liquid and oil-heavy soap.

AnnaMarie -- Would you share the link to the SoapQueen post about the recipe? Pretty please?


----------



## QueenBeeSoap

I found the blog post on Soap Queen that I think AnnaMarie is talking about at http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-b...ference-guest-post-kevin-dunn-aka-dr-mcsoapy/.

Here's the part that talks about Dunn's research on lye heavy soap (BTW... love how they refer to him as "Dr. McSoapy"!):

"Dr. McSoapy told us about some of his research.*One very interesting finding he shared concerns lye heavy soap.*You may have read/heard that cold process soap gets milder over time.*To test this idea, *Dr. McSoapy and his team did an experiment on a lye heavy soap and showed us the results.A soap started out lye heavy (can you say ouch?) when it was poured. *I don’t remember the exact pH, but it had too much lye in it.*After 24 hours, the soap was still lye heavy.*However, after 11 weeks, the soap had a pH level very close to normal for soap.*The pH was at a safe level.*He explained that this happens because the CO2 reacts with the leftover lye to eat it up.*Well, those may not have been his exact words, but that’s what my brain heard.Anyway, it was very interesting to me that in a relatively short amount of time, a*lye heavy soap would become a safe soap.*The conditions in which the soap cured may have an effect on how quickly the soap becomes safe.If you end up with a lye heavy soap, be sure to check the pH if you plan to use it.*If you make soap from scratch, you know the drill.*Every soap may not reach a safe level within 11 weeks as the experimental soap did."


----------



## DeeAnna

Sounds like I'm on the same wavelength as Dunn. Good!


----------



## AnnaMarie

Thank you Deanna for chiming in and reaffirming Kevin Dunn's statements. Queen Bee Soap has given you the link to the blog post featuring Kevin Dunn, and now I'm going to share the link for the actual recipe in question:
http://spanishjourneys.com/oliveme/2009/06/08/make-your-own-pure-castille-soap/
I discovered this recipe several years back when I was newer to soap making, but after I made it I became educated in lye heavy, super fat, etc. and I moved on past castile. However, I never forgot THAT soap. Well, I came back to it and decided to experiment using varied water and oil levels, but always with the appropriate lye amount- a big fat nothing. I REALLY hate gooey castile and even my 3 or 4 year old castile still got gooey (yes, I kept it out of water and on a draining dish, etc).  It never made sense to me how great this soap was (and might I mention that I added peppermint eo to it which only added to its awesomeness), and yet the ever clear warning of lye heavy soaps. Sigh.... Then recently I read this blog post and the light went on. I made 2 batches which have been sitting in all their glory in my soap area in the shop.  They formed lots of lye crystals within a couple of days, but now a month later many of them are gone.  I plan to give these a good long cure (like a year) and then test the ph. 
Maybe one or more of you will try it out? 
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## DeeAnna

I found the same recipe at these sites:
http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_6942346_make-pure-castile-soap.html with attribution to spanishjourneys.com
http://peapodriot.blogspot.com/2010/10/basil-pure-olive-oil-castile-soap.html without any attribution

I'm taken aback that the spanishjourneys.com recipe and the ehow.com recipe (clearly adapted from the spanishjourneys version) say to use this soap after 2 weeks of cure. I wonder if either of these authors actually tried this recipe per instructions? 

I also wonder how many people used either of these recipes for their first ... and very likely their last ... soaping experience? Like, really, think about it -- how many of us were totally able to wait TWO WHOLE WEEKS before trying out our VERY FIRST SOAP? 

Okay, so now that I've gotten that off my chest ... I'm intrigued. But I also find myself wondering if this huge 40% or so lye-excess is necessary? I gather from your trials that a positive lye discount (superfat) or a zero lye discount results in gooey castile. But what about -5% or -20% or ???  What do you think, AnnaMarie?


----------



## FlybyStardancer

I'm also curious, DeeAnna!

And the science behind the long cure for how the lye-heavy soap gets milder made me think... What would happen if you skipped the huge lye excess and replaced some or all of it with washing soda instead?? Would it harden up the same way, or would you get a sloppy mess the way you would adding baking soda?

...Now I really want to find some washing soda so I could try it out.


----------



## AnnaMarie

DeeAnna, Haha! Even then I knew better then to use soap that soon!  I'm a patient person  so I waited- no burns and stuff like that.  And yes, I now look at this recipe as the height of soaping irresponsibility.  I may have tried using less lye in previous experiments, but I can't remember. I primarily focused on different water percentages. I can't explain it, but this recipe just works.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I think I'll go take a picture of it and post it for you. Hang on...


----------



## AnnaMarie

I see that the lye crystals are gone and just soda ash is left (I always get this with castile).

Here's another picture of the soap

While I was taking a picture I saw another batch of castile I made recently that I remembered was lye heavy, but not as heavy as this recipe, but it got the goo-factor after use.


----------



## grayceworks

Wow. How interesting. LOL, I see everyone got there before me, but yeah, first thing I did when I read the first post was run it through soapcalc and see the -43% SF. lol. And the 6.35:1 Water:Lye ratio. Lots of water. 

DeeAnna, I am learning soooo much chemistry listening to you.  
You mention that it eventually turns into sodium carbonate, which is washing soda -- seems like it would be a good soap for using in hard water? 

Wikipedia says sodium carbonate is also good for taking out wine stains... and blood stains... and ummm for cleaning stuff off of bones... not that I actually have any use for that last bit of info.... 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_carbonate#Uses


----------



## CaraBou

grayceworks said:


> Wikipedia says sodium carbonate is also good for taking out wine stains... and blood stains... and ummm for cleaning stuff off of bones... not that I actually have any use for that last bit of info....



Sounds like a great product for murder and mayhem!  And no goo afterward, either!


----------



## DeeAnna

Pretty much all of the sodium carbonate on the soap made with this recipe will be on the surface of the bar, so you'd need to use a fresh bar when you want to clean bones, Grayce.  

Observation 1. AnnaMarie mentioned the need to wait for true trace: "...This one becomes a vanilla pudding when it traces- right away. You have to be careful because it seems like it might have traced before this, but it hasn't.... The soap mixture starts to rice heavily and then all of a sudden you have this thick, rich looking soap batter...."

Observation 2. "...I came back to [this lye-heavy recipe] and decided to experiment using varied water and oil levels, but always with the appropriate lye amount- a big fat nothing. I REALLY hate gooey castile and even my 3 or 4 year old castile still got gooey (yes, I kept it out of water and on a draining dish, etc). It never made sense to me how great this soap was..."

These clues make me suspect the abundance of lye and water is driving saponification of fats and reacting with other chemical components in the olive oil that do not react easily in a recipe with less water and/or lye. An excess of specific reactants (the lye and water, in this case) will drive a chemical reaction toward the desired end point (non-gooey Castile).

Observation 3. Look at AnnaMarie's pics, especially the one in Post 24. The soap is clearly ashy on all surfaces including the cut faces. Coupled with the first two clues, I suspect adding sodium carbonate to a lye-balanced recipe might not end up with the same kind of soap as she gets with her lye-heavy recipe.

Once the initial reaction is over, there's that secondary reaction required to convert the excess lye into washing soda (aka soda ash). Remember I mentioned the CO2 needs water to turn into carbonic acid first? An abundance of water would drive the conversion of CO2 into carbonic acid. The excess water would also promote the migration of the NaOH from the interior of the bars to the surface where it can be neutralized into washing soda. 

If you just mixed washing soda into a lye-balanced or superfatted soap, the washing soda would remain in the soap as a more-or-less inert ingredient. With AnnaMarie's soap, the washing soda ends up on the surface of the soap where it quickly washes away, leaving a bar of non-gooey Castile behind. 

I'm starting to feel like Sherlock.  

Please don't take my ramblings as gospel truth. I have no way to prove these ideas, so take 'em with a grain of salt, err, soap.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I'm not a scientist, but after enough experimenting it is clear that a lot of water and a lot of lye create the desired product.  The only problem with this recipe is putting it in the hands of newbies or irresponsible and impatient soapers. I would definitely NOT use this soap after only a few weeks, nor would I necessarily use this same formula for other soaps, but then I don't need to. This recipe is my perfect castile, and now with learning that the excess lye will get eaten up I'm excited to see the results of my ph testing and possible opportunities to sell this down the road. Thank you DeeAnna for weighing in on this. I appreciate you!
Cheers!
Anna Marie
PS- Grayceworks, I'm thinking you have the same love of murder mysteries I do . Read Edgar Allen Poe by any chance or better yet Wilkie Collins (his Woman in White is the best!)


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Now I'm pondering variations! Could some of the water be replaced with another liquid to get the same effect? What about heaters? FOs? Colorants?

And just what is the weight value of 1 qt of OO anyways?


----------



## AnnaMarie

FlybyStardancer said:


> Now I'm pondering variations! Could some of the water be replaced with another liquid to get the same effect? What about heaters? FOs? Colorants?
> 
> And just what is the weight value of 1 qt of OO anyways?



Nothing like experimenting to find out....


----------



## FlybyStardancer

lol I don't have enough time or materials to test all of my ideas! :crazy:


----------



## The Efficacious Gentleman

Just wondering again on the time scales involved - a 3 month cure for a castile is not unheard of, but how long does it take for this process to finish?  Clearly, not two weeks!


----------



## cmzaha

Well I had to go for it after stating even I would not go so lye heavy. To horrors of a lot of people I do not superfat my soaps using soap calc or with manual configuring. I simply do not like superfatted soap, and neither does my plumbing, and I am sure using soap calc at 0 there are still some unsaponified fats. I did tweak the recipe a tad and only did a -30 superfat and used a 38% lye concentation using pomace. Sorry I did not go with my normal 40% lye concentration with Olive Oil soap. I am planning on aging this for a min of 6 months.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I like your spirit!

I am going to test mine at intervals using the ph liquid stuff (I don't know the name) just to test the excess lye being "eaten up". I pretty much planned on aging it a year, but I'm going to see how it goes. You'll have to fill me in on your batch.
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## cmzaha

Thanks AnnaMarie. Always so much to try and so little time! Phenolphthalein is what is used for testing


----------



## DeeAnna

I'm getting ready to make some tonight. What I plan to do is cut my usual size soap bars and let them age. I don't do pH testing, but I will test for zap and moisture loss. I also want to cut some of the bars apart and test the center. My guess is the center will stay more zappy than the surface, but I'm curious if my guess is true or if the center becomes less zappy at about the same rate as the outside.

If you're going to test for pH, be sure to wash off the ash first -- it will skew your results.

I've been reading yet another of the old soapmaking manuals; this one is from 1884. I was wondering if I might glean some tidbits that might be useful with AnnaMarie's recipe. Didn't really find anything, but the author has some interesting comments on olive oil and Castile soap:

"...Olive-oil is frequently adulterated with poppy and other oils. These are distinguished by not congealing at the same temperature as olive-oil, and also by retaining air, when shaken up, more readily than pure olive-oil. If 5 percent of any other oil be present, the consolidation is slower and less firm, but if 12 percent of foreign oil be mixed with it, this floats on the surface for several days. Oils of poppy, sesame, rapeseed, or cocoa-nut may be thus recognised when mixed with olive-oil....

"...Castile or Olive-oil Soap is considered the type of all hard soaps, and when made from pure materials is white, emollient (from _emollier_, to soften), and is almost entirely free from odour. It is unquestionably the best known soap.... As formerly made, this soap was exceedingly hard and brittle, but the introduction of other ingredients, as the oils of hempseed, linseed, and poppy, for example, render the soap less disagreeably hard, while at the same time reducing the cost of manufacture...."

This author doesn't appear to make much distinction between a pure olive oil soap and a mostly olive oil soap. Reading between the lines, there has been a lot of "bastile" sold as Castile for well over 100 years and perhaps for as long as olive oil soap has been around. 

Also, the bolded passage is especially interesting. A fair number of people report their Castile soap as being very soft and difficult to unmold, while others report freshly made Castile as being very firm to hard. I suspect the difference is the soft gooey soaps are made from adulterated "olive" oil.


----------



## cmzaha

I am curious to see if the water discount is going to make a large difference. It just might. It can always be rebatched with more water if this plan fails. I might make one more batch with the full quart of water and see what happens. Never know if you don't try...


----------



## Lin

Huh! Interesting that in 1884 they had the same problem we are STILL having today with olive oil adulteration. 

And.... I waited 4 weeks to test my first ever soap. I did test some lather with gloved hands using scraps after cutting the bars though.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I did the zap test the day after and there was no zap, but a REALLY bad kind of burning taste. A recent zap test resulted similar, but lessened sensation. I planned on cutting in half myself down the road to test the middle. Thanks for the info on the soda ash as I did not know it would impact results. This is fun! - a group experiment!
Cheers!
Anna Marie

Btw- I should have added that I really insulate this one to get a full gel- like several towels insulate. It also seems to sweat out some of the water. I know the original recipe doesn't necessarily do that, but I think the full gel is good for this soap (IMO).
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## Lin

or maybe


----------



## AnnaMarie

That is AWESOME!


----------



## Lin

*pictures provided by google*


----------



## DeeAnna

Well, that was an interesting experience. AnnaMarie, your recipe takes the cake for the oddest soap I've ever made so far. I tweaked the numbers a bit to make the ingredients easier to weigh out in grams. Here are my notes and observations:

Recipe (using my personal soap recipe calculator, so the numbers are going to be slightly different than SoapCalc):
1000 g extra virgin olive oil (supposedly)
195 g NaOH
1195 g water split into 195 g (equal to the NaOH weight) and 1000 g (equal to the total oil weight)

approximate lye excess: 40% more NaOH than required for a zero lye discount
approximate NaOH solution concentration: 16% overall
scented with wild mint EO (basically a milder version of peppermint), based on AnnaMarie's suggestion

Mixed the NaOH with an equal weight of water to make a 50% NaOH base solution. Added the rest of the water to the oil. When the lye solution was completely dissolved but still hot, added it to the oil-water mix and briefly stick blended to mix. Initial temperature of the batter was 110 deg F. Temperature dropped slowly throughout the mixing period to 93 deg F. (There was no temp rise as I normally see in my regular soap recipes.) I mixed the batter with a stick blender (SB) and spatula -- about 30 seconds of SB and about 5 minutes of gentle hand stirring, etc. 

10 minutes: Slightly thickened and smooth with a shiny surface texture.
20 minutes: Thin gravy with a slightly grainy texture. Surface sheen was satiny.
30 minutes: Gravy consistency with a grainy texture -- a bit like curdled custard. This is starting to get boring, but I'm seeing progress. Just slow.
40 minutes: Batter continuing to thicken. Grainy texture is increasing. Seems slightly gelatinous. There is a layer of watery liquid on the bottom.* This has definitely gotten boring.
41 minutes: Started to SB as usual, but the batter changed in seconds from grainy, dull, and curdled looking to dollops of gelatinous, shiny soap separated by and floating on a watery liquid. I'm suddenly wide awake and not remotely bored anymore.
43 minutes: Stick blended some more and ended up with a smooth, thick, shiny soap layer floating on a watery liquid layer. I'm starting to worry about that watery layer -- will it eventually mix into the soap? Definitely a hint of anxiety floating in the back of my mind.
47 minutes: Continued to stir and SB as best as I can. The soap and watery layers are beginning to blend together into a thick, shiny pudding-y mass. Whew!! I decide to keep mixing until I'm sure the batter is well mixed, because it's staying surprisingly pourable and loose.
51 minutes: Poured nicely into a loaf mold. I CPOP'ed the soap -- put it into the oven preheated to 170 deg F. The soap looked like thick, shiny, lemon-yellow pudding. I did not see any hint of separation when I poured the batter.
2 hours: Temp has risen a bit after an hour in the oven from about 93 to 94.5 deg F. Left the oven on for a bit longer. The texture of the soap is soft but more like cold mashed potatoes now. If the soap is poked with a toothpick, the hole doesn't fill in.

* I couldn't see or feel this water layer; I just wondered if it was there because this recipe has so very much water in it. To find out, I pushed a small disposable pipette down to the bottom of my soap pot and sucked up some of the liquid. Pulled the pipette up, wiped off the outside, and compared the liquid in the pipette with the soap layer on top of the pot. Yep, there was a watery layer there. I did this several times after my first check at 40 minutes. All checks showed a watery layer until the last check I did right before the pour.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I do take SB breaks while blending this because it takes awhile. I'm glad your patience held out  Your experience is very similar to mine, and I personally find the end result satisfying when the curdled batter comes together so thick and nice   Fill me in when you unmold. Mine is like a loaf of smooth, white cheese.
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## newbie

Good God, this took forever! How did you even get yours to finally trace at 40-50 minutes?! I SB'ed a fair amount but the motor was getting so hot that finally after over an hour, I had to SB and then go away and leave it for 5-10 minutes and then comes back and SB for a few minutes and go away etc... IT finally separated and came together after 3 stinking hours!!! I wasn't prepared for how workable it was so after I poured, I thought I may as well do a swirl so it went back in the pot for some color and spoon swirl. If I ever do this again, I'm using plumeria or something like that. 

This reminded me very much of laundry soap which uses a lot of water and you blend it three times a day. The soap will form on top and then magically on day three, the whole thing blends together and the entire bucket turns into a snowy white mass of soft soap. 

Now to see if I can get a gel. This is really fascinating. Thanks, Anne Marie for the post and taking a chance on putting up a really lye-heavy recipe. I imagine you might have felt a touch of trepidation but this has been extremely interesting.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Wow! It took that long for a trace?!? That's some patience you have! I'm really impressed! What wattage is your SB? I have found that not all SB's are created equal. I originally started out with a hand mixer- lol! It's not fast, but faster then hand stirring! My fastest SB was an Oster that was 250 watts. I would get a trace in about 15 sec. Now I'm down to a more humble 200 watts with my cuisinart and my traces take about 1-2 min. However, this recipe takes me about 20-30 min, but I really didn't watch the clock closely, so I'll time next time 
I have to say this whole thread has kept me entertained as I have been down with a nasty cold and don't have much energy right now, but I have to rally for Monday morning here....I've been glad to discuss this with others because I was really interested in some other perspectives on this one. I am very curious to see the results of the "group experiment". I feel like I'm back in a college lab class- lol!
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## grayceworks

FlybyStardancer said:


> And just what is the weight value of 1 qt of OO anyways?


 
30.98oz. 



AnnaMarie said:


> PS- Grayceworks, I'm thinking you have the same love of murder mysteries I do
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> . Read Edgar Allen Poe by any chance or better yet Wilkie Collins (his Woman in White is the best!)


 
Have read Poe, love murder mysteries. Love Sherlock Holmes stories, of course. 

Used to love watching Quincy Jones MD on tv. And Columbo.


----------



## cmzaha

I am going to unmold mine tomorrow, cut it put on the top rack and check on it in a couple of months, will be interesting to find out how the water discount affected it. LOL, mine traced in less than 10 minutes, but pomace does tend to trace quicker. Thinking I just might wear gloves to cut this loaf  especially since I did not let it gel and I know it is going to be really really zappy!
Decided to cut it now and glad I did. It already hard. LOL did not wear gloves. going to put these babies on the top shelf of the rack and forget about them


----------



## The Efficacious Gentleman

This is a very interesting thread!  Looking forward to seeing how it all works out


----------



## engblom

Regarding the blending time:

I once made a fully boiled lye heavy castile with a lot of water (with intention to salt it out). As noticed in this thread, a lot of excess of water will take a long time to trace. Also, there are a lot of difficulties to keep it from separating.

If I would need to do it again I would use normal amount of water, mix to trace, let it thicken a bit and then gradually add the excess of water keeping it at trace all the time. The reaction is just slower if a good share of the lye is lying under the oils not doing anything and occationally mixed up. By keeping it at trace, all of the lye is staying among the oils keeping the reacting going.

Oh, and as said by AnnaMarie, the end result was not the typical slimy castile. Even though I do not know if that was because of the salting out or not. It has quite a bit of salt as all liquid was saturated with salt during the salting out process.


----------



## DeeAnna

Update on my soap:

Another hour in the oven at 170 deg F and the soap came to full gel. Turned off the oven, and left the soap in the oven overnight. 

This morning my oven was very clean, at least in spots. Some of the water phase had separated from the soap phase. It was dripping out of my wood mold and making brown, watery caustic puddles on the floor of the oven. I took the mold out of the oven and am letting it drain into my sink instead. edit: The brown color of the water was color leached from my wood mold. The watery stuff as it is coming from the soap is clear, like water. end edit.

The soap is very soft, not remotely ready to come out of the mold, but it's still a pretty lemon-pudding color. There's a thick layer of white ash on the top -- no surprise.

In hindsight, it's possible the soap came to gel too soon with the CPOP method, causing the separation to happen. I'm not discouraged; it's all part of learning. I'll let it continue to drain and see what happens. The bright side is that the drainage is removing a fair bit of lye from the soap.

One of the internet links about this soap mentions this tendency for the soap to weep. I don't know if my soap is gently weeping exactly -- it's a bit more like an annoyingly leaky faucet.  

AnnaMarie -- You have only insulated the soap, not CPOP'ed it. What has been your experience as far as initial softness, separation, and the weeping with this recipe?

cmzaha -- You said you used a 38% lye concentration for your "Uber Lye Heavy" soap. Just want to confirm that you used more of a "normal" water concentration for CP soap, rather than the large excess of water called for in the original recipe. Am I following you correctly?


----------



## AnnaMarie

I can't really speak to its condition during gel because I bundle it up so good and leave it alone only to maybe stick my hand under the towels a while later to feel the sides of the mold for the tell tale heat that indicates that the soap is indeed starting to gel. I leave it for a day and then cut. As I wrote earlier it is like a loaf of smooth cheese- cuts very well. There is maybe a thin layer of water surrounding the soap, but nothing brown. After it is cut it is business as usual with a lot of lye crystals and soda ash.
Cheers!
Anna Marie



cmzaha said:


> I am going to unmold mine tomorrow, cut it put on the top rack and check on it in a couple of months, will be interesting to find out how the water discount affected it. LOL, mine traced in less than 10 minutes, but pomace does tend to trace quicker. Thinking I just might wear gloves to cut this loaf  especially since I did not let it gel and I know it is going to be really really zappy!
> Decided to cut it now and glad I did. It already hard. LOL did not wear gloves. going to put these babies on the top shelf of the rack and forget about them




Pretty color! So yours set up quick? That's interesting, and I'm curious about that!

Did anybody happen to weigh their cut bars?


----------



## DeeAnna

I'm planning to follow the weight loss of the bars, if that's your thought, AnnaMarie. My soap isn't ready to unmold yet.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I am curious, and I wish I would have thought to weigh mine initially because it is clear they have "shrunk". I could probably work backwards and take a guesstimate though. I might even make another batch  -in the interest of science of course 
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## DeeAnna

Been babysitting my soap on and off during the day (I have a home based business), and I can say for sure that CPOP is NOT the way to go with this recipe. Definitely not up to my usual standards and expectations.  But sometimes ya gotta learn the hard way.

"...I might even make another batch -in the interest of science of course..."

I'm heading that direction myself. In the interests of science as well. Gotta keep earning those "superhero CEUs" or they might revoke my cape.


----------



## newbie

This follows with your experience, DeeAnna. 

I put half of my batch in a loaf mold and half in individual molds and put them inthe oven at 170. About 30 minutes in, I checked to find the individual bars completely utterly separated and the loaf mold on its way, with separation onteh top but through the oil, I could see batter still. I dumped the loaf mold batter back into the bowl and SB'ed it and it came together nicely. Remolded. 

The individual ones were a mess. I managed to dump it all back in the pot and blended for a very very long time, cursing the whole way because it was 1 in the morning and I'm stuck in a cold kitchen in my pajamas with this dumb soap. It was finely grainy and ricing. Blended and blended. Cooled it off in a bowl of cold water and blended and blended. IT finally seemed to go back to pudding but I didn't feel completely confident that it was what it was supposed to be so I blended some more. It seemed pudding like and was holding bubbles, so I dumped it in a loaf mold. Both went back in the cool oven for holding, so a cat wouldn't get near it.

Tonight, the one that had partly separated is very hard and a touch brittle at the bottom of the cuts. It did cut okay otherwise. THe other one is soft to the touch and when I pick up the mold, I can feel the soft give onthe bottom. It is nowhere near unmolding. No leaking or weeping, just way too soft. They are like completely different soaps. I can't compare otherwise since I can't get the other out yet but the difference is astonishing. I wonder if I didn't get the completely separated ones back together as thoroughly. Does that even make sense?


----------



## AnnaMarie

I'm getting the distinct impression that this recipe although simple to make is very particular to method. I won't ever try to CPOP this one. I think I'm going to make it again tomorrow and take careful notes this time for our grand experiment. I also want to weigh the bars and keep track of water loss. I tried to find the phenol stuff today, but I think I'll have to order it. You gals are good sports:clap::clap:

Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## DeeAnna

Yes, I understand where you're coming from, Newbie! Once an emulsion breaks, it can be hard to fix it back again. I've noticed this with my lotion making too, so pat yourself on the back for having given your all, given the difficult situation. Give the softer soap a little more time to firm up, perhaps?

I gingerly removed my soap from the mold several hours ago and actually got it cut a little while ago. If you'd asked me earlier in the day if I would be cutting bars tonight, I would have laughed and shook my head. So much for me being able to anticipate what this soap is going to do! 

The unmolding and cutting went okay, but the appearance of the soap varies quite a bit. It's not the prettiest soap I've ever seen -- it's rather homely, in fact. The the outer shell of the loaf is opaque, light yellow, and relatively firm. The center of the loaf is darker, more translucent, and still relatively soft, as you can see in the pics. I sometimes see a drop or two of liquid oozing from the translucent sections and that is leaving voids in the soap (visible in the pics as well). 

The soap bars are clammy cold tonight, which is quite different than my usual soaps. The water in these bars is evaporating fast in my winter-dry house. I need to get them weighed before bedtime to keep my promise to AnnaMarie.

What I do find interesting is the soap is not zappy at 24 hours after being made. I think it has some excess alkalinity because there's an odd tingle (AnnaMarie -- didn't you mention this too?), but I'm not getting a really-truly unmistakable zap to say it's seriously alkaline.

I think a little more practice is required before I can say I really know how to make this recipe. But I learned one thing -- CPOP is definitely out! I think the emulsion is barely stable at warmish room temps, and just can't handle CPOP's 170 degrees. I really didn't think of that last night, but it seems so obvious today. Engblom's suggestion to saponify the oil with the 50:50 lye:water solution to trace and then slowly add the extra water might be a way to help the emulsion remain stable -- much like making homemade mayonnaise or Hollandaise sauce.

"...I'm getting the distinct impression that this recipe although simple to make is very particular to method...."

Yep, I agree! I'm enjoying myself -- thanks for getting this started, AnnaMarie. Great fun!


----------



## newbie

I weighed all the bars from my good loaf and recorded them. 

I went to look again at my other loaf and found the bogginess on the bottom was a bunch of lye water. I released it and will just let the loaf sit since I don't have anything else to do with it. I don't know if it will resorb or what will happen. Should I drain it off?

Yes, I think CPOP is a very bad idea for this recipe. Perhaps the large amount of water has something to do with it. I'm glad at least half of my recipe is okay so I can see how to goes with time.

Oops, I didn't see your reply before I started typing mine, DeeAnna. The softish reblended soap is actually firmer than it was a hour ago. I have to figure out what I want to do with the water, which I tested and it was zappy but not as zappy as an ungelled bar of soap even. This is so strange!


----------



## AnnaMarie

You read right- no zap here.  ????  I wonder about why that is?  I'm not a chemist, but since the lye is so diluted as opposed to being closer to saturated if that doesn't have an effect on this zap thing?  Hmmmm.. All food for thought!


----------



## DeeAnna

"...Should I drain it off?..."

I let my soap drain freely. The water is going to leave sooner or later, so why not sooner?

"... it was zappy but not as zappy as an ungelled bar of soap even. This is so strange!..."

Too true. This is one weird soap.

Well, one of the questions that came to me as I was stirring and stirring and stirring that soap last night ... what's the purpose of all that water? It doesn't make sense from a soapmaking point of view as I normally do soapmaking. As I mused on this question, I had a quick mental picture of water running and this came to me:

Chemicals naturally diffuse (move) from places where there's a lot of the chemical to places where there is less. In the case of a soap bar, water will diffuse from the wetter interior to the drier surface, and then the water will evaporate into the open air as long as the humidity is reasonably low. In the case of this particular soap, there is a LOT of water to evaporate, so the rate of diffusion is going to be fairly high compared with a "normal" soap. The excess sodium hydroxide will be dissolved in the migrating water and that means the lye will go wherever the water goes. 

When the water carries the lye to the surface of the bar, the lye can't evaporate ... but it can react with carbon dioxide to make that soda ash we talked about earlier. So the diffusion of all that water to the surface of the soap might be an important way of quickly reducing the excess alkalinity in the soap. 

The ash on top of my loaf was impressive by the end of today -- so thick it was crusty and flaking off. I zap tested a bit of the ash and it was zap free.


----------



## newbie

In trying to drain it, it came out of the mold. The top is soft and spongy and the bottom is hard but not crumbling. I think I have a case of the lye precipitating down and causing the lye gradient type soap. The top has a few areas that lightly zap, which might just be from the lye water, but the bottom half of the bar is quite zappy; my tongue is still feeling it. I will still keep it to compare with the other loaf.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I'm going to make a batch tomorrow. I'm still trying to kick this crud- it's finally going away  and I really was not at my shining brightest today roblem:roblem:


----------



## newbie

But why no zap on day one? The lye hasn't had a chance, before unmolding, to react with the air much or any more than an ungelled bar does, at least in a silicone mold, I would think. Wood might breathe more but would that much water be moving and that much lye reacting that there is no zap with this bar, but there is with an ungelled bar? The dilution factor may be part of it, but is it really so dilute that your tongue can't pick up zap from a 40% lye heavy bar?


----------



## engblom

I made a 70% olive oil, 30% laurel berry oil soap in a slightly similar way yesterday. I put 80% of the oils weight with water and -20% SF.

I got it to a nice tick trace and thought it will succeed without any leaking. But no, after it has been reaching some kind of gelling it was leaking a lot of fluid. The whole soap behaved identically to how soap is behaving when salting out. The water was saturated with something and regardless of how I tried with stick blender to mix it back in, it was impossible.

The stick blender was not even getting dirty. It was clean each time I took it up as nothing was happening. I had the crude soap floating on the surface and the impuritites in the water (now brown in color). It was a total separation because some kind of saturation. My pH papers do not get higher than 11, and it showed the highest pH for the fluid.

As I anyway planned to salt out later, I added a lot of water to see what would happen once it is not saturated anymore. Now with more water I could mix it to an even batter. No separation took place anymore after I added the water. The stick blender now got dirty too.

What was saturating the water, I really wonder?


----------



## AnnaMarie

There is a separation when this gets close to trace for me. It looks like it's ricing and there are little blobs of soap floating in lye liquid. Eventually, it comes together. Something different is happening as opposed to "normal" soap. I wonder if the olive oil is so saturated with water and lye that this is the reaction. Maybe the trick is to create the right circumstances for a sort of emulsion to take place, holding the water in??? I've been googling what happens to lye as you add more water as well. If the olive oil has already been saturated with lye and there's extra water and lye then what is that doing? I'm just rambling here...


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Okay, currently making a scaled down version of this Castile with milk powder and honey. I added the powder and honey to the water that matched the oils, heated it up slightly to get it to mix together, then added it to the oils and emulsified everything together before adding the lye water. Took awhile to thicken up, but the emulsion hasn't broken, and over 40 min later I'm still waiting for it to rice, and it's pretty thick. I'm probably going to do my colors soon and mold it if something doesn't change in the next couple of minutes.

ETA: Literally less than a minute after I posted this it rices, and badly. lol My stick blender barely got through the process of getting it back together and smooth! More info when I can post my pic.

Okay, here's more info. I tweaked values in SoapCalc until it matched the original recipe, and then scaled it down to 531g of OO (it was supposed to be 500, but I forgot to subtract the amount I was using to pre-dissolve the colorants when I weighed out the rest of the batch). Into the larger amount of water I added 1 Tbsp of honey (22g) and 1/3 cup milk powder (35g, enough to make 1 cup of milk, which was roughly half of what I was dissolving it into). Then I heated those in the microwave for 30 seconds, just enough to get the water, milk powder, and honey to all mix together. Then that was added to the oil and SB'd into an emulsion. Then the lye water was added... It turned a bright butternut squash-y yellow-orange and started to heat up. After about 30 minutes the heat had dissipated and the color turned a bit lighter and creamier. Then after 40+ minutes it riced and when it came back together, it was too thick for my stick blender. I could hear it making that whine when it's starting to not be able to blend. 

So as soon as it was back together I separated off about a third and mixed in WSP's red-orange oil mica that had been pre-mixed in OO, and some titanium dioxide pre-mixed in OO in the rest. I hand-mixed these with spoons because I didn't want to risk my stick blender's motor any more. I chose the mica as the accent color because it's supposed to morph orange in high pHs. It seemed to only do a slight shift in color, not as much as I expected from the warning. Maybe it'll change as the pH of the soap fluctuates. Anyways, here's a pic of the slab! (The glass tray is lined with first plastic wrap, and then freezer paper was put in as a sling.) I did a sort-of Taiwain swirl, even though the batter was WAY too thick for it! lol The lower right corner is the closest to true color.


----------



## grayceworks

So, you're using the mica like a mood ring for your soap?


----------



## FlybyStardancer

lol Kinda! I just thought it would be interesting to see how and how much it would morph.


----------



## grayceworks

I think it's a cool idea.    Hmmm... mood ring soap... do they have heat sensitive micas? I wonder...


----------



## Tienne

*Just thinking aloud....*

On the page with the original recipe it says:

_"Then add the lye solution to the olive oil and water base,stirring in a bit at a time, and again using great care. Stir the mixture with a long wooden spoon, mixing always in the same direction, until it thickens to the consistency of a thick bechamel — this can take some time. "_

I wonder if those things are important as to keeping the emulsification in tact. What do they mean precisely by saying to mix it "using great care"? Do they mean stirring very slowly? Or is it just the usual "lye safety yada yada"? I also remember having read about always stirring in the same direction before and kind of chuckled at the time, thinking it was just some superstitious wives tale kind of thing, but I've since seen it several times in different places, (It seems to always be associated with old timer recipes.) I'm starting to wonder if it in fact does have a purpose. There has to be a reason besides just "hocus pocus superstition" for doing it that way. Maybe it aligns some molecules in some special way. The page doesn't mention anything about the ricing effect at trace and you'd think they would, if it's that pronounced. Maybe they don't experience it at all! Hmm.

Edit: The original page also says;

_"Turn out the soap, slice it into bars, and wrap in parchment paper to cure for another two weeks before using."_

That has got to mean something, too. Wouldn't that slow down the rate at which the soap came into contact with free moving air and hence CO2 and wouldn't it also slow down evaporation?

Sorry if it seems like I'm a nitpicker. It all may not mean a thing, but I always tend to think of those kinds of clues and bits of information as meaning something, especially when the soap is as weird as this one is. Why else would they make a point of saying it?


----------



## engblom

I have read some articles about old time soap making. This with stirring in the same direction and other really strange things, like taking the moon phase into account, comes from the superstition existing at that time. They lacked real knowledge and came up with their own ideas of why something failed or succeeded.


----------



## DeeAnna

Okay, there might be another issue to consider, and that is the lye concentration. Here's some background to help me make my point:

The old soap makers "boiled" a soap batch with various concentrations of lye, then "salted" it out to separate the finished "grained" soap from the "leys" (their name for the lye-water solution). Remember they didn't have stick blenders in those days -- just a "crutch" or "rake". These were industrial-size stirring devices that weren't too efficient, compared with a SB. A guy stood above a huge soap kettle for hours crutching the soap batter and controlling the fire under the kettle. To make the fats and leys easier to combine, they used various densities of lye solution. They generally started the soap with a watery less-dense lye and finished it with a concentrated heavy lye. More lye = dense, heavy solution = harder to combine with the fats and young soap. 

To finish the soap, they separated the soap from the leys by "salting out" to deliberately change the solubility of the soap in the leys. Common table salt is not the only thing that will "salt out" a soap. Just changing the lye concentration will do it too. If the NaOH concentration is just right, the soap curds and the lye water become immiscible. I know that seems weird because soap is supposed to dissolve in water, right? But add lye or common table salt to the water in the right amounts, and things change dramatically.

I think this is what's going on as we try this recipe out. Some of us are getting a stable emulsion in the batter when it comes to trace and some are not. What's the difference?

"...80% of the oils weight with water... I added a lot of water... Now with more water I could mix it to an even batter..."

What Engblom did was to reduce the NaOH concentration and tilt the conditions toward emulsification of the soap and water phases. The initial batter had less water than AnnaMarie's recipe ... no stable emulsion ... add water ... emulsion becomes more stable.

"...There is a separation when this gets close to trace for me.... Eventually, it comes together.... Maybe the trick is to create the right circumstances for a sort of emulsion to take place, holding the water in???..."

Yep, I think you're on the right track, AnnaMarie. From the old soap makers books and Engblom's experience, I suspect the abundance of water -- about 1 quart of water per 1 quart of olive oil -- is absolutely critical to success. My theory is the dilute lye concentration allows an emulsion will form that is stable enough to not weep or break. Either use lye that is this dilute or use lye that is much more concentrated (a "normal" soap recipe), but don't use an in-between concentration.

I also think reasonably cool temps might be important too, based on Newbie and my experience with CPOP. The temperature of my batter started out about 110 deg F (43 C) but cooled considerably . When I poured it into the mold, it was only 93 F (34 C). An hour after molding the batter had only warmed to 95 F (35 C) and seemed fine -- it was holding its shape and there was no weeping. Heat it up in the oven and the soap returns to very soft and starts to weep -- obviously the emulsion broke.

What do y'all think?


----------



## DeeAnna

Wrapping in parchment paper? Remember, parchment paper in my grandmother's day was not the impervious silicone-coated product we use nowadays. It was more breathable. I'm betting the paper wrapping was as much to protect people as it was to protect the soap. My soap isn't exactly zapping hard, but it isn't skin safe either. I'd not want people handling it without some protection.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I'm very curious to know the results of adding the same amount of lye to different amounts of water and what effect diluting has (if any). I'm still trying to find that answer...

I'm going to make a batch in a little bit here and take photos and notes of the process to post. I also ordered some pheno-whatever to test ph of this soap.


----------



## seven

interesting points, Tienne. nothing mentioned about using a SB, and the site clearly picture this lady with a huge wooden spoon stirring the soap


----------



## DeeAnna

Engblom, in your original recipe you used "...80% of the oils weight with water...". 

Was that the total amount of water you originally used in the recipe? 

Also, do you have an idea of how much more water you added later on?

Just checking to make sure -- I'm wanting to figure out where the "sweet spot" is for the water content.

The recipe I followed had a total of 120% water to 100% of oils -- 1195 g water total, 1000 g oil. Of that total water, 195 g went into the 50% lye solution and 1000 g into the oils. I think that made a stable emulsion as long as the temperature was reasonable.


----------



## cmzaha

With all the lastest discussion I really don't think mine will work with the discount water, but I just had to try and see. I did know it would be risky when I poured it but figured worse case scenario I will have to salt them out in a few months. Just have a feeling it will not be enough liquid to escort the lye to the surface of my soap especially with their 1.25" width. Time will tell, but I will fix them.


----------



## judymoody

This thread has been really interesting for me to read.  I think I may try this method just for fun.  It also reminded me of an experience that I had a couple of weeks ago when I mismeasured my water.  It ended up being about half the oil weight and I thought that was pushing it beyond what the emulsion could bear.  But here you're talking about 100% or more.

I also was really curious about DeeAnna's experience with CPOP.  I ended up CPOPing my watery soap because I wanted to be able to unmold before 2015.  Within a relatively short period of time it started oozing so I yanked it.  I assumed I'd have oozy pockets but the soap ended up being uniform in consistency with a bit of liquid on the top of the bars which ended up reabsorbing.  I am now really curious about how the amount of water used in soap, more generally, might affect the mildness of the finished product.

I have some high OO soap that I have been using that is 3+ years old.  They were made with 5% SF and full water.  I am finding them very drying compared to my current formulation which is higher in CO but also higher in SF than my original recipe.  The idea of a -40 Castille that isn't slimy and won't destroy your skin is an intriguing one.

I wonder if you reduced the SF to -20 if you could reduce the water proportionately and get a similar result to the original?


----------



## DeeAnna

Lunch time, so I weighed the bars again. In 14 hours since they've been cut, the bars have lost 5% of their original weight. (For comparison, my normal soap loses about 1% of its original weight in the first 24 hours after cutting.) They are not quite so cold and clammy today, but are still cool from ongoing evaporation. 

The pale yellow parts that look the most like normal soap are firm with essentially no zap. I tested all surfaces for zap and got nothing. I can dent these lighter areas, but only with a firm press of the finger. The darker translucent areas are still fairly soft -- it takes very little effort to dent those areas. I'm not getting a clear strong zap from these areas, but it's not a "no zap" either so I'm considering this soap to still be lye heavy. I lathered up a scrap of soap and got almost no lather. Somewhat drying (no surprise).

Judy -- In Post 24, AnnaMarie says, "...While I was taking a picture I saw another batch of castile I made recently that I remembered was lye heavy, but not as heavy as this recipe, but it got the goo-factor after use...."

I'm curious -- AnnaMarie can you tell us what the lye excess was for the soap that remained gooey?


----------



## AnnaMarie

Okay, now for my lab report! :think:

-I have done this recipe enough times to tell you that you can either weigh out 32 oz each of water and olive oil or measure 1 quart each with the same results. I have cheated in past a bit and just rounded to 32 even though I know 1 quart of olive oil weighs slightly under 31 and water slightly under 33 or 34. This time I measured the quarts as the recipe called for. I also measured out 3/4 cup of water for diluting the lye as specified. I weighed the water and noted that it weighed slightly over 6 oz. This was interesting as I thought of the ratios in this recipe water to olive = 1:1 water to lye= 1:1. I personally think this formula is key to the best result. 

-I began mixing at 10:14 and the soap temp was 105. I used my SB off and on until the soap officially came together at 11:10 (that took longer than I realized- times flies when you're having fun!) Because of the emulsion aspect of this soap I monitored the temp carefully throughout and wondered if there would be a rise in temp at all. The soap batter initially dropped to 104 for the majority of the time, but there was a definite rise of 1 degree at the end when it came together.

-True trace will only happen at the end of this recipe. I performed many trace tests that failed throughout this recipe, right up until the end. When I made this recipe a second time a few years ago I fell for the false trace because the batter had thickened. My soap never set up. You must stick blend until it becomes like lotion. The extra water will only be absorbed when the soap has formed or it will remain liquid-y.

-Another interesting note- I finally figured out how to better describe what it going on and I will post pictures of it. Over time a thick foam develops and begins to look like buttermilk pancake batter. I noted that it became skin-like. I am theorizing that this was the start of the true soap forming and that it collected around the stick blender while on the sides a clear separation of water and soap was going on. The nature of the soap by the end was very plastic which I found curious and decided to drop some in cold water. It didn't disperse, but rather flattened and dropped like candy in the soft-ball stage. I will post pic of that as well.

-As the soap is forming in this recipe the extra liquid remains "on the outside". I think this is because the oil is so saturated (so to speak) that it cannot take in any more lye water and only when all the batter has become true soap and chemically changed can it absorb the extra liquid. I probably did not use the right scientific terms on this, but bear with me...

-For whatever the reason excess lye means a harder and non-gooey soap. I have no theory on this at all 

-Judy, I will look at my numbers and give you an answer on your question.

Now for pictures:

The first picture shows the initial foam created from blending, and the second shows a close up of the "skin" that is starting to form

The second pic showing skin

The third picture is further along when a clear separation of soap and lye water is seen

More soap and lye water separation

Soap is all done!

Interesting plastic nature of this soap...

And I also will add that I REALLY sweat this one- literally! This baby gets swathed in bath towels and put to bed like nobody's business. I think that is why I get good results, at least in appearance.


----------



## seven

which one did you mean by the ricing stage? the separation one?


----------



## AnnaMarie

Yes, seven, the separation one. Ricing really wasn't the best term, but I have been floundering a bit on trying to find the right terms for my observations


----------



## seven

cool. thanks for the pics. i am gonna try this one soon and it really helps to see the stages since this is my 1st time. otherwise i know i'll be scared to death thinking i've messed it up, coz the soap did go thru some weird stages i must say


----------



## AnnaMarie

So Deanna, to answer your question I now have a question of my own???? Here is the lye heavy recipe that I am comparing to (the one that got gooey)

Recipe #2
24 oz olive oil
1 oz beeswax (this really does give the soap a nice texture and the lather isn't inhibited)
4 oz lye
10 oz water

In comparing the two recipes (both lye heavy) I noted something.
Recipe #2 the total percentage of lye used in the recipe (all ingredients added) is 10%; however, the lye to fat ratio is 1:6
Recipe #1 (the original) the total percentage of lye in the recipe is only 8%, but the lye to fat ratio is 3/16

The water percentages were even more interesting. So if I am looking at this correcting recipe #2 is actually even heavier in lye, yet still gets gooey, but there is a lot less water. Hmmmmm, any thoughts???

Okay, I need a coffee now....


----------



## seven

Doing it as we speak. Having a ciggie break while my sb takes a breath. This one's gonna take a while.. Cannot imagine that lady on the pic doing it just with a wooden spoon!


----------



## AnnaMarie

I took SB breaks a lot too- didn't want to burn out my SB.


----------



## DeeAnna

Here is what I'm seeing:

Original non-gooey recipe: 
1 qt (868 g) olive oil
1 qt + 6 oz (1113 g) water
6 oz wt (170 g) NaOH

0.196 g NaOH / g fat (about -40% lye excess)
15% lye solution concentration (waaaay lower than the usual "full water" at 28%)

Gooey recipe 2:
24 oz wt (681 g) olive oil
1 oz wt (28 g) beeswax
10 oz wt (284 g) water
4 oz wt (113.5 g) NaOH

0.160 g NaOH / g fat (about -17% lye excess)
40% lye solution concentration (this is more like what you'd see in a "normal" soap recipe)

The Saponification Value of olive is about 0.135 g NaOH / g fat, so you put more lye into the soap pot than needed to exactly saponify each gram of fat. But I'm calculating Gooey Recipe #2 as actually having less lye per g of fat than Original Recipe #1. My math could easily be wrong ... I'm converting from English volume and weight units to grams (and stealing time from work to do it) ... so I would be grateful if someone would double check my work. Your lye solution concentration is much less in Recipe #2 as well -- it's more like a normal soap recipe.

As you mentioned early on, the lye solution concentration HAS to be low to get a non-gooey soap. We know 15% works. We know normal lye solution concentrations (full water at 28% up to the max of 50%) don't work. 

I'm still not quite sure I can say how much lye excess is enough vs. not enough. Ah, a goal to shoot for!

PS: Yep, about 30 seconds of SB out of every 5 minutes of stirring was about all my SB could handle!

And great photos, AnnaMarie -- your batter looked very similar to mine. Thank you!

The point of trace in this recipe is about like the difference between "zap" and "no zap". If there's any question in your mind about whether you've hit trace or not ... you haven't. Keep mixing!


----------



## seven

finished! exactly an hour like AnnaMarie did. i was only doing half of the recipe. had a bit of a headache converting quarts, cups, to grams, lol

my stages came exactly like AM posted. once you hit ricing/separation, you'll know that it's about to be done. the batter got real thick real quick after that. and it just slides out of the container when i was pouring in to the mold, like there was a film of oil or something. again, exactly like AM described  i was getting a bit frustrated pre-separation stage. it took sooooo bloody long. normal castile is nothing compared to this. 

separation stage






done





hopefully sleeping soundly in its bed





i had fun. it was fascinating to see the soap goes thru the stages. never seen something like that before. i don't insulate mine with blankets. am using a silicone mold with a wooden box that has a close on top. hopefully that's enough.


----------



## DeeAnna

Beautiful, Seven!!! Bravo -- well done!


----------



## newbie

Interestingly, I did not get a foamy batter like yours, AM. I did get the skin forming around the SB as I got closer to trace and my separation looked pretty similar. I did not have the sense of the batter being plastic-like though. Do you think it was because your bowl was glass? I made mine in a SS bowl and it by no means just slid out. 

My batch that only slightly separated turned out completely normal, but the other half not. I think I will try this again to see how it goes when I'm more familiar with the process. I must have the wimpiest SB out there for you guys to manage it in an hour though!

I thought I would add that since the recipe was in volume, I measured mine out in volume and I was not terribly precise. I thought I would do it like they might have in the day and I used my big 1 qt glass measuring cup. I just went with the volume but I know my oil weighed out to 32.1oz and my water to 30.8 ounces. I did not weigh my 3/4 cup of hot water though (Sorry- not very scientific, is it?). I did weight the lye to 6 ounces. Will weigh my bars later and see if my water loss is similar to DeeAnna's.


----------



## AnnaMarie

"The resulting solution is usually colourless and odorless with slippery feeling upon contact in common with other alkalis." -Wikipedia on sodium hydroxide

I realize that Wikipedia is not the most scholarly source of information:roll::roll:, but in trying to read more about lye and what it does and what it contributes to the soap making process I came across this statement which made me think of the slippery and plastic-like quality of the finished soap. I still am trying to learn if there is a further quality of lye that makes soap better if you add more. I'll keep looking...
Nice job Seven! I hope you enjoy your castile. I really like this recipe. Did tongue test today- no zap, just yucky!
Cheers!
Anna Marie



newbie said:


> Interestingly, I did not get a foamy batter like yours, AM. I did get the skin forming around the SB as I got closer to trace and my separation looked pretty similar. I did not have the sense of the batter being plastic-like though. Do you think it was because your bowl was glass? I made mine in a SS bowl and it by no means just slid out.
> 
> My batch that only slightly separated turned out completely normal, but the other half not. I think I will try this again to see how it goes when I'm more familiar with the process. I must have the wimpiest SB out there for you guys to manage it in an hour though!
> 
> I thought I would add that since the recipe was in volume, I measured mine out in volume and I was not terribly precise. I thought I would do it like they might have in the day and I used my big 1 qt glass measuring cup. I just went with the volume but I know my oil weighed out to 32.1oz and my water to 30.8 ounces. I did not weigh my 3/4 cup of hot water though (Sorry- not very scientific, is it?). I did weight the lye to 6 ounces. Will weigh my bars later and see if my water loss is similar to DeeAnna's.



I actually used a ss pot to make mine in. I did use a spatula to scrape it out, but there was still a slippery quality to the batter that gave it a synthetic sort of look and caused it to slip and slide around easily. I measured my ingredients in a glass quart cup as well . I am very much enjoying this, but I would ultimately like to know why this soap stays nice (IMO). The good news if this experiment should bomb for anyone is that you have laundry detergent soap now. FYI- did you know sodium hydroxide is used in a lot of food preparation? I will never look at pretzels and olives the same way again


----------



## DeeAnna

My reaction to the finished batter was that it looked like that awful canned vanilla pudding they serve in school lunch rooms. I guess that could be a kind of plastic, maybe?


----------



## AnnaMarie

DeeAnna said:


> My reaction to the finished batter was that it looked like that awful canned vanilla pudding they serve in school lunch rooms. I guess that could be a kind of plastic, maybe?



Lol! Perhaps...I use the word plastic because the outside of the batter seemed to be coated with a slippery substance, keeping the batter "together" so to speak. Dropping a spoonful into water the batter stayed together- notice the pic?


----------



## seven

Thanks DeeAnna and AnnaMarie..

I have a question.. Just checked, and there was this pool of water. Did this mean like when AM said about the extra water being on the outside while the soap is forming? My heart sank a lil bit when i saw what happened. Was expecting a soap that is starting to get hard, but instead i saw this water around it? Quite a lot too i must say. My hands are itchy for a cpop 




i see no oil, just water. what happened to this soap? it's been in the mold for 5 hrs. glad i am using a sili. had it been wood it would make a mess all over da place!


----------



## DeeAnna

Seven -- I feel your pain about CPOP, but I'd just grit my teeth and let it be, if it were my soap. My molds are wooden and not water tight, so the liquid slowly drained out. If yours are water tight, you might just have to wait until tomorrow. See if the soap is firm enough at that time to tip the mold so the liquid can drain -- or even unmold the soap. Be careful though, because the liquid will be caustic, so gloves and eye protection are good ideas. 

(Edit: I see your pic now. I stand by my earlier advice to hold tight and let things be. What I think is happening to you is what happened to me -- the emulsion is not stable and some of the water phase is weeping out of the batter.)

My very, very clean oven is proof that the drainage liquid is strong stuff. Hmmm.... Gotta be careful ... if DH sees the oven now, he'll think I'm getting to like housekeeping. Can't have that! Maybe I'll have to bake something that boils over ... no, can't have him thinking I like to cook either ... aw, fugeddaboudit!

(Actually, I do like to cook. DH's ample waistline is proof of that....)

AnnaMarie -- Yes, the pic of the batter in water is impressive. It certainly has no intention of mixing with the water any time soon!


----------



## seven

Thank u DeeAnna! Pheww, was glad to read yer post. Ok so this is supposed to be normal and part of the process. Will monitor and try to unmold when possible. 

Ps: my mom would be SO pissed if i ruin her oven. thank the soap god i decided to use a sili 

ETA: hmmm.. Just read your edited comment about unstable emulsification. i did think whether my sb-ing was enough. i kept looking at AM's pic and the end batter looked the same. Perhaps it wasn't enough? Or some error i did at the beginning? I did pour the hot lye to RT oil. The original recipe said nothing about temps. 

Okay, i should simmer down and just wait n see now


----------



## AnnaMarie

Seven, I agree with Deanna to restrain from CPOP-Ing your soap  I have had to drain liquid before myself. Speaking of restraint, I just took a second forbidden peek at my soap.  It's no where near ready to cut. It's still warm and coming out of gel I think from the translucent look of things. By tomorrow I should have some creamy white bars.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

As far as my experiences go...

I only got a little bit of skin, only while I was stick blending near the separation point. When it separated for me, it separated really badly. When I finally got it to come back together, it was very shiny and VERY thick.

In the mold, it didn't gel for me (like every other soap I've made). About 21-22 hours later it hasn't separated. It looks drier, but it's still got a satin-y look to it. Later I'll put on a glove and test it to see if it's ready to unmold. I doubt it will be, given the rest of my experiences.


----------



## engblom

DeeAnna said:


> Engblom, in your original recipe you used "...80% of the oils weight with water...".
> 
> Was that the total amount of water you originally used in the recipe?
> 
> Also, do you have an idea of how much more water you added later on?
> 
> Just checking to make sure -- I'm wanting to figure out where the "sweet spot" is for the water content.
> 
> The recipe I followed had a total of 120% water to 100% of oils -- 1195 g water total, 1000 g oil. Of that total water, 195 g went into the 50% lye solution and 1000 g into the oils. I think that made a stable emulsion as long as the temperature was reasonable.



Yes, what I made first had 80% water. I also aimed for -20% SF comparing to the -40% SF AnnaMarie is using.

What I added will not help you in finding the sweet spot. I ended up with 300% which is far from the sweet spot. I planned from the beginning to salt out this batch and I did not care if I get too much of water.

I had the whole batch gelling in the oven for 20 hours before washing and salting it out 4 times with 500% water each time.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Would someone kindly explain to me what "salting soap out" is and what it entails? I am not familiar at all with that term.
Cheers!
Anna Marie
Ps- while I'm thinking about it, what soap calc are you all using to be getting these negative percentages and such? I don't see such things on the soap calc I use, and I'm feeling left out


----------



## cmzaha

in soap calc you can add in the minus superfat number you are aiming for. When I make ls I always use a -13 superfat. In the case of your recipe it was just a matter of trying different minus numbers until the calculations matched your recipe. Salting out the soap is cooking cp soap in heavy salted water. This will result in removing any lye and the glycerin in the soap. It really makes a nice soap and leaves you with brown ugly water


----------



## AnnaMarie

Thank you Carolyn :smile::smile:


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Okay, 24 hours later and it seems like either my additives or my lack of gel interfered with the process. I weighed the soap, and it only lost 2g. Yes, you read that right. Virtually no water has evaporated, and this is in a slab mold, with a lot of surface area! And it's still very soft (I had gloves on and touched the bit that had been up on the sides of the freezer paper). This is so crazy!

...I'm also going to need to find a heating pad or something so that I can start getting things to gel. My house is apparently cold enough and the oven large enough that even with its insulation and adding elements prone to _over_heating isn't enough to get soaps to gel for me.

ETA: Also, the contrast color of this soap is still pink! It's so weird. The webpage and the label both had a warning that it would morph orange in high pH, but it doesn't look like it's morphed at all to me.


----------



## engblom

AnnaMarie said:


> Would someone kindly explain to me what "salting soap out" is and what it entails? I am not familiar at all with that term.
> Cheers!
> Anna Marie
> Ps- while I'm thinking about it, what soap calc are you all using to be getting these negative percentages and such? I don't see such things on the soap calc I use, and I'm feeling left out



Salting out is a method for washing away excess lye or other impurities from soap. 

Even though it also washes away the glycerin, I still find salted out soaps to be milder than normal CP soap. Some here will disagree on the mildness. All soaps I have salted out has been mostly olive oil. It might be this disagreement comes from different effect from different oils. My olive oil soaps clearly gets milder.

Salting out means this: First you dissolve the soap into a lot of water. After this, you saturate the water with salt. This requires about 350g of salt to each litre of water. Now the soap will float up to the surface, leaving the lye containing brine under. Take a spoon and spoon over the soap into a strainer and let the brine drip off. Repeat the whole procedure until your soap is clean of excess lye.

Finally when the soap is clean, I usually mix in a bit of fresh water and then let it drip out in order to remove some of the salt residues left in the soap.

Salting out allows you to use excess of lye and this is good if you deal with unknown oils. You can make soap out of any soaping fat regardless if you have the SAP values or not. If you want to superfat, you can do it in a blender after you have been salting out the soap.


----------



## seven

okay, i've managed to stay away from the oven  

i've also managed to drain the liquid and the soap fell out to the sink. okay, it ain't going to be a pretty soap coz it's got dents here and there, i think i can live with that, LOL!

i put the (still soft, like a dough) soap on a plastic tray and just let it sit there inside the oven (turned off of course!) to do whatever thing it needs to do. i was soo tempted to try to remold it to make it prettier, since the soap is still pretty soft anyway, but i've restrained myself and just let it be 

eta: next time i'm gonna use a wooden mold and just place it on a tray or something for the liquid. i think it will molded better.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...what soap calc are you all using to be getting these negative percentages and such?..."

You can do it in soapcalc, AnnaMarie. The original recipe, translated to grams is:

1 qt (868 g) olive oil
1 qt + 6 oz (1113 g) water
6 oz wt (170 g) NaOH

I just went to http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp and entered 868 g olive oil and kept entering in negative numbers in Section 4 where the Super Fat % can be changed. If you want more oil than lye (the usual) then put a positive number in. If you want more lye than oil (this recipe) then put a negative number in. I just kept trying different negative numbers until I got the same lye weight (170 g) as your recipe. Trial and error ended up about -45%.

I didn't bother with trying to make SoapCalc's water match this recipe, but I'd do it the same way.


----------



## seven

i think putting the soap in an off oven is not gonna bring a good air circulation. the soap is still very soft, with soda ash forming on top and sides. putting it next to a fan instead to help the water evaporate.

i can't wait to try this soap, GAH! *patience... patience.. patience....*


----------



## engblom

Now I have 14 soaps 

They are only for own usage so I did not care to press even bars. After one week they will be rock hard and ready to use.  It is almost unbelievable it had 20% excess lye yesterday.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Thank you DeeAnna for the explanation with pictures (I tend to need those as I'm a visual learner  )

Something new for me.... My soap was concave in the middle with big holes filled with lye water. The only thing I did different this time was to pour thinner bars. I usually pour thick bars by setting up my mold accordingly. This time I just lined the whole mold and poured resulting in thinner bars. I think I'm going to have to test this again :smile::smile: 
Btw- I weighed two test bars that were the unaffected ends: 9.35 & 7.60 oz. I will weigh later today.


----------



## seven

interesting AnnaMarie, by looking at yours and DeeAnna's, it seems that the middle bars were having the problem. mine is looking very ugly right now from falling into the sink, but as long as it sets up right, i'm a happy camper.

this soap is one big mystery all right


----------



## MzMolly65

Thank you all for sharing this journey, it's very interesting to read.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I have to say that mine have always turned out beautifully, so this was a surprise. I will ue these for laundry soap eventually, and will probably make this batch again, setting up my mold for thicker bars.


----------



## DeeAnna

Can you imagine a poor newbie trying to make this soap successfully if we're having all these troubles??? 

Weighed my bars. In 2 1/2 days, they've lost 8% of their weight right after they were cut. My normal soap loses 9-10% only after curing for 50 days or more.


----------



## The Efficacious Gentleman

I think you're all mad!  I love it! :clap::clap:


----------



## seven

The Efficacious Gentleman said:


> I think you're all mad! I love it! :clap:



care to join the madness? 


i'm def going to try to make this again soon. i wanna try a different technique next time, the one said by engblom and DeeAnna earlier about mixing the water to the oil. a lil at a time after the lye goes in. i wonder what will happen.

right now my soap is getting harder than before, but still too soft to cut. i reckon another good 24 hrs i should wait. hate the waiting game!

oh and the soda ash is something i've never seen before..

eta: according to ehow (which has the same recipe posted there) the soap usually set up around 3 days. glad to know this. mine's not yet 24 hrs. i'll give it another 48, and from the looks of it i think it can take that long. still dough-y (is that even a word?) right now.

I still have too many other soaps to make to even think about it!


----------



## Jencat

This has been very educational.  I don't think I'm ready to try this yet myself, but definitely something interesting to keep in mind.


----------



## seven

^^^

yes. i wasn't interested at all at the beginning to be honest (up to a point where i was thinking, hell no, wasn't possible, too scary with that much lye excess), but then last night i saw AnnaMarie posted her lab report with very interesting pics, and suddenly i wanna do it, ha! i don't even know why as it was 4AM when i began (i'm a night owl as i work from home).

and now this soap is stuck in my mind like a virus!


----------



## AnnaMarie

All these experiments! I'm having a great time. Another experiment I wish I could do would be to determine how much essential oil/extracts survive cp. I don't suppose there is a way to test this...DeeAnna? Or another is whether or not super fatting soap really is to our benefit....

I am bugged enough about that stupid hole in my soap that I am going to make it again.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

seven said:


> i think putting the soap in an off oven is not gonna bring a good air circulation. the soap is still very soft, with soda ash forming on top and sides. putting it next to a fan instead to help the water evaporate.
> 
> i can't wait to try this soap, GAH! *patience... patience.. patience....*



That was my thought, so mid-day yesterday I pulled it out and put mine on the stove...

As of this morning it still looked the same, no soda ash forming... I'm guessing something went wrong with mine.  Especially since the color didn't morph to the high pH color.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...Another experiment I wish I could do would be to determine how much essential oil/extracts survive cp. I don't suppose there is a way to test this...DeeAnna? Or another is whether or not super fatting soap really is to our benefit..."

Goodness, AnnaMarie, you have high expectations!  Without a chem lab and a gas chromatograph, I'm not sure the first experiment is do-able. I agree it would be great to have a clue, however. So much of soaping is "I think it might..." rather than "I know it will...." and the issue of EOs surviving or not is a huge black hole in our understanding.

I also agree about the superfatting thing. I have wondered at times about the rather casual way some people jack up their superfat. I also wonder about the placebo effect -- "my soap is superfatted to high heaven so it must therefore be mild". The effect of superfat could be tested with a blind panel. Send soaps, identical except for superfat, to people and see which they prefer. Don't disclose why you're asking them to evaluate the soaps. Or possibly look at some way of using soap to wash something that is a stand-in for human skin and look for signs of "skin irritation". Just thinking out loud ... don't have any specifics.

"...I think you're all mad! I love it!..."

It takes one to know one!


----------



## newbie

Late to reporting. 

I weighed my bars yesterday evening. I had them lined up with space in between. Not surprisingly, the end bars lost the most, from 5.0 to 4.7 ounces. The ones in the middle lost 0.1 ounces. I set them in a different spot now where they have more space around each bar.

I did this again last night. 3 hours almost to the minute. An hour in, I was thinking about the comments about stirring the same direction and the person watching the fire.... I felt my bowl and it was cold. I think that's the reason for the slowness when I do it. I put the bowl (SS again- too much heat loss for me?) in a pan of warm water but it didn't seem to make a difference. Still took three hours. I don't think my SB is that wimpy; I think it's a temp issue.

I poured and put in my gelling box but it was too cold to generate any heat. Still soft and probably pourable this am. I now have it in the box with a heating pad on medium to see if I can get a normal gel on it. Otherwise I have no idea when I will be able to unmold.

RE: the water issue, the one loaf I made that had just started to separate but went back together had no weeping at all. None. The other loaf that really really separated and kind of went back together had a lot of lye water around it and has a gradient of softness and lye. Top is soft and non zapping, bottom is hard and not zappy but is tingly. I should also note my "good" loaf does tingle with a tongue test but isn't a true zap.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for my second batch.

DeeAnna, I think your blinded superfat level idea is a great one. That would be worthy of a swap, like the additives swap and then a number of people test all teh levels in different water types. That would be really interesting.


----------



## seven

FlyDancer,

what is the state of yer soap now? mine is still soft to the touch and nowhere ready to be cut, and it's been 24 hrs. it is getting a tad harder than before, but the process is slow. i think the excessive water is the culprit. 

on ehow it said to give it 3 days. so, that's a glimmer of hope. it is fascinating to see that we all have different results from the same recipe. 

AnnaMarie is to blame for all this madness


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Mine looks like a block of matte plastic, colored white and pink. I didn't test it to see how soft it was. Still no sign of soda ash.

Other than my first batch, all of my soaps have been taking forever to harden up. I have a loaf that is over two weeks old that I haven't sliced yet. I'm wondering if there's something wrong with my procedures, my scale, or my lye at this point. :/ 

DeeAnna, do you think mine would have gone through the same emulsification process as everyone else's if my lye was off? My lye isn't clumpy the way it's supposed to get when liquid gets in, but some of it has been clinging to the neck of the bottle.


----------



## grayceworks

I wonder what this would do HP instead of CP? *curious* 

I know my HP regular castile recipe was not as slimy as my CP castile so far. My CP castile is rock-hard, covered on all sides in ash, and granted, only 6wks old, but very slimy. It also took several days to unmold, and even a couple days more to cut. 

My HP has no ash, was set up and ready to cut by the time it had cooled, and was more bubbly and less slimy, at 1 week than my CP batch at 6wks, and now that the HP batch is at 6wks, it's a pleasure to use. 

Which makes me wonder about this recipe -- what would it do in the crockpot? Pretty sure with that high of water, it would be close to as pourable as CP after the cook. Not sure how else a recipe like this would differ in HP though. 

Noted that CPOP doesn't work, but with CPOP, you're not blending it back together as it tries to separate during the cooking, while in HP, whenever it tries to separate, you just blend the heck out if it 'til it behaves again. And I'm a frequent-stirrer, so that might have different results than a leave-it-alone-to-cook type might have. 

Thoughts? I am low on OO though, so waiting on a shipment. (Just had to fix my spelling, I put shopment -- which is actually pretty accurate though lol)



FlybyStardancer said:


> Mine looks like a block of matte plastic, colored white and pink. I didn't test it to see how soft it was. Still no sign of soda ash.




Maybe yours won't ash too much. Maybe it won't ash till it's cut. Maybe it's just being slow. You should see if it's firm enough to unmold even if it might not be firm enough to cut. 

If it hasn't separated, I'd say just let it take its time firming up, because if it's not separating, then it's doing SOMETHING soapy.


----------



## AnnaMarie

It's a mad, mad world


----------



## FlybyStardancer

gracey--Maybe I'm also being impatient. Patience is not my strong suite, despite what my aunt thinks! lol

I turned the vent over the stove on low, to hopefully help get some air movement in the kitchen. Today's not a good day for curing soaps, though. We're _finally_ getting some actual rain. (The last storm that promised rain dumped it all on the North and East Bays, and left us in a rain shadow.)

I'm also wondering how much the additives I used are affecting my soap. Milk has natural emulsifiers in it, and honey is a humectant. Could they be helping hold the water in place? Who knows? I'll check for firmness tonight, at the 48-hour mark.


----------



## newbie

I think gelling is a VERY BAD idea for this soap. I have had mine warming slightly over a heating pad. It was put together all day and now I can feel it's softer and going into gel and there is lye water all over the place. I stuck it in the fridge. I think heat breaks up the emulsion.


----------



## MzMolly65

Best Thread Ever!!!


----------



## Lin

Flyby, I use a blue dye that morphs into purple. On a recent batch of soap, it was pink for over 48 hours and I was worried it wasn't going to morph into purple, but it finally did between 3 and 4 days.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Thank you, Lin.  Right now the soap's coloring is perfect for pink-loving girly girls... of which I am not. XD


----------



## newbie

I kind of hate this soap.

My soap from yesterday appears ruined by gel. Lost a significant amount of water and is much smaller. The sections that gelled have parted ways from the sections that did not. Zappy. There were strange thin flaps of soap that came away from the sides, like it was peeling.

I tried it again tonight, determined to conquer this recipe. This time I warmed up the oils and water and left the lye hot. Mixed in a glass container that retained heat. This time it took under two hours and that includes the half hour I left it to go get my son.

I used two different stick blenders so I could rest one while the other was running so it got SB'ed more than stirred. I wonder if too much SB keeps it from emulsifying or helps it, since I SB a lot and other people seem to SB 30 sec and stir for 5 min. 

This time it got much thicker before it separated than my other two times. It separated and was very difficult to SB back together because it was so very thick, much thicker than the other two times. The first two times, it was easy to stir, easy to pour, easy to work with. This time, it was like a ball of dough and rolled around in the bowl like a ball bearing. It was a lot of work to get color incorporated into it, unlike the other two times. There was no pouring at all; it was more like a leach slipping into the mold. This is just like AM described- like the whole thing was gliding on a layer of oil, which I hadn't experienced the other two times. Why the difference?

There will be no gel, unless I have a moment of stupid, which has been known to happen. I may just stow this on top the fridge for 3 days so I can't poke and prod and get too impatient.

My one good half batch is cut and at day two. Bars went from 5 ounces to 4.4 ounces. Still tingly.


----------



## grayceworks

newbie said:


> I kind of hate this soap.
> 
> My soap from yesterday appears ruined by gel. Lost a significant amount of water and is much smaller. The sections that gelled have parted ways from the sections that did not. Zappy. There were strange thin flaps of soap that came away from the sides, like it was peeling.




Did it looks like this castille? 







***NOT MY PICS -- found this image posted by Lilli over at thedishforum a year or so ago in a troubleshooting thread there. 

She mentioned it was Cold Gel, which I am thinking means it was cold on the outside but still gelled in the middle? It wasn't explained further, so I'm not sure if that's what she meant or not. It was a perfect even layer all the way around all sides of the soap that peeled away in the series of pics. Showed a cut pic of a cross-section showing a gel-like custard-y layer in the middle and the ungelled edges of the soap, they really did look like lemon-tarts.


----------



## DeeAnna

If anyone has asked me a question in this thread and I haven't answered it, please let me know. The posts are flying fast 'n furious, and I might be missing bits here and there. 

I tried a second batch tonight with a couple of twists. 

I don't normally soap with olive, and the olive I use for cooking is too expensive to soap with. DH kindly bought me a liter of olive for my first batch, but I hadn't restocked more. My first twist is that I didn't use olive -- I used a blend of 70% high oleic safflower and 30% lard that is surprisingly close to olive, at least as far as the fatty acid composition. The other twist is that I saponified the fats with a 50:50 lye solution to heavy trace, then stirred the extra water into the soap batter at that point. 

My recipe:
300 g lard
700 g high oleic safflower
197 g NaOH
1197 g water, split into 197 g for the starting lye solution and 1000 g for blending into the soap at trace,

Lye excess -40% approximately.
NaOH solution concentration 14.2% based on ALL the water in the recipe.

I made a 50:50 NaOH:water solution with 197 g of each. I gently heated the lard until it was barely melted and mixed it into the safflower. Added the hot lye solution. Initial batter temperature was 132 deg F (56 C). Stick blended and hand mixed to heavy trace. What I mean by heavy trace is the point where the batter is still fluid and pourable, but the spatula leaves obvious, long-lasting ridges and valleys -- like a medium-thick gravy. 

This took about 90-95 minutes. I took a couple of breaks in there. I'm not actually too sure you need to stir all the time, so a break or three is not going to change matters much. The batter up to this point acted very much like a regular soap batter, just super slow moving. I use lard and HO safflower all the time, and I was expecting a faster trace than the olive, but this blend took roughly the same time or even a bit more.

At this point, I took a deep breath and started to mix the additional 1000 g of water into the batter. It was surprisingly easy. I didn't use the stick blender at all after the first addition or two. There was a sharp 20 degree rise in temperature in response to the first addition of water -- after at 95 minutes, there was still plenty of lye left to react with the water and heat things up! I added the water in 5 or 6 stages, mixing the batter well each time. I kept checking for a water layer underneath the soap, but that didn't happen -- the batter absorbed the whole amount of water. And this was just with hand mixing using a spatula, no stick blender. As I added more and more water, the batter turned from a normal soap batter into that plastic-y fluffy shiny gelatinous stuff we've been talking about. 

When all the water was into the soap, I poured the batter into the same mold I used for my first batch. I did not cover, I did not insulate, and I most definitely did not CPOP. Just set the mold in a steel pan (to catch any liquid should the emulsion fail) and covered the top of the mold with a wire rack for safety's sake. The temperature at pour was about 90 deg F (32 C). 

Two hours start to finish. I'm pooped -- time for bed! We'll see what the morning brings.

My first olive oil batch made on the 25th is definitely not lye heavy. I split one bar tonight and zap checked the middle. Zero zap. Nothing. Lather is thin and not very bubbly. It looks more like thin hand lotion, rather than soap lather.

edit: Added text from Post #171, so all the info for this trial is in one spot:

Soap #2 update. This is the one with the blend of 30:70 lard:high oleic safflower that approximates the fatty acid profile of olive.

I didn't insulate the wood mold; just left it on the kitchen counter overnight. I did put a wire mesh cooling rack on top to keep curious cats from getting into trouble. This morning, no obvious separation, no weeping, no draining. The top is still quite zappy. The center of the log is 81 deg F (27 C) in a 65 F (18 C) house, so there is still saponification going on. I'm going to leave the mold alone today and do some more checking this evening.

I saved a couple of samples -- #1 of the batter at thick trace before adding the extra water and #2 of the batter as it went into the mold. Sample #1 is still a thick but pourable pudding -- about like it was last night. Sample #2 has set up, but is still rather soft and tender. Not sure what this is telling me, but I'll see what happens to the samples as the day goes on.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Sounds like an exciting adventure, DeeAnna! It'll be interesting to see if/how it works with different oils!

I did ask a non-vital question back at post #145.  It's not critical, but I'm trying to figure out how my soap experiments are acting like they are.


----------



## engblom

DeeAnna said:


> Lather is thin and not very bubbly. It looks more like thin hand lotion, rather than soap lather.



Could this be because of the soda formed? The same happens to the soaps I am salting out and I suspect in my case it is because of the extra salt content.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Since we are testing lather I brought out one of my month old bars to try out. No zaps, burns, stings- it felt quite mild. When it first got wet it was initially slimy with a thin jelly layer, but that went away quickly and voila- the lovely lather I remember. I will look forward to seeing the pics of your modified recipe DeeAnna. Boy, I feel like a troublemaker! I had no idea one little post would turn into all of this, but it sure is fun  I'm going to make the same recipe tomorrow, but pour thicker so as to get my creamy and pretty bars
Cheers!
Anna Marie

I'm wondering if the initial slime was glycerin? No goo though at all. Bar is still nice and hard.


----------



## btz

Seeing all the pic makes me want to try too. But it's so hard to find reliable olive oil supplier here. I heard that pomace is the best for soaping, is it true? The one I can find in my local supermarket are Pietro Coricelli (Italy) and Dougo (Spain), but since I heard about the OO scandal, I never buy OO again and switched to RBO and CO for cooking. I'm seriously considering it now though. 

BTW, has anyone try making it without SB all the way through? Seeing the time it takes to mix, more than an hour in most cases, shouldn't manual stirring with spoon or whisk be enough for the recipe?


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Did my 48 hour check. Weight is down about 10g now... It didn't seem as soft as yesterday, and the top definitely LOOKS drier. Wasn't willing to test unmolding, though. And the accent color may have taken on a slightly barely orange tinge, but it was hard to tell because all of the lights that were on have yellow tones to them. (I have an aquarium with a daylight bulb near it, but that's on a timer.) Still no obvious ash. 

btz-- Pomace OO is definitely cheaper, though whether or not it's 'better' depends on who you ask and their reasons why! It also has a different SAP value than the other olive oils. I didn't use my SB constantly, but it came in real handy when this recipe separated and needed to be brought back into emulsion at the end of the mixing period. I also don't think it would have gone into an emulsion at the beginning of the mix without help from the SB.


----------



## grayceworks

Only 48hr mark? If you're having trouble with your regular soaps firming up also, might just need to wait a bit longer for unmolding. My CP castile with a normal amount of water took quite a while to unmold. And I'm very impatient, so it was horrible waiting. lol

I don't know for sure how milk or honey would affect this recipe. I know others have used them in their castiles before, but I only use them in a bastile oatmeal soap I make by HP method, so I'm not much help there. 

Airflow will help. Just keep checking on it, on the soap itself, not necessarily the drips on the sides of the mold...


----------



## FlybyStardancer

I'm sure it has to do partly with low hardness values (not using palm, and haven't used any animal oils so far, so it's only been CO and butters to add hardness), and partly to do with lack of gel. It's driving me crazy... I had one loaf that I left in the mold for a week, and let sit out of the mold for over another week before finally cutting it today... Still got insane DDM.

I was mostly worried about mine because others were having theirs harden up within 24 hours, and that's where mine seemed to differ. But again, there are many variables between mine and the others who followed the original recipe more closely. Can't pin it down to just one thing.


----------



## grayceworks

Hmm. Now I'm really curious about your soap recipes and stuff. I mostly HP, and most of my CP soaps gel. Like I mentioned, the one CP castile I didn't gel took a while to firm up and longer before cutting.... but not quite that long... 

[thread=42707]*You have a thread open about this already though,*[/thread] right? I'm gonna bump it back up to the top for ya so we can all do more brainstorming.


----------



## seven

wow wow wow, DeeAnna, that is very interesting what you've done! esp the different method about mixing the extra water after trace has happened. i am going to try this method tonight. 

okay, my current state of soap is full of soda ash on all sides. stupid me didn't think to weight the water loss since i unmold it. but let's begin now, which is day 2 since unmolding... the soap split in 2 when it fell to the sink (oops! it looks horrendous, LOL!), i took a smaller piece and it weighs 276 gr. will record again later. it's getting more harder, but slow process.

should've seen the look on my mom's face when she saw the soap on its current state  at the end she just nodded.. i don't think she understands about heavy lye excess and gooey castile and so on, LOL!


----------



## DeeAnna

*Engblom*: "...Could this [not very bubbly lather] be because of the soda formed?..."

I'm not sure I can answer this. I am not seeing obvious soda ash ON this first soap (this is the one in which the emulsion broke and cleaned my oven). Not to say there couldn't be soda ash IN the surface layer of the soap. This soap is more porous, the weeping/draining/evaporating water is carrying lye out of the soap, and the soap is quickly becoming non-zappy. So, yes, it wouldn't surprise me that there's an odd layer of ash or whatever within the surface layer of the soap. 

From AnnaMarie's post 159, it seems there is ~something~ on the surface of the bars that's different:

"...When it first got wet it was initially slimy with a thin jelly layer, but that went away quickly and voila- the lovely lather I remember...."
"...I'm wondering if the initial slime was glycerin?..."

Slime sounds like glycerin attracting water to itself, yes. So far I have not felt the slime, just low lather, but my soap is still a baby. I'm thinking Engblom may be right about the soda ash being a factor. I'll keep messing with samples as the soap cures to see if the inside of the soap lathers better than the outside. That would tell me if glycerin or soda ash is a factor.

****

*StarDancer*: "...DeeAnna, do you think mine would have gone through the same emulsification process as everyone else's if my lye was off? My lye isn't clumpy the way it's supposed to get when liquid gets in, but some of it has been clinging to the neck of the bottle. ..."

I'm not quite sure what's going on with your soap. It's puzzling to me too. I don't know enough about this type of soap to say if your lye was off. My guess is it's probably fine, however. I just wonder if adding color and milk may have changed things enough to alter how the soap cures. Just don't know -- sorry!

I can venture a good guess about the color not morphing from pink to purple. That most likely has to do with the unusually dilute NaOH solution in the finished batter. Although there is a large total amount of lye left in the batter, that lye is not very concentrated. 

Here's an analogy: You're in a big football stadium with 1000s of fans. In the bleachers, people are crowded together. Out on the field, the players have lots of room. But there's still 50,000 people in the stadium. Your chances of bumping up against another person is pretty high in the bleacher area and pretty small out on the field. Translate that to a pink color molecule looking for an NaOH molecule so she can morph from pink into purple. The molecule's chances of finding an NaOH partner are much better with concentrated lye.

****

*AnnaMarie*: "...My soap was concave in the middle with big holes filled with lye water. The only thing I did different this time was to pour thinner bars...."

Could be the pressure of the thicker soap is needed to keep the soap pressed together at the bottom of the mold? 

Your pics remind me of a made-from-scratch souffle or angel food cake failure -- again a relatively light foamy material that is rather delicate. 

I think we're learning more about soap in general rather than just about this recipe, because I know others have posted pics of "normal" soap with this kind of cracking too. Interesting!!!

****

Okay, here's what I THINK I'm seeing as key factors to this recipe:

A big lye excess (negative superfat) is important. A lye excess of about -20% (Engblom #117, DeeAnna #103) may not work well. A lye excess of about -40% (AnnaMarie #1 and others) does work. You can use SoapCalc to design a recipe like this with negative superfat (DeeAnna#124).

A big water excess is also important. An NaOH solution concentration of about 25% may not work well (Engblom #117). This is roughly 80% total water as a % of total oil. It appears that an NaOH solution concentration of 15% to 20% does work -- this is roughly 100% to 130% total water as a % of total oil (AnnaMarie #1 and others).

If you use the method in the original recipe where all of the water is added to the batter, be aware that finished "trace" will happen very, very quickly. The batter will change from "thick gravy" to a plastic-y and shiny-slick "pudding". If you aren't at a weird plastic-y pudding texture, keep stirring because you aren't at trace yet! (AnnaMarie #88-#95, Seven #104). 

3/10/2014 update: The above paragraph is true if you use a stick blender a lot. With mostly or all hand stirring, this plastic-y look at trace may not happen -- your batter may look similar to a normal soap batter at trace. I think the consensus is to use a SB at first, if at all, to get things mixed well, then hand stir with no or very light SB use thereafter.

Handle this soap and any liquid that may drain from the soap with caution. Until proved otherwise, assume the soap contains active lye and may burn skin and eyes. Gloves and goggles recommended!

****

The soap batter emulsion is fragile and will "break" if the molded soap gets too warm. Some of my thoughts and observations:

I'm getting the feeling that the batter needs to be well under 100 deg F (38 C) when poured into the mold. (Seven #112, etc.)

It's my thinking that I don't want this soap to gel, so I would only insulate lightly if at all. But, AnnaMarie, please chime in about this, cuz I do think you gel this soap, so maybe I'm not correct here. 

Definitely do not CPOP this recipe. (Newbie #59, DeeAnna #52)

If your mold will leak (like my wood molds do) be sure to set the mold in a non-aluminum pan to catch any drips. Let the batter weep/drain as needed if the emulsion breaks. Resist the urge to CPOP or rebatch!

See also AnnaMarie's soap cracks (#128 ) -- the type of mold may affect the appearance of the soap. 

****


----------



## engblom

DeeAnna said:


> A big lye excess (negative superfat) is important. A lye excess of about -20% (Engblom #117, DeeAnna #103) may not work well. A lye excess of about -40% (AnnaMarie #1 and others) does work. You can use SoapCalc to design a recipe like this with negative superfat (DeeAnna#124).



Mine was not a Castile either... I tried to adopt this style of recipe to "Aleppo soap". Mine was 70% olive oil and 30% Laurel Berry oil. Thus my result might differ a lot from those following the original recipe.


----------



## seven

that is interesting observation DeeAnna... i was wondering how this soap should be once in the mold. as the recipe in spanish journeys said nothing about this. i mean, does the emulsion is supposed to break (which resulted in water in the mold) OR does it supposed to stay intact with no water weeping?


----------



## DeeAnna

Soap #2 update. This is the one with the blend of 30:70 lard:high oleic safflower that approximates the fatty acid profile of olive. 

I didn't insulate the wood mold; just left it on the kitchen counter overnight. I did put a wire mesh cooling rack on top to keep curious cats from getting into trouble. This morning, no obvious separation, no weeping, no draining. The top is still quite zappy. The center of the log is 81 deg F (27 C) in a 65 F (18 C) house, so there is still saponification going on. I'm going to leave the mold alone today and do some more checking this evening.

I saved a couple of samples -- #1 of the batter at thick trace before adding the extra water and #2 of the batter as it went into the mold. Sample #1 is still a thick but pourable pudding -- about like it was last night. Sample #2 has set up, but is still rather soft and tender. Not sure what this is telling me, but I'll see what happens to the samples as the day goes on.

*Seven*: "...does the emulsion is supposed to break (which resulted in water in the mold) OR does it supposed to stay intact with no water weeping?..."

From what I'm reading from the spanishjourneys and the ehow articles, I think either can and does happen, depending on the environmental conditions. Given that we're finding the emulsion to be so fragile, I now understand why people are seeing these wide variations.

From ehow: "...Pour the creamy soap mixture into your soap moulds or loaf pans, and set aside for at least 48 hours. Check the soap after 12 hours, and* if separation has occurred, stir the liquid on top back into the soap mixture*. Turn out the finished soap after it has fully solidified. This will usually take about three days. Slice the soap into bars, and wrap in parchment paper to dry and cure for another two weeks before using...."

The reason why I didn't insulate or cover the mold for my second batch is that I was thinking of the lady in the spanishjourneys picture who was stirring the soap batter. I wondered how she might treat the finished soap, and I guessed she would have done about the same as my grandmother -- meaning not much. When my grandmother made lard and lye soap, she just covered her molded soap with a section of the Des Moines Register newspaper to keep the flies and dust off. The soap got set back in the "milk room", basically an enclosed porch, to finish saponifying. After a day or so, she cut the soap into big chunks (it was only used for laundry, not people) and set the chunks back in the same peach crate to dry.

"...Since we are testing lather I brought out one of my month old bars to try out. No zaps, burns, stings- it felt quite mild. When it first got wet it was initially slimy with a thin jelly layer, but that went away quickly and voila- the lovely lather I remember. I will look forward to seeing the pics of your modified recipe DeeAnna...."

*AnnaMarie* -- Thanks for the pic and description of the lather! That is encouraging to know the lather has improved. I'm looking forward to seeing the lather from my soaps change as time goes on. I'll get some pics tonight of my soap tonight, when I have a better idea of how it's turning out (or not!)


----------



## AnnaMarie

Soap report on one month old soap (I'd better check my records on that as it might be more), but anyway.....I did an interesting experiment this morning and stuck a bar in water and left it there for two hours. The bar never got soft or gooey, but a clear jelly layer formed on surface. I'm really starting to think it's glycerine. I'm posting a picture of it. The lather on this soap once it gets going is great.

I'm really beginning to wonder if super fatting really is the best route for soap.


----------



## DeeAnna

AnnaMarie -- as in you're thinking less SF might be better? I have to say this recipe challenges the idea that positive superfat is absolutely always required.

Your soak test is intriguing. I think I need to try this with my soaps too, not only this recipe but also my normal soaps.

I remember a couple of articles a few years old on the Soap Queen blog where she was a soap judge. One of the tests the judges did was to soak small chunks of the soaps in small cups of water. The % of water soaked up was one criteria. Soap that soaked up less water = better score. She said that many of the soaps that didn't do so well in this test also didn't do well in other areas of the judging, so the soak test was a pretty strong indicator of overall quality. Of course, blogs being blogs, I can't find the article now, but that's the gist as best I can remember it.

Update on my 2nd recipe: I just took it out of the mold -- I was so curious to see the entire loaf! Some areas on the sides and bottom have a film of very zappy liquid, but there's no weeping, draining, discoloration, weird cracks, or liquid-filled pockets. The surfaces that are definitely dry have little to no zap. The soap is decently firm and a nice pale ivory color. I'll let the loaf dry this afternoon and maybe cut it tonight if it looks like it can stand being cut.

I'm getting really good at dealing with the masochistic aspect of positive zap tests. I'm not sure that's a Good Thing, but there ya go. :shifty:


----------



## AnnaMarie

I don't know what I'm thinking anymore, and right now I'm certifiable because I'm HAND STIRRING SOAP (with a wooden spoon of course). We will see how long this lasts:shock::shock:


----------



## DeeAnna

Okay, thank goodness for Google -- here's the blog entry I was thinking about: http://www.soapqueen.com/business/goatsmilk-soap-judging-2/

And here's the quote I was trying to remember: 

"...It is amazing how badly we rated some of the bars for lather and residue. Those same bars scored poorly on the water absorption test as well, absorbing much more than the suggested 5-15% rate. The fact that, scientifically from a water-absorption rate, these bars were poor coincided impressively with our subjective ratings on lather, residue and feeling when using...."


----------



## AnnaMarie

To answer your question in all seriousness, yes, I am doubting that super fatting is always the best. Why? Well, I scraped off some of this jelly on the soap and it tasted almost sweet which is why I am thinking it's glycerine. I understand glycerine to be very good for your skin, and his soap loves to make it. The soap never gets gooey, but when wet you get a layer of jelly. I could be entirely was off base here- I'm no scientist. Just taking an educated guess. 
Cheers!
Anna Marie
Ps- the hand stirred soap is getting thicker.


----------



## seven

i wonder what time you'll finished. if it turns out that it's the same time as using a SB, or even lesser, then we all learn something new again about this soap.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Me and my pioneer mama ideas :crazy::crazy:

Holy moly! This soap looks a LOT different when hand stirred and is passing the trace test after 45 min of off and on hand stirring. I don't trust pouring yet though and am going to keep stirring.

Lab report time!
Okay people, I am not only standing by the original recipe, but I am standing by the hand stirring over stick blending. This recipe was not made for a stick blender. I hand stirred off and on for about an hour (I did not stir constantly). Trace showed up somewhere around 45 min, but I just couldn't believe it. At an hour it was unmistakable. The whole process looked MUCH different. No separation of anything- it just gradually got smoother and thicker. Before I poured I decided to get out this stick blender and thicken it up. Five min of SB and the batter looked more shiny, glossy, and pudding-like. To test though I did pour a sample bar before the SB and then I have the rest of the batter in the mold (full to the top) plus a couple of small molds. Towels are underneath the soap as usual to catch any lye water. I am very curious to see how this turns out. This is a soap you could make while watching tv 
Cheers!
Anna Marie
pictures will follow

Soap when it traced

Soap when given 5 min with the SB


----------



## FlybyStardancer

grayceworks said:


> Hmm. Now I'm really curious about your soap recipes and stuff. I mostly HP, and most of my CP soaps gel. Like I mentioned, the one CP castile I didn't gel took a while to firm up and longer before cutting.... but not quite that long...
> 
> [thread=42707]*You have a thread open about this already though,*[/thread] right? I'm gonna bump it back up to the top for ya so we can all do more brainstorming.



Thanks!  Yeah, I'm new enough that I can't figure out what's happening on my own. lol



DeeAnna said:


> I'm not quite sure what's going on with your soap. It's puzzling to me too. I don't know enough about this type of soap to say if your lye was off. My guess is it's probably fine, however. I just wonder if adding color and milk may have changed things enough to alter how the soap cures. Just don't know -- sorry!
> 
> I can venture a good guess about the color not morphing from pink to purple. That most likely has to do with the unusually dilute NaOH solution in the finished batter. Although there is a large total amount of lye left in the batter, that lye is not very concentrated.
> 
> Here's an analogy: You're in a big football stadium with 1000s of fans. In the bleachers, people are crowded together. Out on the field, the players have lots of room. But there's still 50,000 people in the stadium. Your chances of bumping up against another person is pretty high in the bleacher area and pretty small out on the field. Translate that to a pink color molecule looking for an NaOH molecule so she can morph from pink into purple. The molecule's chances of finding an NaOH partner are much better with concentrated lye.



Hmm, so you're thinking that the color morphing is based on reactions with the NaOH? Rather than simply having an alkaline environment?

And I think having the milk and honey there is interesting, even if it's crazy-making for me. lol Might need as long to cure as a 'normal' castile!


----------



## AnnaMarie

DeeAnna said:


> Okay, thank goodness for Google -- here's the blog entry I was thinking about: http://www.soapqueen.com/business/goatsmilk-soap-judging-2/
> 
> And here's the quote I was trying to remember:
> 
> "...It is amazing how badly we rated some of the bars for lather and residue. Those same bars scored poorly on the water absorption test as well, absorbing much more than the suggested 5-15% rate. The fact that, scientifically from a water-absorption rate, these bars were poor coincided impressively with our subjective ratings on lather, residue and feeling when using...."



Well, I just took two perfectly good bars of soap to soak them and see how they fare!


----------



## Seawolfe

Wow this looks like fun! I wanna try this too!
You know how some people suggest (in the old timey way) that you add a little bit of soap to your batter to help it along? What if you added a little bit of melted already made and mostly olive oil soap?
_eyes her husbands precious pile of bastile soaps speculatively_
Really AnnaMarie? Hand stirring for over an hour in the same direction with a wooden spoon?


----------



## AnnaMarie

Seawolfe said:


> Wow this looks like fun! I wanna try this too!
> You know how some people suggest (in the old timey way) that you add a little bit of soap to your batter to help it along? What if you added a little bit of melted already made and mostly olive oil soap?
> _eyes her husbands precious pile of bastile soaps speculatively_
> Really AnnaMarie? Hand stirring for over an hour in the same direction with a wooden spoon?



Lol! Yes, hand stirred- in the same direction with a wooden spoon, but with lots of breaks. It really wasn't bad at all. As far as the recipe- I'm not tempted to mess with it- I love it as is! . You should try it SeaWolfe!

Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## seven

oh my. i'm willing to bet all the soap i have on my curing racks that this new batch AM just did by hand stirring is gonna behave differently in the mold, no water pool, no nothing. i think the gentle hand stirring is the key to the perfect emulsification this soap needs.

no wonder the recipe mentioned nothing about SB. but at least the writer should've mentioned that the hand stirring is gonna take at least an hour. when i read that post, i honestly thought it's gonna take at least 5 hours or something.


----------



## MzMolly65

Has anyone tried it in cavity molds?


----------



## DeeAnna

"...Hmm, so you're thinking that the color morphing is based on reactions with the NaOH? Rather than simply having an alkaline environment?..."

Stardancer: Alkalinity is just a measurement of the hydroxide ion concentration. NaOH dissociates (splits apart) into sodium ions (Na+) and hydroxide ions (OH-). If the NaOH concentration is lower than usual in this recipe, that also means the OH- concentration -- aka the alkalinity -- is correspondingly lower. If the alkalinity is low enough, the color might not shift.


----------



## Tienne

AnnaMarie said:


> Lol! Yes, hand stirred- in the same direction with a wooden spoon, but with lots of breaks. It really wasn't bad at all. As far as the recipe- I'm not tempted to mess with it- I love it as is! .



That was my thinking right from the beginning. "If it ain't broke don't try and fix it" and that there must have been a reason for the recipe *and* instructions to be as they were. I have always had great respect for the old ways. Recipes such as that have probably been passed down from generation to generation and I am sure they have had their fair share of trials and errors and "test batches" along the way before ending up with the recipe as it stands. Good on you for giving "tradition" the benefit of the doubt.


----------



## DeeAnna

I can see your point about the hand stirring, AnnaMarie. If I hadn't done it myself, I would never have believed a whole liter of water would meekly blend into the soap batter with just hand stirring. But it did. I'm still surprised by that, but it worked.

edit: I'm all for learning and using traditional methods too, but I also want to know the "whys" behind the tradition. I want to know, not only for my own learning and enjoyment, but also because I want to better understand the people who learned how to do things in ways that eventually became codified as tradition.

This recipe was originally created by someone who was determined and stubborn enough to figure it out. When she was done figuring out the process and the recipe, I bet she could explain in detail the precise reasons why the recipe needs to be done the way it's done. Maybe her granddaughters and great-granddaughters viewed the recipe as a tradition, but I bet their elders viewed the recipe as practical knowledge learned by hard work and experimentation. 

I truly enjoy the work this group has been doing to shed light on what works and what doesn't. I view our trials, successes, and failures as honoring the original people who worked hard to create this recipe and soapmaking method.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Thank you for those words DeeAnna. I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said. I, too, have enjoyed this experiment. Now, just for fun, I would encourage those interested to try the recipe as is in the same method. I think you'll find it enjoyable. 
I just went to check my soap- no gel phase or anything. In fact, looking at it both in the wood mold and in the small silicone molds I think this one is going to take a while to set. I will report the progress. I'm excited to see the results!
Cheers!
Anna Marie
Ps- tonight is really a hot cocoa and peppermint schnapps night!


----------



## Lin

DeeAnna said:


> I can venture a good guess about the color not morphing from pink to purple. That most likely has to do with the unusually dilute NaOH solution in the finished batter. Although there is a large total amount of lye left in the batter, that lye is not very concentrated.
> 
> Here's an analogy: You're in a big football stadium with 1000s of fans. In the bleachers, people are crowded together. Out on the field, the players have lots of room. But there's still 50,000 people in the stadium. Your chances of bumping up against another person is pretty high in the bleacher area and pretty small out on the field. Translate that to a pink color molecule looking for an NaOH molecule so she can morph from pink into purple. The molecule's chances of finding an NaOH partner are much better with concentrated lye.


Btw, the pink and purple was actually my soap which wasn't this recipe. In a recent batch I used a blue dye that morphs into purple as one of my colors. At 48 hours in though that section of the soap was still pink, and not purple. I was beginning to think I'd be stuck with pink. It wasn't until after the 3 day mark when it morphed into purple. So I was saying to not give up yet on the red to orange morph when it had only been a day. 

But I'd be interested to know why it might have taken so long for my color to morph, in a normal recipe without an excess of water or lye. The surface wasn't zappy at all while it was still pink.


----------



## newbie

Grayce, no, mine did not look like that kind of cool sandwich soap. Mine gelled on the bottom but not the top because I cooled it and it broke or is cracked at the gel line. The bottom is not tingly and top still zaps. This one lost a lot of lye water so it's about 3/4 of an inch shorter than it should be. See pic.

The one I made last night is holding its own, no water or weeping and the top zaps. I covered it with wax paper but decided to take that off tonight and cover with last years calendar, in keeping with the old ways. Wax paper might be too impermeable, perhaps. I can pull the walls away but it's clearly still soft and sticky so I'll wait until tomorrow to try again. 

Anne Marie, it sounds like your soap never broke. Do you just judge when it's done based on the sheen and consistency? The breaking was one thing that I found helpful because prior to that, the soap would be very thick and tracing by all standards, but did not have the high-gloss. I loved how workable the first two times were. Last night's ball of rubber had some potential for designs but was a more difficult soap to work with.

Figures I managed to do this soap the hardest way possible, by stick blending so much.


----------



## Tienne

DeeAnna said:


> I can see your point about the hand stirring, AnnaMarie. If I hadn't done it myself, I would never have believed a whole liter of water would meekly blend into the soap batter with just hand stirring. But it did. I'm still surprised by that, but it worked.
> 
> edit: I'm all for learning and using traditional methods too, but I also want to know the "whys" behind the tradition. I want to know, not only for my own learning and enjoyment, but also because I want to better understand the people who learned how to do things in ways that eventually became codified as tradition.



I also want to know the whys and my original comment about the hand-stirring being important came about by thinking about the thixotropic nature of the soap batter. When you all got to that emulsion stage that was proven to be fragile, then to me, stick blending just logically didn't seem to me to be the best way to go. 

In the same frame of mind, to me, reading the recipe, told me that the precise measurements of the oils, water and lye were not the important ffactor, being that the measurements were by volume and therefore most likely highly variable. So what was "left" was the WAY the soap was mixed. So it's not that I am superstitious or just a pushover for tradition or uninterested in the hows and whys, but I just chose to approach the problem by using  the available information to deduce what seemed to _me_ to be a plausible idea,worthy of investigation and i*t was* worthy, seeing that hand-stirring does indeed seem to be working.


----------



## MzMolly65

Tienne said:


> That was my thinking right from the beginning. "If it ain't broke don't try and fix it" and that there must have been a reason for the recipe *and* instructions to be as they were.



Keeping in mind that *sometimes* the way they did it became what is known as superstitious behaviour.  As in, it worked when I did it that way so I've always done it that way .. but sometimes no true connection to the method and the results.

I recall a story of a woman who always cut an inch off the top of her pot roast before putting it in the oven.  When asked why, her response was, "My mother always did it that way".  She then asked her mother why they did it that way and her mother replied, "Your Granny has always done it like that."  So they went back to the Grandmother and asked her the reason for trimming the inch off the roast and Grandmother's reply was, "Because my pot is too small."

Doing things the old way can be the best way .. asking why is still smart.  Which is why I love this group and this thread.  Everyone exploring the why of it and then with a shrug saying, "just do as your told" LOL.  Too funny!


----------



## Tienne

MzMolly65 said:


> Keeping in mind that *sometimes* the way they did it became what is known as superstitious behaviour.  As in, it worked when I did it that way so I've always done it that way .. but sometimes no true connection to the method and the results.
> 
> I recall a story of a woman who always cut an inch off the top of her pot roast before putting it in the oven.  When asked why, her response was, "My mother always did it that way".  She then asked her mother why they did it that way and her mother replied, "Your Granny has always done it like that."  So they went back to the Grandmother and asked her the reason for trimming the inch off the roast and Grandmother's reply was, "Because my pot is too small."
> 
> Doing things the old way can be the best way .. asking why is still smart.  Which is why I love this group and this thread.  Everyone exploring the why of it and then with a shrug saying, "just do as your told" LOL.  Too funny!



I completely agree! Except the way I see it is, that my suggestion to handstir was dismissed off hand, because we have always stickblended (= cut the top inch off of the roast) and that has always worked and so therefore we'll poo poo what is new and weird-sounding and continue to cut the top inch off (stickblend) because that has always been "the tradition". 

You see what I mean?


----------



## btz

With all this experiments, I guess by the end of the month we'll have the best method to do this castile recipe . I really need to find a good batch of OO and try this too. 

For the next step, maybe we can try different type of OO and see which one is best for this recipe? *make myself a batch of popcorn and see how many soapmaker mania here will try this*


----------



## DeeAnna

Here is the soap from my second recipe.

"...Except the way I see it is, that my suggestion to handstir was dismissed off hand, because we have always stickblended..."

Goodness! This thread is only 5 days old, over 200 comments have been made in that short time, and only a few of the contributors to this thread are actually making this soap in addition to living the rest of our lives. You made a good suggestion, as have others, and experience is showing your suggestion has merit. I think that is a good thing!


----------



## newbie

DeeAnna, this is one that wept, is it not? I can't keep track of who has had which result in which batch.

This is from my first batch. The light green one is the one I caught in time and which went back together without problems. The pink one is the one that was completely separated and then had the big pocket of lye water underneath it. The batches were equal in size so the size difference is just from the water loss. You can see how much more spongy it is at what was the top of the mold. The bars are all top down, meaning the top of the mold is the bottom edge of the bars. They all still tingle if I leave my tongue on the bars but there is no zap.

 I should add that the top of the pink bars is still soft and smears easily, as you can see.


----------



## Lin

newbie: her first recipe was the one that wept, where it drained into her oven and later the sink I believe. She said the photo was her second recipe, where she stuck in a pan just in case but it did not. The second recipe was the one where she combined the oil and lye mixture to a heavy trace, and then added the additional water.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Is it easy to tell when it's reached the proper trace when hand-stirring? That would be my concern. The break-and-re-emulsify is a hand tell-tale that you've reached true trace with this recipe.

And I'm about to go weigh my slab, and then see about unmolding and cutting. I *think* I should be able to.

DeeAnna, is the NaOH concentration, and thus the pH, really lower in this recipe, even with the lye excess? I think that's the part I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around!


----------



## AnnaMarie

newbie said:


> Grayce, no, mine did not look like that kind of cool sandwich soap. Mine gelled on the bottom but not the top because I cooled it and it broke or is cracked at the gel line. The bottom is not tingly and top still zaps. This one lost a lot of lye water so it's about 3/4 of an inch shorter than it should be. See pic.
> 
> The one I made last night is holding its own, no water or weeping and the top zaps. I covered it with wax paper but decided to take that off tonight and cover with last years calendar, in keeping with the old ways. Wax paper might be too impermeable, perhaps. I can pull the walls away but it's clearly still soft and sticky so I'll wait until tomorrow to try again.
> 
> Anne Marie, it sounds like your soap never broke. Do you just judge when it's done based on the sheen and consistency? The breaking was one thing that I found helpful because prior to that, the soap would be very thick and tracing by all standards, but did not have the high-gloss. I loved how workable the first two times were. Last night's ball of rubber had some potential for designs but was a more difficult soap to work with.
> 
> Figures I managed to do this soap the hardest way possible, by stick blending so much.



When it's a solid block it's done :-D  And yes, breaking has never been an issue with this one- it only gets harder. I can't wait till my phenol-whatchamacallit gets here and then I will test the Ph.
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## AnnaMarie

FlybyStardancer said:


> Is it easy to tell when it's reached the proper trace when hand-stirring? That would be my concern. The break-and-re-emulsify is a hand tell-tale that you've reached true trace with this recipe.
> 
> And I'm about to go weigh my slab, and then see about unmolding and cutting. I *think* I should be able to.
> 
> DeeAnna, is the NaOH concentration, and thus the pH, really lower in this recipe, even with the lye excess? I think that's the part I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around!



Yes, it was easy to tell. I used the old drizzle test, and when I first started seeing faint lines I was like "what?" "It's only been a half hour.  That can't be." But several minutes later it was only too obvious I had hit trace when thickened lines of soap lay across the top. I think this is a "walk in faith" recipe because we've become so used to our rules and safety precautions- all of which are good, but sometimes aren't the best way 
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## AnnaMarie

DeeAnna said:


> Okay, thank goodness for Google -- here's the blog entry I was thinking about: http://www.soapqueen.com/business/goatsmilk-soap-judging-2/
> 
> And here's the quote I was trying to remember:
> 
> "...It is amazing how badly we rated some of the bars for lather and residue. Those same bars scored poorly on the water absorption test as well, absorbing much more than the suggested 5-15% rate. The fact that, scientifically from a water-absorption rate, these bars were poor coincided impressively with our subjective ratings on lather, residue and feeling when using...."



Btw, my other handmade soaps came through with a very respectable 6% water absorption rate. I really don't think the castile absorbs one molecule of water!



grayceworks said:


> Did it looks like this castille?
> View attachment 6339
> 
> 
> View attachment 6340
> 
> 
> ***NOT MY PICS -- found this image posted by Lilli over at thedishforum a year or so ago in a troubleshooting thread there.
> 
> She mentioned it was Cold Gel, which I am thinking means it was cold on the outside but still gelled in the middle? It wasn't explained further, so I'm not sure if that's what she meant or not. It was a perfect even layer all the way around all sides of the soap that peeled away in the series of pics. Showed a cut pic of a cross-section showing a gel-like custard-y layer in the middle and the ungelled edges of the soap, they really did look like lemon-tarts.



That looks yummy! I need a fork and cup of tea.

I certainly hope I'm not the only soaper here that's not too chicken to hand stir


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Okay, I think I waited too long to cut! Edges crumbled, which is the sign that you've waited too long, right? lol Overcompensating for how long my other soaps have taken to get to cutting consistency, no doubt. 

It's still only lost 24g of water since I made it! That's just shy of 4% of the total water weight. I'm saving the crumbles to mix into something else. lol Maybe use it to make LS trace sooner, maybe toss into a rebatch attempt, maybe use for a confetti soap...

I stuck my bars out in the back room, where I don't go every day, so I won't be tempted to be constantly checking on them! But the walls it shares with the kitchen and living room are mostly glass, so I can easily check on them by sight. 



AnnaMarie said:


> Yes, it was easy to tell. I used the old drizzle test, and when I first started seeing faint lines I was like "what?" "It's only been a half hour. That can't be." But several minutes later it was only too obvious I had hit trace when thickened lines of soap lay across the top. I think this is a "walk in faith" recipe because we've become so used to our rules and safety precautions- all of which are good, but sometimes aren't the best way



Neat! So then hand-stirring would make it easier to do colorwork with this recipe... lol


----------



## DeeAnna

*Newbie:* Lin is right -- the last picture I posted is of my second batch made with HO safflower and lard. It's the one that didn't weep or break. I'd say it's more like your green batch. My first batch that did weep is more like your pink batch, complete with "swayback" tops and small bubbles. That batch is very homely, but I think it will be nice soap someday. 

In Recipe 2, I did use a stick blender and averaged maybe 30 seconds of SB'ing for every 5 minutes of hand stirring. In hindsight, it wouldn't have made much difference if I'd put the dang SB away. As the hour and a half went on, my SB got warmer and warmer, so I started stirring even more and SB'ing less. This soap is classic pale ivory -- as pretty as a simple, plain soap can be. The bars are still definitely zappy, but not nearly as super "hot" as I was guessing they'd be, knowing how much excess lye there is in this recipe. I'm happy with how they turned out, and I'm eager to see how they cure out.

*AnnaMarie:* Do your cured soaps float in water? I'm guessing they do, but can you confirm?  I suspect my Recipe 2 bars might be light enough to float once they're cured.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Nope, DeeAnna, neither floats. I just tested and both sank.


----------



## DeeAnna

Drat!


----------



## AnnaMarie

Interesting note on soap in mold progress:
Soap in insulated wood mold is now sweating and hardening up nicely. Doesn't look like it ever gelled.
Soap in individual silicone molds, non insulated, are still soft and mushy.

- my thinking is that the sweating process helps this soap along both in getting rid of excess lye water and in setting the soap up.

 Soap Myth Busters​

Lye is your friend
Man (or woman) vs stick blender
Insulation and the end result
Stirring the same direction: hocus pocus or science?
Super fat or super thin?


----------



## FlybyStardancer

I'm vaguely wondering how this would do with soaps that are mostly hard fats, or if this recipe would be best used with softer oils?


----------



## grayceworks

AnnaMarie said:


> I certainly hope I'm not the only soaper here that's not too chicken to hand stir


 

Actually, when I made my CP castile, I hand-stirred, because I was busy making another soap in the crockpot and stirring it a lot with the SB. And so when I dumped the lyewater in with the OO for the castile, I stirred it a couple times with the spatula, and figuring it was going to take a long time to trace anyhow, I let it sit for about 10-15 min while I continued working on the HP stuff and cleaning up after myself. Then I stirred again with the spatula for a few minutes, and let it sit again. Just did that on and off, and by the time my HP was done and ready to mold, my CP was ready also, both in less than an hour, and with only hand-stirring the CP. 

I figured it was a result of just the OO taking that long to really start reacting with the lye, so that by the time it got a good reaction going, when I stirred it up again, it was ready to trace. 

Ok, my order of OO just got cancelled because they ran out. ugh. I have enough for a small batch, so I'm just going to try it in the morning when I get home.  

And find another good deal on OO somewhere.


----------



## seven

AnnaMarie said:


> I certainly hope I'm not the only soaper here that's not too chicken to hand stir



hand stirring mine as we speak  i dont have a wooden spoon for soaping. i swear i try to bargain with my mom to use hers but she wouldn't budge  so, am using a spatula.. stirring in 1 direction..

my 1st batch is now 262 grams. in around 12 hrs, it has lost 14 gr of water.

btw, i am really happy that we now have a clearer picture of how this recipe is supposed to be handled. so guys, if you decide to try this, i just wanna say 1 thing: ditch your sb!

DeeAnna, i have a lil question about your 2nd batch that you did differently.. did it experience weeping in the mold? sorry if you already say this, i must've missed it.

my report after doing the 2nd batch... w/o the SB... at all...

only did a portion of the recipe:

300 gr pomace
300 gr water
57 gr lye
57 gr water

started at 6:20PM. by 40 mins, the batter is starting to thicken. if you're hand stirring, you can totally feel as it's getting heavier to stir. by 50 mins, trace starting to appear:







by 70 mins, thick trace:






at this point, still doubting whether i should pour. decided to stir it for another 10 mins and finally poured to my wooden mold.

like AM said, the stages were completely different. no separation, and the end batter also didn't look plasticky. it looked like a normal soap batter on a very thick trace. no soap sliding out of the container like the 1st batch (with SB). am praying hard it will stick together in the mold. i did everything as told by the recipe, except for the wooden spoon that i replaced by spatula. 

also noticed the difference in color b/w my 2 batches. i was using pomace, and the oil was obviously dark yellow. with my 1st batch, the end batter was chalk white. 2nd batch, cream color, you can still see the yellow from the pomace.

i insulate the mold, with a towel, and placed a towel underneath just in case there's water dripping.

will report back with the progress.

the hand stirring was not so bad at all...



btz said:


> With all this experiments, I guess by the end of the month we'll have the best method to do this castile recipe . I really need to find a good batch of OO and try this too.
> 
> For the next step, maybe we can try different type of OO and see which one is best for this recipe? *make myself a batch of popcorn and see how many soapmaker mania here will try this*



i think the best method is already there in front of our eyes from the beginning. stick with the original recipe  

different types of oo? that's interesting. i made mine with pomace, maybe next time i'll try evoo and compare the difference on how it feels on my skin. the original blog post did mention the old generations making it with used oil from frying.


----------



## engblom

I have been pondering about the saturated lye solution. I wonder if there is a risk in normal CP (with SF around 3-5% and water at 33-38% of the weight of the oil) soap to have a saturated lye solution without knowing it? Some are even soaping with 1:1 water:lye solution. When you have a saturated salt solution, and some evaporation happens, you begin to get salt grains at the bottom of the container. Would this happen inside of a normal soap? Like micro crystals of lye?

With this strange recipe, you have a lot more water and the solution is far from saturated in the beginning. Still some have got it saturated during the process and everything begun to separate.


----------



## DeeAnna

Nice soap, Seven!!! Thanks for the pics. That thick pudding-y pourable batter in your last photo was pretty much what my second batch looked like when I poured it into the mold.

"...DeeAnna, i have a lil question about your 2nd batch that you did differently.. did it experience weeping in the mold?..."

Nope, nary a drip. When I unmolded the soap, there was a film of liquid on parts of the sides and bottom of the log, but the dampness dried quickly and didn't return.

This morning, the soap from my second batch is clammy cool from evaporation. The soap is nicely firm -- not "rock hard" but not soft like fudge either. You could cut it easily, but it's not going to dent from being handled. The surface of the soap shows no zap today (it was zappy yesterday). That tells me the CO2 in the air is doing its magic, although there is no obvious ash layer so far.

"...I'm vaguely wondering how this would do with soaps that are mostly hard fats, or if this recipe would be best used with softer oils? ..."

Me too. My second batch was 30% lard, so I imagine this soap might give a hint of an answer to that question.

The other question I have -- does this method, if used with other soft oils, create lathery, non-slimy, non-gooey soaps that (let's ask for the moon here!) don't get DOS or otherwise get nasty and deteriorate with age?


----------



## saeed76

*Laurel Bay soap ???SAP???*

Dear friends, 
i am new soap maker, i have here in my country lebanon a good quality of laurel bay oil, i would like to know how to make the laurel bay soap what is the best SAP value using cold process and what is the best water % used ???
please give me a hand.


----------



## The Efficacious Gentleman

saeed76 said:


> Dear friends,
> i am new soap maker, i have here in my country lebanon a good quality of laurel bay oil, i would like to know how to make the laurel bay soap what is the best SAP value using cold process and what is the best water % used ???
> please give me a hand.


 
Hi Saeed

I'd suggest starting another thread on such a new topic - I know that there are a people on the forum who make aleppo soap, but I don't know if they check this thread too often.


----------



## AnnaMarie

engblom said:


> I have been pondering about the saturated lye solution. I wonder if there is a risk in normal CP (with SF around 3-5% and water at 33-38% of the weight of the oil) soap to have a saturated lye solution without knowing it? Some are even soaping with 1:1 water:lye solution. When you have a saturated salt solution, and some evaporation happens, you begin to get salt grains at the bottom of the container. Would this happen inside of a normal soap? Like micro crystals of lye?
> 
> With this strange recipe, you have a lot more water and the solution is far from saturated in the beginning. Still some have got it saturated during the process and everything begun to separate.



That's an interesting point to consider, especially with a ratio of 1:1. I'm thinking the extra lye is just eaten up eventually over time given Kevin Dunn's work in this area.
Cheers!
Anna Marie



seven said:


> hand stirring mine as we speak  i dont have a wooden spoon for soaping. i swear i try to bargain with my mom to use hers but she wouldn't budge  so, am using a spatula.. stirring in 1 direction..
> 
> my 1st batch is now 262 grams. in around 12 hrs, it has lost 14 gr of water.
> 
> btw, i am really happy that we now have a clearer picture of how this recipe is supposed to be handled. so guys, if you decide to try this, i just wanna say 1 thing: ditch your sb!
> 
> DeeAnna, i have a lil question about your 2nd batch that you did differently.. did it experience weeping in the mold? sorry if you already say this, i must've missed it.



Lol! Good for you Seven!



seven said:


> oh my. i'm willing to bet all the soap i have on my curing racks that this new batch AM just did by hand stirring is gonna behave differently in the mold, no water pool, no nothing. i think the gentle hand stirring is the key to the perfect emulsification this soap needs.
> 
> no wonder the recipe mentioned nothing about SB. but at least the writer should've mentioned that the hand stirring is gonna take at least an hour. when i read that post, i honestly thought it's gonna take at least 5 hours or something.



You would win! This one did not leak a bunch of water. It wept only a tiny bit. My towels were dry and the freezer paper wasn't soaked and disintegrating. My loaf came out solid, creamy, and beautiful! Here is a picture of the cut bars:


----------



## seven

^^

yay! that looks perfect, AnnaMarie! 

i just looked in to my 2nd batch, it seemed that there's a bit of gelling going on down there, in the middle. the mold felt nothing but a slight warm when i touched the sides, which is odd. all my other soaps were def hotter, but then, all about this soap is weird!


----------



## newbie

I unmolded my rubber ball soap last night because I could feel it getting a little warm (wasn't before so must have started right around the 24 hour mark) and I was not going through another gel disaster. It didn't unmold cleanly and I could actually see the folds of the soap that slithered into the mold in what bits stayed behind. Cut easily and was not soft. Today is very firm/hard, not a smidge of liquid. Cool to the touch but doesn't have a coating of ash either.


----------



## seven

in the spirit of group experiment and because i have no shame, i will show you my ugly soap from my 1st batch 






it's finally ready to be cut, although still way softer than i normally would cut my other soaps. and i chose to cut it so it can have better air circulation. looks like something going on there in the middle (kinda like the middle bars from DeeAnna's 1st batch?). i poked at it, but there was not water. my guess is the soap is just in the process of drying up from all that water bath. 

seriously, before i cut it, the whole thing looks like a giant tofu that flies from the 10th floor! LOL!


----------



## AnnaMarie

I'm going to use my ugly batch for laundry soap


----------



## FlybyStardancer

DeeAnna said:


> "...I'm vaguely wondering how this would do with soaps that are mostly hard fats, or if this recipe would be best used with softer oils? ..."
> 
> Me too. My second batch was 30% lard, so I imagine this soap might give a hint of an answer to that question.
> 
> The other question I have -- does this method, if used with other soft oils, create lathery, non-slimy, non-gooey soaps that (let's ask for the moon here!) don't get DOS or otherwise get nasty and deteriorate with age?


 
I'm debating whether my next batch of soap should be this method again with different oils (last time I was at the grocery store, I purchased some lard to play with), or if I should go back to a more "normal" method... Or maybe even try hp! I haven't hp'd a NaOH soap yet, only KOH...


----------



## newbie

That looks like that sandwich soap, Seven. It must have gelled inside but not managed the very outer parts. It will be interesting to see how this cures out. Does is tingle or zap on the outside and is the inside different? I'm guessing the inside will not but the outside might tingle, although I'm not ready to lay any money on the line.


----------



## DeeAnna

Hey there, Seven -- as one charter member to another, welcome to the super-lye-heavy super-ugly soap club! My first batch is awfully homely too, but's drying out well and I think it might be decent soap someday. Even the parts that were originally gooey are now reassuringly solid. I checked again today and all of this soap is not zappy, even in the middle of the bar that I cut apart to test. In 3 days of curing, the bars have lost an average of 12% of their original weight. That's a whole lot of evaporation goin' on!


----------



## newbie

I got permission to do a superfat swap, if anyone following this is interested in a comparison of superfat levels and what it does or doesn't do for soap. It's listed in the swap section.


----------



## Lin

I'm really interested in trying this but have no lye. I'm physically not going to be able to hand stir it though, so I'm thinking I'll try DeeAnna's second method with the 1:1 lye solution to trace and then stick blending in the rest of the water. 

I'm curious to make this recipe, a batch with maybe 1% SF, and a batch with say 6% superfat and then compare them all at 6 and 12 months...


----------



## btz

FlybyStardancer said:


> I'm vaguely wondering how this would do with soaps that are mostly hard fats, or if this recipe would be best used with softer oils?



Oh, this sounds interesting. Since I don't have OO atm, I might try this with 100% coconut oil. If the water did not evaporate much during curing, I wonder if the extra water will prevent the soap from being too drying on skin. Will try to do small batch of this tonight or tomorrow if nothing urgent happen.

I wonder about the cure time though, will it be the same like the OO one?

The basic recipe for this is equal amount of water & oil, plus equal amount of water & lye and -45 superfat, right? Like the one DeAnna did here:



DeeAnna said:


> "...what soap calc are you all using to be getting these negative percentages and such?..."
> 
> You can do it in soapcalc, AnnaMarie. The original recipe, translated to grams is:
> 
> 1 qt (868 g) olive oil
> 1 qt + 6 oz (1113 g) water
> 6 oz wt (170 g) NaOH
> 
> I just went to http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp  and entered 868 g olive oil and kept entering in negative numbers in  Section 4 where the Super Fat % can be changed. If you want more oil  than lye (the usual) then put a positive number in. If you want more lye  than oil (this recipe) then put a negative number in. I just kept  trying different negative numbers until I got the same lye weight (170  g) as your recipe. Trial and error ended up about -45%.
> 
> I didn't bother with trying to make SoapCalc's water match this recipe, but I'd do it the same way.


----------



## MzMolly65

DeeAnna said:


> The other question I have -- does this method, if used with other soft oils, create lathery, non-slimy, non-gooey soaps that (let's ask for the moon here!) don't get DOS or otherwise get nasty and deteriorate with age?



I'm gagging to try this recipe as soon as I'm on my feet again.  I want to try it with OO and then again with RBO and see how the two oils differ.


----------



## Lin

To me, this recipe with 100% coconut oil sounds like a really bad idea? Generally 100% coconut oil soaps need around 20% superfat because they're so cleansing. So why make one with a -40%? The only use I can think of would be laundry soap, in which case why not just make 0% SF coconut soap for laundry? 

If the excess water didn't evaporate, the bar would still be lye heavy as opposed to the suggestion of less drying due to moisture content? Since the excess water is needed to carry the lye to the surface to react with CO2. 

Or do you want to make a 100% coconut oil just for experimentation and not for skin use?


----------



## DeeAnna

I suspect this excess-lye technique may work the best for recipes heavy on the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids -- the fats with double bonds in their chemical backbone that are known to be slow to saponify. Lard has a fair amount of oleic acid in it, so I was willing to try it as a minor player along with the HO safflower. 

The easy to saponify saturated fats, like palm kernel and coconut oil, might not benefit as much from this technique. But, hey, this is just a guess on my part -- I'm speaking more from a hunch and I realize I could easily be wrong.


----------



## btz

Lin said:


> Or do you want to make a 100% coconut oil just for experimentation and not for skin use?



To be honest, the only reason why I'm thinking about doing it is curiosity. It's been known to kill cats, but I don't have cat, so hey, why not?


----------



## FlybyStardancer

newbie said:


> I got permission to do a superfat swap, if anyone following this is interested in a comparison of superfat levels and what it does or doesn't do for soap. It's listed in the swap section.



That swap looks really interesting! Too bad I'm two months short of being allowed to participate in swaps.  I'll just be paying vewy vewy close attention from the sidelines. >_>



DeeAnna said:


> I suspect this excess-lye technique may work the best for recipes heavy on the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids -- the fats with double bonds in their chemical backbone that are known to be slow to saponify. Lard has a fair amount of oleic acid in it, so I was willing to try it as a minor player along with the HO safflower.
> 
> The easy to saponify saturated fats, like palm kernel and coconut oil, might not benefit as much from this technique. But, hey, this is just a guess on my part -- I'm speaking more from a hunch and I realize I could easily be wrong.



I was thinking of trying this with a bit higher amount of lard... Maybe 50%ish? Still haven't decided. lol My other worry would be that the lard would cool too much and give false trace. And isn't lard supposed to be slow to trace, or am I mis-remembering?


----------



## seven

newbie said:


> That looks like that sandwich soap, Seven. It must have gelled inside but not managed the very outer parts. It will be interesting to see how this cures out. Does is tingle or zap on the outside and is the inside different? I'm guessing the inside will not but the outside might tingle, although I'm not ready to lay any money on the line.



i'm not sure about gelling. remembering what happened with this soap since it was molded, it was seriously in a deep water bath. it was literally swimming in the mold  and since my mold was silicone, you can see just how much water there was, and there was A LOT! i should've weigh the water just so we know.

just did a zap test, the outside was fine, some parts of the inside were also fine. however, there were some parts near the bottom that were tingling.



DeeAnna said:


> Hey there, Seven -- as one charter member to another, welcome to the super-lye-heavy super-ugly soap club! My first batch is awfully homely too, but's drying out well and I think it might be decent soap someday. Even the parts that were originally gooey are now reassuringly solid. I checked again today and all of this soap is not zappy, even in the middle of the bar that I cut apart to test. In 3 days of curing, the bars have lost an average of 12% of their original weight. That's a whole lot of evaporation goin' on!



mine is drying too. can totally see the difference from last night, where the middle was more like a translucent color. today, it's starting to go white, like the outside. 

i just measure the weight of my ugly soap again. the soap is now down to 251 gr from 262 gr. if my math is right, that's about 4% lost.

weight of soap:
day 2: 276 gr
day 3: 262 gr
day 4: 251 gr 

------------------------------------------------------------

now, to report on my 2nd batch... i am happy to say that the soap has hardened nicely. no water weep, no nothing. i am obviously in awe that the soap is able to hold all that extra water compared to the 1st one.







you can see that the middle looks wetter than the rest of the soap. i'm just gonna give it some time to harden up nicely. i am dying to cut this one!


----------



## btz

Just did 2 batch of this recipe using Sweet Almond Oil (just realized that I have a small amount of this left) and Coconut Oil . 

The SAO behaves like OO, I guess. It traces very lightly in around 1 hour and I keep on stirring for extra 15 minutes before pouring just to be sure.






The CO was interesting, to say the least. Straight away, there was small white beads forming, it seemed like the lye had separate the CO from the extra water. I guess the saponification happened too quickly. 





I though for sure this will be a failure. But since I was going to stir the SAO for an hour anyway, I though why not. In around 30-40 minutes mark, it thickened. I put the mixture container in warm water bath to prevent the oil from getting too cold. 





Around 100 minutes, it was thicken even further even though the white beads didn't disappear altogether. You can see the trace clearly. The final mixture actually reminded me of coconut pudding. I then pour it into the mold. 





It'll be interesting to see what would happened next. Unlike the SAO, the CO was still warm when I mold it because of the water bath. I quite like final look of the CO, the white beads will give texture to the soap if it set according to my imagination.

I also set aside a small amount of the soap and added a bit of lavender EO and put it into individual mold. It blended easily to the SAO, but it didn't seemed to blend into the CO. I could see the EO floating on top of the CO soap straight after pouring so I dabbed the EO with tissue.


----------



## seven

my 2nd batch just cut:











notice on the 2nd pic, there are a couple of bars with wet parts on top. when i cut it, i was a bit worried that the wetness might be down to the middle, but looks like it's only the top. hoping it will clear up in time. i remembered when i pour to the mold, the centre top had this tiny bit of separation going on, which is bloody weird. perhaps i should stir a bit longer next time to make it really really thick, just to be safe.

did a tongue test. still zappy!

i wonder if oils known to be slimy, like those noted in the single oil swap blog post, can be fixed using this method..


----------



## green soap

I want to thank AM for starting this thread, and to all of you that have posted pictures and results, this is fascinating!  I have been following this thread on the edge of my chair - not sure if you are all nuts for doing this, but the rest of us sure are nuts for following it....


----------



## DeeAnna

Here's the moisture loss for the two recipes I've done. Not too many data points, but the pattern shows there is a LOT more water loss from these soaps than from my "normal" soaps. The bars for my first recipe have lost an average of 14% in 5 days and second recipe is following a similar trend.

Both soaps are not zappy on the outside surfaces of the bars. The older soap is not zappy in the center of the bars either. This is the one that lost so much liquid in the mold, however, and that probably is the reason for the lack of internal zap. The second soap is still zappy in the center of the bar I tested today, so it's still not skin safe.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Have we set a record for longest thread yet???? I'm interested in the hand stirred batch and whether or not it will form lye crystals. That should happen within a day or two, but then as with my previous batches they should disappear within a few weeks. Anybody else have lye crystals forming yet?



green soap said:


> I want to thank AM for starting this thread, and to all of you that have posted pictures and results, this is fascinating! I have been following this thread on the edge of my chair - not sure if you are all nuts for doing this, but the rest of us sure are nuts for following it....



I whole heartedly think we are nuts! :crazy:


----------



## newbie

My first bars, made on 2/23 (so this is 6 days in) have lost 24% of their weight, down from 5.0 to 3.8 ounces. Light coating of ash.

Interestingly, my pink swayback bars, the other half of the recipe, have thick ash only on the bottoms (the swayback) parts of the bars. The tops are still sl sticky and soft. No ash on them


----------



## AnnaMarie

I'm still pretty amazed at how this recipe responded so differently to hand blending vs stick blending. In fact, it's almost as if the recipe resists the SB. Why would this be the case in this particular recipe when we use the SB so successfully in so many other recipes? Clearly, it has got to be either the lye or water or both. I may have to use the original Andalusian castile recipe as my control recipe and branch out in more experiments....


----------



## DeeAnna

I think the Lindy/Genny shampoo thread has over 500 responses. But this one is right up there. 

"...Anybody else have lye crystals forming yet? ..."

No, I don't think so. Haven't seen anything like that happening, but thanks for the warning, AnnaMarie. I'm getting a lot of practice lately doing zap tests, but I have no desire to lick a lye crystal if I can help it. :sick: I am now very good at quickly telling the difference between a lye zap, which is more of a sting or static-electricity-shock sensation than a true taste, and the bitter/salty/metallic taste of soda ash, which is not exactly a zap, but isn't terribly yummy either.

My first soap (the weepy homely olive oil batch) had so much soda ash on the top when it was still in the mold that the ash was peeling and flaking off. When I unmolded and cut the soap, I pared most of that off in an effort to tidy the bars a bit. The ash has not returned. The darker parts of this soap that were soft are firming up as time goes on, but they are still softer than the lighter outer parts. 

The second soap (the safflower-lard blend that didn't weep) is becoming slightly yellowish on the upper parts of the bar. The bars are still clammy from water evaporation. Like I said earlier today, the center of a sacrificial bar from this batch is still moderately zappy. The outside surfaces are not. I sliced a shy 1/8" layer of soap off the bar and tested the cut surfaces for zap. They are about as zappy as the middle, so the CO2 reaction and water evaporation are not turning this soap into a mild one overnight. But that's pretty much what we've all expected.

I have read awhile back that tiny amounts of liquid can be squeezed out of the soap colloid, even when the soap is cured, just by putting pressure on the soap -- much like squeezing water out of a wet sponge. I got a firsthand experience with that tonight. The outside surface of my sacrificial bar was not zappy before I cut the shaving off. After I cut the shaving, I zap tested the shaving. The inner freshly cut face was zappy, no surprise, but what did surprise me was the other surface was now zappy too. I don't know why I checked that surface ... just being curious. Obviously the cutting process had squeezed a tiny film of zappy liquid out of the soap structure onto the surface.


----------



## newbie

I think the longest thread is the Word Association Game in the General Chat area. It's been going since 2006 and has over 500 pages. But it's a game and so not in the same category. This is definitely one of the longer topic threads that have come along- the shampoo bar, a shaving soap one- have also been long. These specialty soaps aren't talked about or made as often and garner more attention, which makes sense, of course!


----------



## btz

Update on the lye heavy CO soap. The white beads texture is gone, all the soap turning white. Here's the picture of the soap first going into mold and 15 hours later. Not sure if this batch gel or not, can't wait to cut it.

Before:







After:




I don't see any soda ash, I keep it covered all night. The soap is hard already, but I'll wait until 24 hours before taking it out just to be safe. 

"I whole heartedly think we are nuts!"

I don't think we are nuts, but we are going nuts with this recipe


----------



## DeeAnna

"... it's almost as if the recipe resists the SB. Why would this be the case in this particular recipe when we use the SB so successfully in so many other recipes..."

Most of the time when we're using a SB to make soap, we're emulsifying a lot of fat, a moderate amount of lye-water, and initially a small bit of soap. When all is said and done, we end up with an emulsion of small water droplets floating around in a pool of fat, stabilized by a modest to large-ish amount of soap. In this recipe, we're greatly increasing the amount of water in proportion to the fat and dealing with slow-to-saponify fats -- quite different story. 

An emulsion of fat and water can take one of two forms -- water droplets in a pool of oil ~or~ oil droplets in a pool of water. When there's a lot more of one liquid than the other, the choice is pretty straightforward. Most soap batters are emulsions of water droplets in a pool of oil. In the case of this lye-heavy soap, the emulsion could go either way.

Oh!

I think I now know why the SB doesn't work very well. Thanks, AnnaMarie -- you helped me think it through.

When this (or any) soap batter is hand stirred (HS), the mixing is mild enough so the soap-water-fat emulsion forms more or less naturally. As the batter is HS'ed, the water and fat are broken into droplets of various sizes and some gradually form a more-or-less stable emulsion, as more and more soap is formed by saponification during the stirring. Eventually all of the liquid is emulsified and enough soap molecules have formed so the entire batter can begin to thicken to trace. 

Remember how you've said your HS'ed batter looked more like a normal soap batter throughout the mixing process? That's a key point -- the emulsion remained in a consistent form (I'm guessing that was a water-in-oil emulsion) and behaved pretty much like a normal soap batter.

When any soap batter is SB'ed, on the other hand, an immediate emulsion is created by the intense mixing. Only the mechanical mixing is keeping the liquids emulsified, because there just aren't enough soap molecules at first to stabilize the emulsion. In a normal soap batter, the intense mixing jump starts the saponfication and enough soap molecules rapidly form to stabilize the emulsion. In your lye-heavy recipe, the saponification is very slow and our normal inclination is to furiously SB to keep all the liquid mixed together. If we stop SB'ing, some of the water phase quickly settles out which triggers the soap maker to SB some more -- or at least I found that to be true, anyway. 

Before "trace" occurs in this recipe, the emulsion in this recipe is most likely a water-in-oil emulsion like a normal soap batter. But then something unusual happens at trace with the furiously SB'ed soap. The batter suddenly turns from a normal looking gravy-like batter into a slippery, plastic-y pudding that slips freely around the bowl without making a mark. I believe what's happening at this point is the emulsion is radically changing from a more stable water-in-oil emulsion to a less stable oil-in-water emulsion. At this point, the water has become the "pool" that is holding the fat droplets and the only thing keeping this emulsion from breaking is lots of SB'ing and keeping the batter as cool as possible.

If my thinking is correct, then some SB'ing is fine, as long as the soap maker doesn't try to force emulsification with the blending. If the batter remains in layers for some time, that's fine. Just mix, mostly by hand with modest amounts of SB'ing, to encourage saponification to mosey along. The batter will trace naturally when enough soap has formed to chemically bind all of the fat and water into an emulsified mass -- and the batter will look and act like a normal soap batter the whole time -- as long as the soap maker uses a light finger on the SB button!

Hmmm. I've mused here long past my bedtime and my "brain chipmunks" are closing up shop and going home for the night. I hope this makes sense....


----------



## MzMolly65

DeeAnna said:


> I don't know why I checked that surface ... just being curious.



I think you're starting to enjoy getting zapped! :twisted:


----------



## AnnaMarie

Soap update:
My test bar has lost .60 oz as of now. No lye crystals have formed, but this soap burns far worse when the tongue test is performed as opposed to the SB batch. I'm still waiting for my phenol stuff so I can start testing the ph of my original batch.


----------



## seven

my hand stirred batch is also still zappy, while my SB one did not.. kinda makes sense to my lil brain as the SB one lost a lot of water (which has lye in it). cmiiw.


----------



## Ellacho

DeeAnna said:


> The thing about a lye-heavy soap "getting milder with enough time" is true. Kevin Dunn did some nice work on this subject; he summarizes his findings in his Scientific Soapmaking book for those with an interest in the nitty-gritty of soap chemistry.
> 
> Free sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in the soap will slowly react with carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air to form a milder salt. This salt is sodium carbonate, Na2CO3. It is the same chemical as the white ash that sometimes forms on the top of CP soaps. Sodium carbonate is also the same stuff as the washing soda that is often added to homemade laundry detergent. Although sodium carbonate is basic -- it has a pH above 7 -- it is a much milder chemical than sodium hydroxide. A soap in which free sodium hydroxide has been converted to sodium carbonate will be much gentler to the skin.
> 
> Because a bar of soap is a big chunk of stuff, it will take time to convert the excess lye within the soap. If you want to encourage this process, I'd recommend storing the soap so it is exposed to the open air. It's my guess that packaging soap in plastic, for example, might not be the best idea. On the other hand, you don't need to go to the other extreme and run a fan either. Just store the soap on a shelf or in a loosely covered box or whatever and have patience.
> 
> Here's the chemistry. First step is for the CO2 to combine with water (from the soap itself or water vapor in the air) to make a weak acid:
> 
> CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3 (carbonic acid)
> 
> Next, the excess sodium hydroxide (a base) in the soap reacts with the carbonic acid to make sodium carbonate and water:
> 
> 2NaOH + H2CO3 -> 2H2O + Na2CO3
> 
> Yowza! My personal soap calc is coming up with a -43% lye "discount" with AnnaMarie's recipe. The old soap makers would have "boiled and salted" this soap to remove the excess lye, but AnnaMarie's experience clearly shows this soap can be fine as a CP soap if the maker has the patience to let the CO2 do its magic.
> 
> edit: I want to add that the old industrial soap makers knew that lye-heavy soap, which was pretty common back then, did become milder with time. But time is money, so they generally didn't cure soap long. They often deliberately sold lye-heavy soap (but NOT this lye heavy!) for laundry and general household use. end edit.
> 
> I don't think this recipe would be something I'd unleash on a beginner or someone who doesn't have sufficient patience. I also don't think I'd use this "give it time" approach for a soap that was poorly made -- for example, one that had layers of lye-heavy liquid and oil-heavy soap.
> 
> AnnaMarie -- Would you share the link to the SoapQueen post about the recipe? Pretty please?



DeeAnna,
I never took chemistry in high school or college and your explanation totally makes sense and helps me tremendously in understanding the scientific side of soaping.  I cannot thank you enough !


----------



## DeeAnna

I'm glad I could help, Ellacho! 

I took advantage of the bright sunny day today to take a close look at the bars from my second batch -- the pretty soap that didn't weep. The bars are covered with tiny needle-like soda ash crystals that glitter in the sunlight like diamonds.


----------



## newbie

Day 7. My 5.0 oz bars are down to 3.6 oz which is a 28% loss. No zapping or tingling (and I found myself kind of disappointed, MzMolly  )


----------



## AnnaMarie

So Super DeeAnna, I'm not a scientist (my degree is in History  ), so I'm going to ask you if perchance the excess water in this recipe provides a medium to help the extra lye evaporate? I'm still waiting to test the ph of my older batches, but I was thinking about their apparent mildness and wondering....
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## newbie

If I read her correctly, I think that is exactly what she postulates; the excess water is needed to dissolve the lye and carry it to the surface where the water and the lye have a chance to react with the CO2 in the air to form the ash (that two part equation she listed- water plus CO2 forms weak carbonic acid, then the carbonic acid plus the lye forms air and ash). I'm sure she will correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that's the theory of why this recipe works but wouldn't work if the water content were significantly less.


----------



## AnnaMarie

So if I'm reading correctly, the water reacts with carbon dioxide to create carbonic acid. The sodium hydroxide then reacts with the carbonic acid to make sodium carbonate and water, and the lye is essentially becoming soda ash? This is strange given all the lye crystals of my previous batches. I'm just thinking out loud...I do that a lot


----------



## DeeAnna

Yep, you two are 100% on the same page that I am. 

I have two hypotheses about this recipe: The excess lye is needed to drive the saponification of soft oils such as olive that are difficult to saponify without a lye excess. The large excess of water quickly carries the lye from inside the bar to the surface where the lye can be neutralized with CO2.

I'm going to ask ... are you sure the crystals are lye, AnnaMarie? Could they be soda ash? I'm not trying to say that they're not lye -- I'm just wondering about this from half a large continent away. 

Based on my second more-successful recipe, what I'm seeing is this: A freshly cut surface of the soap appears shiny, feels slightly damp, and is zappy from lye. After some hours, that surface appears drier and is not zappy. After some days, the surface is covered with a fine layer of soda ash. Ash does have a salty, metallic, almost-zappy flavor for me, but it's different than a real zap from lye.

On the other hand, I can also see that lye crystals could form if the evaporation of the water is carrying more lye out of the soap than can react with the available CO2. That could explain this difference between your soap and mine.

I also "think aloud" on this forum and especially on this thread, especially since I have no one in my face-to-face life that I can talk to about this stuff. DH is a good fellow, but he's not a soaper. Thanks for listening!


----------



## seven

mine is still zappy, and this is the 3rd day.. hmm... is it the climate? hot n humid here.. 

the wet parts has hardened nicely tho. the soap looks white n creamy n i'm dying to test it  no soda ash on mine, strange..


----------



## DeeAnna

Seven, it easily might be your environmental conditions making the difference. The air in my home is about 40% humidity at the moment, so the evaporation is going to be a lot faster for me than for you. (Or than it would be for me during a typical humid Iowa summer.)


----------



## MzMolly65

Hey folks,

If I can hop around enough to gather supplies I want to try this recipe today but I have a question .. with the high amount of water does this recipe still fit into the mold in the regular way or will I need to either, 1. reduce the recipe to fit or 2. have a 2nd mold handy?


----------



## seven

DeeAnna, yep, that's my guess too. Just tested again, some of the bars are less zappy than others. the middle ones are the worst. 

MzMolly, if i were you, i would do the 2nd route and have a 2nd mold handy (rather than have a headache with all the calculations).


----------



## MzMolly65

seven said:


> MzMolly, if i were you, i would do the 2nd route and have a 2nd mold handy (rather than have a headache with all the calculations).



I had to run it through soap calc anyway because I'm using pomace so decided if I was going to muck around with numbers I might as well reduce the batch.

Can someone double check my numbers for me?  I'm not altogether sure what I'm doing but I just played with the percentages until I got something that looked like 1 part oil:1 part water and 1 part lye:1 part water.

So... I've got 500g pomace OO, 93.832g lye, 593.583g water, SF -40, lye concentration 13.65%

I'll put 500 g of oil and 500 g water in one container then mix 93 g of lye with 93 g of water. Once the lye is dissolved, add to oil/water mix and HAND stir off and on until traced.  Right?  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this.


----------



## seven

if you want to do the full recipe, i don't think the loaf mold will fits. you can always do half.


----------



## DeeAnna

If you know how much total batter (fat + water + lye) you would normally use to fill your mold, then adjust AnnaMarie's recipe so you will make about the same total weight of batter with that recipe.

Using about 2/3rds my normal amount of fat worked good for my mold, so that might be a good starting point for you. To say it another way, my usual soap recipe calls for about 1500 g of fat. I used 1000 g of fat to make AnnaMarie's recipe. It fit pretty well in the same mold.

And I agree w Seven -- have another mold ready just in case! Individual cavity molds should work okay, IMO.

Seems like someone has tried individual bar molds earlier in this thread and it worked okay. My apologies to that poster -- I haven't tracked your post down to doublecheck the details.

Hope this helps.


----------



## MzMolly65

Sorry, I was editing my post while two of you replied.  Can you just review my post and see the numbers I've posted?  Thanks so much.

ETA:  Does anyone think mixing container shape or size matters?  I usually mix in a tall juice jug because it's easy to pour into the mold after but since this recipe is odd I was pondering whether I should use something with more width, like a pot.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I'm the one who tried individual molds, and they do work nicely, it just might take a bit longer to set. Molly, I can't help you with the numbers because I'm not used to dealing in grams (lol! I'd better learn), but your methodology and mixing container look fine to me. Have fun! Keep us posted!
Cheers!
Anna Marie



DeeAnna said:


> Yep, you two are 100% on the same page that I am.
> 
> I have two hypotheses about this recipe: The excess lye is needed to drive the saponification of soft oils such as olive that are difficult to saponify without a lye excess. The large excess of water quickly carries the lye from inside the bar to the surface where the lye can be neutralized with CO2.
> 
> I'm going to ask ... are you sure the crystals are lye, AnnaMarie? Could they be soda ash? I'm not trying to say that they're not lye -- I'm just wondering about this from half a large continent away.
> 
> Based on my second more-successful recipe, what I'm seeing is this: A freshly cut surface of the soap appears shiny, feels slightly damp, and is zappy from lye. After some hours, that surface appears drier and is not zappy. After some days, the surface is covered with a fine layer of soda ash. Ash does have a salty, metallic, almost-zappy flavor for me, but it's different than a real zap from lye.
> 
> On the other hand, I can also see that lye crystals could form if the evaporation of the water is carrying more lye out of the soap than can react with the available CO2. That could explain this difference between your soap and mine.
> 
> I also "think aloud" on this forum and especially on this thread, especially since I have no one in my face-to-face life that I can talk to about this stuff. DH is a good fellow, but he's not a soaper. Thanks for listening!



I more than understand not having someone to talk to in real life about soaping stuff  . This forum has been great for meeting people of similar interests, and I've been very grateful for it.

I'm sure it was lye crystals on my soap (I understood your implication with the question  ). They were sparkling and building upon each other- very much in the same way that crystals do in those grade school experiments with string and water and alum (I think). The crystals are all gone now though, so I can't send a pic.

There's no sign of lye crystals on my new batch yet which seems a little odd, but then this batch held its water which might be the reason why (proper saturation of lye???). 

In other news, my test bar now weighs 5.40 oz down from 6.95- a 22% decrease in weight. I chickened out on the zap test today because it was so stingy yesterday- lol!
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## MzMolly65

:clap:  My batch is almost ready to pour!  I mixed up the volume I stated above and decided to use the glass pot rather than the juice jug .. just for greater ease of mixing.  It's working wonderfully and I have a light trace at around the 1/2 hour mark.  I'm just letting it set up a bit more before pouring.  

Never mind the funky recipe, I might adapt this method for all future soaping because it's just much calmer than the hectic SB and hurry up before it's too thick to pour method.

I'm happy to be soaping again after 3 weeks of sitting on the sidelines!

ETA:  I did NOT use a wooden spoon and I did NOT stir in one direction so those are obviously superstitious behaviours that are not essential to the process.

ETA:  I know .. no glass around lye.  I took a calculated risk and yes, I know it was dangerous.  If I make this soap again I'll get a proper mixing container.


----------



## btz

I cut my lye heavy coconut oil soap yesterday. The bottom part was firm, but the top part was a little brittle. The Sweet Almond Oil was out of the individual mold too, but I guess it was a little bit too soon, there's some part of the soap left in the mold . Not a pretty soap, but I don't really mind that. 

AnnaMarie, can I ask is your previous lye heavy castile soap drying on the skin? I read that you said it was hard, long lasting and not slimy, but nothing about about the moisturizing effect.


----------



## AnnaMarie

btz said:


> I cut my lye heavy coconut oil soap yesterday. The bottom part was firm, but the top part was a little brittle. The Sweet Almond Oil was out of the individual mold too, but I guess it was a little bit too soon, there's some part of the soap left in the mold . Not a pretty soap, but I don't really mind that.
> 
> AnnaMarie, can I ask is your previous lye heavy castile soap drying on the skin? I read that you said it was hard, long lasting and not slimy, but nothing about about the moisturizing effect.



I don't remember it being drying at all, but it has been a number of years since I used it in the shower. Once the ph is right on these I will be paying attention to that issue. I had dry skin for a number of years until I started making my own soap, and I honestly don't remember any issues with this recipe other then it made great soap. However, I will go on record as saying that I don't have sensitive skin, so I will be interested to hear others response to this soap.
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## btz

That's good to hear. Will wait somewhat impatiently for the report


----------



## DeeAnna

Well, my homely olive-oil soap -- the batch that cleaned my oven -- is still losing weight, but not as fast. I think most of the excess lye was lost right up front when the emulsion failed. This soap has grown almost no ash since I cut the bars (unlike the second batch, below). The bars are mostly very firm -- they do not yield to hard finger pressure. The darker center portions are still a bit softer, but very acceptable, given how very soft they were to start with.

My second batch -- the pretty safflower-lard soap -- is still cool from evaporation and is still losing weight at about the same rate as in the beginning. I would expect some deformation of the bars as they lose all this water, and that is happening a little bit, but not as much as I would expect. I was expecting these bars to dry down like a rebatched bar -- you know how they can get swaybacked and hollow? Not these babies! 

The bars have stayed a pale ivory color, but are completely covered in a thin but growing layer of dull white soda ash. The ash does not zap and the surface soap does not zap either after I wipe off the ash. The ash has a strong salty-metallic-bitter taste, but the soap itself is pretty much tasteless. I didn't cut into a bar to check the innards, but I'm sure the center is still zappy. I'll wait a few more days and check that again. The bars are surprisingly firm -- I can just barely dent the surface a tiny bit if I press very hard with my fingertips. I would not expect this much hardness from a safflower-lard blend if I had used a normal CP recipe.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I wonder how this recipe would work with sunflower seed oil? I've heard it's comparable to olive....thinking out loud again.


----------



## DeeAnna

*AnnaMarie*: "...wonder how this recipe would work with sunflower seed oil? I've heard it's comparable to olive..."

Regular sunflower has more linoleic and less oleic than olive does. I wouldn't say the two are similar, really. 

What I do know is that high oleic safflower (what I used in my 2nd batch at 70% along with 30% lard) and HO sunflower have a similar fatty acid content that is comparable to olive. The HO safflower is doing really well so far. 

*MzMolly*: "...ETA:  I did NOT use a wooden spoon and I did NOT stir in one direction so those are obviously superstitious behaviours that are not essential to the process...."

You were hopping around on one foot, m'dear. That was good enough -- the wooden spoon and stirring-one-way rules are waived for you.


----------



## ilovesoap2

I would like to make this my first soap and I plan to make it today but have 2 quick questions.  

For the lye, should I use a measuring cup or should I be using a scale?
Also, I do not have a proper loaf mold but I cleaned up a milk carton and suddenly I'm wondering if it's a good idea, with all the lye draining that happened, pr should it be ok since I'll hand stir and hopefully no broken emulsion? I have a 12 cavity silicone mold so a little confused as to which 
may be the best to use.  Thanks all.


----------



## eyeroll

I can't comment on your mold question since I haven't made this particular soap, but I can say you should always weigh your ingredients; it's much more accurate than measuring by volume.


----------



## ilovesoap2

@eyeroll thank you
With this one recipe the only thing they may have weighed is the lye.  I want to follow the recipe to the t so thought I would check.


----------



## AnnaMarie

For this particular recipe you will only weigh the lye and measure everything else. This is a "break the rules" recipe that I found that comes from Spain. Just follow the instructions on the blog link given for this on the first page or two of this thread, and you should be fine. This was one of my first batches of soap after a lot of research. I was trying to find something old school. This is a fun recipe!  . Have fun soaping! 
Cheers!
Anna Marie

Also, on the mold, go ahead and use what you have- milk carton or silicone. I used a shoe box when I first made this If you plan on hand stirring then your soap shouldn't weep a lot. That being said, I would still put soap old towels under your mold "just in case". Be sure to let us know how it turns out!
Cheers!
Anna Marie

Here's the link again:
http://spanishjourneys.com/oliveme/2009/06/08/make-your-own-pure-castille-soap/


----------



## ilovesoap2

Thanks Anna Marie.
I spent sometime on that blog yesterday.  Made me wanna go find
a bamboo stick


----------



## AnnaMarie

Lol! I fortunately had a bamboo spoon that got donated to the cause:smile:


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Update on my milk-and-honey castile! Measured it today, at a week-and-most-of-a-day. It's lost approximately 14% weight (from 1197g to 1032g), is not zappy (though tastes nasty), has a layer of ash, and is still pink. So, this might be a way to keep colors that typically morph from morphing! Only time (and maybe repeated experiments) will tell...

Also, most of that weight loss seems to have been since I unmolded and cut my bars. I weighed the bars alone separately, once right after cutting and then today. That was a 12% difference.


----------



## DeeAnna

OH, NO .... REPEATED EXPERIMENTS! Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhrrrrrrgggghh!!!!!!


----------



## FlybyStardancer

But all good little scientists repeat experiments!


----------



## AnnaMarie

I would have to agree with Stardancer, DeeAnna ;-)


----------



## MzMolly65

> Well, my homely olive-oil soap -- the batch that cleaned my oven -- is still losing weight, but not as fast.



Can you send your soap over to clean my oven?  (and maybe help me lose weight too)


----------



## FlybyStardancer

I'm also thinking that the issue of encouraging gel vs. not plays a bigger role in whether the soap weeps in the mold... Like most of the early attempts, I used a stick blender to blend up mine and got the thick-break-pudding, but unlike the rest I didn't aggressively chase gel with insulation or CPOP and mine didn't experience any weeping.

And mine also seems to be a few days behind DeeAnna's in evaporation, but I wonder how much that has to do with location... In the house proper it wasn't really evaporating, but after I cut it I put the tray out in the back enclosed porch, and that drastically speeded up evaporation.


----------



## MzMolly65

My soap is so far, successful.  No weepy-ness at all.  I checked it this morning and it's firm but still sticky to the touch so I think I need to leave it another day before trying to cut it.  Let's see if I can control myself that long :lolno:

Here's where I admit I played with things a bit .. *hangs head in scientific shame*.  I did make 4 round bars of pure, untainted recipe so don't punish me too much.  Then, since I already have quite a bit of plain, white, unscented soap already, for the balance of the mix I added eucalyptus EO and a bunch of square embeds and poured it into the loaf mold.  

Looks good so far, excited to see it cut and test it.  How long should this recipe cure before using?


----------



## seven

i just wanna say it out loud that i am dyyyiiinnggg to try the soap :!: esp. since i found there was no zap at all on both the tofu soap and the good soap.

*must be patient 

the question is: is this soap safe to sell?

not saying that i wanna sell the batch that i have now, i mean, the recipe itself, with a -40% SF. the blog said to wait 2 weeks, while a normal castile's suggested cure time is 6 months. hmmm....


----------



## DeeAnna

"...the question is: is this soap safe to sell?..."

If and when it tests skin safe, lathers well, and meets your other criteria for a salable soap, why not? 

"...I used a stick blender to blend up mine and got the thick-break-pudding, but unlike the rest I didn't aggressively chase gel with insulation or CPOP and mine didn't experience any weeping...."

Good point, Stardancer!

"...How long should this recipe cure before using? ..."

Gosh, that's a question I wish I could answer too! Hey, AnnnnaaaaaMaaaaariiiiieeeee???


----------



## AnnaMarie

Welllllll....... I wil, fully admit that I didn't cure this that long when I first made it (a few weeks maybe???) I also was a brand new soaper who didn't know to do a zap test and was still learning about lye. I lucked out as a new soaper with this recipe- plain and simple! I am now coming back to it a number of years later with a lot more knowledge under my belt and a desire to know if lye heavy soap really is bad if cured properly, and why THIS recipe makes good Castile as opposed to others I've tried. I've tried to do it the RIGHT way a number of times and the final result is yuck! in the shower (yes, I drain it and keep it out of water). All this to say that I'm not really sure how long to cure it. I'm expecting my phenol-stuff any time now, and I'm anxious to test the PH. I will report on it then to try and give everyone an idea of cure time. I'll be testing a batch that's about 2 months old.
Cheers!
Anna Marie

Ok people, I just test the ph. Clearly, even after 2 months the soap still needs to be cured- unless I'm reading this ph thing wrong. A sample of my regular recipe soap was clear, so I am assuming pink isn't ideal. The soap on the top is the fresh batch and the bottom soap is the older batch. The older batch isn't quite as pink as the top whereas the top was bright pink right away, so this gives me hope that Kevin Dunn is right, and that these extra lye molecules will get eaten up over a good, looong time 

By the way, the new bar was tested close to the surface and the old bar was tested in the middle.

and the middle of the new bar was even darker then these two. I am thinking a good year for these, but I hear that many soap makers cure their castile that long anyway.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Trying again! This time with an olive/soy blend to use up the last of my soybean oil. I'm using two micas that are supposed to discolor, to test what happened in my first batch! I added milk powder again, but left out the honey in this one. I SB'd the 50/50 oil/water-milk mixture, but have been hand-stirring since I added the lye. I think pre-emulsifying the water and oil may have been the wrong choice. Oh well. 

And this is a biiig batch! 1000g oils. It just baaaaarely fits in my soaping bowl!


----------



## doriettefarm

Newbie poster here but I'm fascinated by this thread.  One of my first soaps (pre-stick blender) was a castile soap.  Even with a good, long cure I wasn't too impressed with it . . . slimy lather and all.  

Very curious about the lye heavy recipe and how long it will take to reach an acceptable ph level.  The closet chemist in me wants to know if a zap-test is good enough or if ph testing is gospel.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Yeah, like I thought afterwards. If you use a SB to blend the water into the oil, you need to SB to finish it. Working on it during commercial breaks while I watch SHIELD.

Keep your stick blenders faaaar, far away from this recipe. Any SB emulsification at all will lead you you needing to continue. I'm actually a tad worried about this breaking and weeping. It didn't seem as well emulsified as the castile had been, even after it reached the plasticky pudding stage. 

Also, as to the question of morphing... I tried the other two morphing micas in my sampler pack. These two both morphed, though they're still pretty. 

This is being left on the counter with a fan blowing nearby. I'm hoping it doesn't weep, and that the mold doesn't leak, but it's sitting on paper towels layered over plastic wrap in case it does.


----------



## MzMolly65

AnnaMarie said:


> I am thinking a good year for these, but I hear that many soap makers cure their castile that long anyway.



Whaaaaa????  So if this takes a whole year to cure (like my other castile) what was the point of all that lye?  I thought it was so we could use it sooner.  Is it just to reduce the slimy feeling?  I never find castile slimy the way other people do.

ETA:  I have no patience and cut my soap.  It's like firm tofu with a slightly slick feeling but I think it will dry nicely.  I popped one bar out of the cavity and while it came out easily, it tore a little on the edges so I left the rest for another day or two.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Just went to check on the olive/soy soap... And the colors have continued the morph. The green is now a poopy orange-brown, and the blue is now pink. Weird!


----------



## soap_rat

Anna Marie, I think that olive oil soap has a fairly high cured pH, above 10, so perhaps the phenolp. will always be bright?  DeeAnna will know!

I've made this twice now, the first time was a crazy adventure and tonight was dreamy.  Flyby, I did use a SB to start the batch tonight, but I started with a 50% lye solution.  I just used it a couple of minutes then did the rest by hand.  I think my experience was much like DeeAnna's second attempt.  I will do a proper writeup soon, I have photos of my 1st mess (and of the delicious "mayonnaise" I made tonight).


----------



## ilovesoap2

Mine bombed..3 hrs and no trace..well so light that it disappears almost immediately.
One thing I did differently, I did not like the look of the 6oz lye and 3/4 cup water..it stayed white so I added an extra cup of water and then did the 4cups oil 3cups water.  It looked totally emulsified but would not trace. I've checked it twice now and it looks super shiny on top so I think it will probably separate. bleh


----------



## DeeAnna

From what I can tell olive is mostly oleic acid with a modest dab of linoleic and palmitic acids. SoapRat has a good memory -- I would estimate the pH of a skin-safe castile will be in the 10-11 range, speaking roughly.

In a _dilute solution_, phenolphthalein (aka PhPh or phenol-p) is colorless below about 8.2, turns pink about 8.2, turns bright fuschia about 10, and above 12 will flush fuschia at first, then fade to colorless. If dropping PhPh solution on _solid soap_ gives the same results as it does in a dilute solution (and for the record I am not convinced of that, but let's just assume it does), then the bright pink you're seeing is saying your soap pH is somewhere between 10-ish and 12-ish. 

Does that mean it's skin safe or not? Dunno. If the pH is over 11, that's much too high for an oleic soap, but if it's under 11, it's probably good. Bear in mind that soda ash has a high pH, so any soda ash contamination will mess up the results. Either do the test on a freshly cleaned surface of the solid soap, if that's your preference, or do a pH test of a soap solution as a chemist would properly do it. From summerbeemeadow.com:

"...The proper way to use phenolphthalein is to dissolve some liquid or solid soap in a roughly 50:50 mix of distilled water and alcohol (ethyl or isopropyl rubbing alcohol is ok) in a clear glass. When the solution is as clear as it will get, add a drop or two of phenolphthalein solution and stir it. Then view it well-lit in front of a white background. This way, one can see the slightest little bit of pink color (which is ok) and all its graduations up to a deep red (definitely not ok)...."

However you choose to test, just be consistent with your method and practice often so you are quite familiar with how your chosen test works. Only with consistency and experience can you decide whether the results indicate a skin safe soap or not.


----------



## seven

notice that the original recipe mentioned to cure the soap for 2 weeks. i'm gonna go a bit further than that with 4 weeks and will start trying it on me. my skin is already pretty thick anyway, a lil lye burn i will survive


----------



## DeeAnna

I normally cure my soap about a month before serious use, so this soap will get the same treatment, although I've already been testing scraps to wash my hands. Maybe these bars will be skin safe in a month, maybe not. Another issue is development of lather with time as well. So far I can't say the lather from either of my batches is very good, but I do know that some of my normal soaps develop a nicer lather as time goes on.


----------



## soap_rat

DeeAnna, is the soap slimy?  I recently tried a Bastille I made a year ago (or it might have been two!) and it's slimy!!!  That's a big reason I'm interested in trying this recipe.  

I had a paper open in another tab that mentioned the cured pH of different oil mixtures, but I didn't want to make an assertion about pH based on reading one whole table in a paper.  I need to go back and check that thread in the Liquid soap forum, where someone was asserting (regarding HP soap) that high pH always means excess lye.  (that's why I found that paper)


----------



## AnnaMarie

Lol! MzMolly, you are too funny! I don't know what the point of all the lye is myself which is why I brought this recipe to the forum :-D IMO this recipe made superior, non-gooey Castile soap and it comes from Spain, the birthplace of Castile soap, and from a local- all of which adds to its credibility for someone like me :-D. I just threw out a guess on cure time, but if Castile does have a higher ph then normal, well?????
Cheers!
Anna Marie
Ps- hope your foot is feeling and getting better!

Haha! You gals are all good sports! I'd do a lab with you all anytime :-D. There are no lame people here- that's for sure!
On the ph of Castile, that is news to me, but I did some checking, and yes, the ph of Castile is higher then average. I really think this soap will be all right in time. I may go get some unbleached parchment paper to wrap it in (I'm out anyway, and I need more for baking). I have to say that the only thing I've changed my mind on with this recipe is the SB, but I do think a five minute blend at the end gives it a nicer texture then unblended after seeing the results. So for me, hand stir until thick and then give it a few minutes with an SB. I, personally, think the recipe is best in its original form, so I won't be altering amounts at all. I also like the lather really well, and feel this is a really good mild soap (IMO). This recipe really appeals to my sense of preserving tradition- I tend to be old school 
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## new12soap

DeeAnna said:


> From what I can tell olive is mostly oleic acid with a modest dab of linoleic and palmitic acids. SoapRat has a good memory -- I would estimate the pH of a skin-safe castile will be in the 10-11 range, speaking roughly.
> 
> In a _dilute solution_, phenolphthalein (aka PhPh or phenol-p) is colorless below about 8.2, turns pink about 8.2, turns bright fuschia about 10, and above 12 will flush fuschia at first, then fade to colorless. If dropping PhPh solution on _solid soap_ gives the same results as it does in a dilute solution (and for the record I am not convinced of that, but let's just assume it does), then the bright pink you're seeing is saying your soap pH is somewhere between 10-ish and 12-ish.
> 
> Does that mean it's skin safe or not? Dunno. If the pH is over 11, that's much too high for an oleic soap, but if it's under 11, it's probably good. Bear in mind that soda ash has a high pH, so any soda ash contamination will mess up the results. Either do the test on a freshly cleaned surface of the solid soap, if that's your preference, or do a pH test of a soap solution as a chemist would properly do it. From summerbeemeadow.com:
> 
> "...The proper way to use phenolphthalein is to dissolve some liquid or solid soap in a roughly 50:50 mix of distilled water and alcohol (ethyl or isopropyl rubbing alcohol is ok) in a clear glass. When the solution is as clear as it will get, add a drop or two of phenolphthalein solution and stir it. Then view it well-lit in front of a white background. This way, one can see the slightest little bit of pink color (which is ok) and all its graduations up to a deep red (definitely not ok)...."
> 
> However you choose to test, just be consistent with your method and practice often so you are quite familiar with how your chosen test works. Only with consistency and experience can you decide whether the results indicate a skin safe soap or not.


 
Thank you so much for pointing all of that out, including the proper way to use phenolphthalein.

Yes, a perfectly good safe mild soap can have a pH as high as 10.5, as shocking as that sounds!

And btw, phenolphthalein is toxic and can be absorbed through contact. Please discard any bars that are coated with it and use gloves and caution when handling it.


----------



## ilovesoap2

AnnaMarie said:


> So for me, hand stir until thick and then give it a few minutes with an SB.
> Cheers!
> Anna Marie



When it got thick on me I was tempted to finish it off with the sb but was so worried it may separate at that point.


----------



## ilovesoap2

it didn't weep or drain anything and looks like it will set up.
What do you guys think?


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Well, the colors seem to be going back to blue and green. Thankfully. LOL It was really ugly when I checked it this morning--the colors somewhere between the two extremes they were last night.


----------



## ilovesoap2

This is just emulsified olive oile 
Will I get soap from this thing..I hate wasting liquid gold!


----------



## AnnaMarie

I think it will set up fine. It looks like my hand stirred batch before I pulled out the SB. I pour a sample of that one and it set up just fine.
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## krunt

Hi everyone,

I know you guys won't know me, as I've never posted here much, but I was intrigued with this recipe and have been eagerly following this thread.

It recently occurred to me that I'm not really happy with my soap (due to the gooey/slimey issue), but I didn't know what to do about it.  I was actually going to try hp to see if that would make a difference.  And then this thread popped up.

I haven't used olive oil in my soap for some time now, as I found the smell of unscented olive oil soap unpleasant.  I have been using macadamia oil instead.  But it also recently occurred to me that the smell is probably the unsaponified oil gone rancid.  I never had that issue with the macadamia oil, so I continued using it in place of olive.  But the soap would still get slimey.

So imagine my delight to read this thread and find a recipe for a 100% olive oil soap that does not get gooey!  I am also assuming, although time will tell, that the soap will not get that funky smell, since there is no unsaponified oil left over.

I too have questioned the worth of superfat -- it's such a tiny amount of oil, could it really be making that much difference?  And wouldn't it just get washed away by the soap itself when you use it, rather than being left on the skin?

Anyway, I don't have the answers, but I'm posting to say I have just finished giving this recipe a go.  100% olive oil, 40% excess lye, water equal to oil + lye.  Everything went smoothly, and I got finished up a lot quicker than expected.

I used the "make a concentrated lye solution, add to oil and mix to trace, then add the rest of the water in stages, mixing to trace after each addition" method.  I used the stick blender to get to trace after initially adding the lye water to the oil, but after that the stick blender isn't really needed.  I found the soap batter maintained trace itself, and as I added each portion of water, all I needed to do was stir it into the batter.  From the time I started stirring (using the stick blender) to the time I poured, it was around 35 minutes, however I was taking it slow.  As I was expecting it to take over an hour, it was a nice surprise for it to take half that time.

The soap batter, at first trace, was around 42 degrees Celsius.  After each addition of water had been stirred in, the temperature would drop by 2-3 degrees.  At the time of molding, it was 29 degrees, and is maintaining that temperature.  I have a cardboard box over the mold, with a towel over the box, so light insulation.

At the time of pouring, my soap had that plastic quality that has been spoken of in this thread.  Poured right out without leaving any mess behind!

Well, I think that's about all I have to report, feel free to ask any questions if I've missed anything.  Many thanks to AnnaMarie for starting this thread, and to everyone who has taken part and reported their experiences and thoughts!  Oh, I used extra virgin olive oil.  Now all that's left is to post a photo!  I'll keep you guys updated on my soap.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Krunt,
Your soap looks awesome and so creamy! That was how mine looked when finished, and I love the pudding-like nature of the soap  How interesting on your reverse sb and stir technique! It just goes to show how few absolutes there truly are in soap making  I can't wait to see your finished product and how you like it. Thank you for joining the conversation.
Cheers!
Anna Marie

Just an update: my test bar has dropped 1.45 oz now- almost a 21% drop. As for the ph tested bar- the phenol on the fresh test bar of soap has become colorless, so I'm thinking that means it's definitely at 12 or more. However, on the 2 month cured test bar the phenol has stayed its same color, so I'm thinking it's definitely under 12 and in the safer range. I'm glad to know that castile has a higher ph, so I won't be expecting a clear result. Thank you all for the wonderful contributions and to our super scientist DeeAnna (take bow  )
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## Lin

AnnaMarie said:


> How interesting on your reverse sb and stir technique!


Thats the technique that DeeAnna had suggested and then used successfully in her second batch of soap. I've been following it since thats the technique I'll be using to try the recipe since I am unable to hand stir to trace.


----------



## seven

Krunt, thanks for sharing your process and results. I'll def use the SB if time is limited. We are understanding more and more about this soap, and it's been fun so far. 

Now to report on my soap.. I decided to test the tofu soap. It's nowhere ready. The inside is still drying up and it barely lathers. I also got a lil red and itchy, but nothing major. I'm gonna test the good one by next week.


----------



## DeeAnna

*SoapRat:* "...DeeAnna, is the soap slimy?..."

I played around with a larger scrap of each of my batches last night -- the first homely olive batch and the second pretty safflower-lard batch. Until last night, I hadn't been able to get the soaps to lather well. I was getting a scanty amount of lather and what there was of it looked more like lotion than suds. Last night I had better results -- DH was watching me and suggested adding a little more water to my hands as I rubbed. He was right. With that change, both soaps have a moderate amount of lather with a nice range of bubble sizes. The lather rinsed off well, and my hands didn't feel sticky right after washing. As my skin dried off, it felt fine -- not overly dried or itchy, but not sticky or lotion-y either.

I have never used a "normal" castile, so I have no idea how these soaps compare to a castile made with a regular CP process as far as slime vs. no slime. I'd say they are similar to my regular soaps. To give y'all a basis for comparison, my regular soaps generally have high conditioning and low cleansing numbers and moderate 5% superfat. I want my soaps to have a "neutral" skin feel -- what my skin felt before washing is pretty what it feels like after washing -- just nicely clean and refreshed without dirt or excess oil. The bubble-age is more on the creamy side with a scattering of larger bubbles, rather than super fluffy bubbles.

I haven't left them sit in water to see if they have a high "goo factor" or not. Seems unfair to do that without first letting them cure the same as my other soaps, since I know a cure period is helpful for this issue.

*Krunt:* "...I used the "make a concentrated lye solution, add to oil and mix to trace, then add the rest of the water in stages, mixing to trace after each addition" method. I used the stick blender to get to trace after initially adding the lye water to the oil, but after that the stick blender isn't really needed. I found the soap batter maintained trace itself, and as I added each portion of water, all I needed to do was stir it into the batter...."

That's what I did with my second safflower-lard batch. Isn't it just plain spooky how all that water so nicely blends into the emulsion??? Your soap looks nice. Bravo for joining the club!


----------



## MzMolly65

Lin said:


> thats the technique I'll be using to try the recipe since I am unable to hand stir to trace.



Lin .. I don't know your entire physical situation but fwiw, it doesn't require constant stirring.  I only stirred mine (couple of stirs around with the spatula) every 10 or so minutes and it was reaching light trace in about 20 minutes.  I just let it sit for a full hour before pouring it just to be sure I had proper trace and not false.  It really was quite easy and it poured like water, not thick like pudding.

I spent most of the hour on the couch, watching t.v. with my foot up!


----------



## MzMolly65

> I have never used a "normal" castile, so I have no idea how these soaps compare to a castile made with a regular CP process as far as slime vs. no slime.


DeeAnna .. if you want some for comparison, I'd be happy to send you some. I made a batch on January 27th that would be a good tester for you.

PM me your address if you want some and no postage required, it's the least I can do for all the knowledge you've shared with me since I've joined.



AnnaMarie said:


> So for me, hand stir until thick and then give it a few minutes with an SB.



Interesting. I didn't even stir until thick and no SB at all. Like I just said to Lin, I only stirred mine a little bit every 10 minutes or so and after an hour it was tracing nicely so I poured it. It was very runny .. but my bars are NICE! They're dry now, not slick anymore but still very soft and easily dented roblem:

Oh .. and these didn't gel either, which I think you can tell by the photo.

In the photo of the round bars you can see the ash on the face of the bar in front. So far there is only ash on the surfaces exposed to air during the first 24 hours. Will be interesting to see if more ash develops on the rest of the bar.

The colours in the photo are not true .. the bars are a very creamy bone colour.


----------



## ilovesoap2

@MzMolly65
Sounds like yours poured like mine did. My trace was very light though.
From reading another thread I found out that trace took forever because
I was working outside, it was 50+ degrees. I just did not trust myself
inside with the lye. I still don't think mine traced, surprised they're holding 
up.

These came out of the mold ok.
Can't wait to do a do-over, I want that nice, plastic trace you all got.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Those look great!


----------



## seven

I took a sliver from my good batch and wash my hands. Better lather than the tofu batch and i didnt get any itch, redness or other funky stuff.

Mzmolly and ilovesoap, looking good guys! 

DeeAnna, i so would send you my normal castile had i not live halfway across the globe from ya


----------



## krunt

AnnaMarie, seven and DeeAnna, thanks for your responses to my post  :smile:

I checked my soap before I went to bed last night (7 hours after molding), and the temperature had dropped from 29 to 24 degrees Celsius, which was 2 degrees above room temperature.  When I got up this morning (15.5 hours after molding), the top surface of the soap varied in temperature from 23 to 28 degrees, and there was some water droplets in the middle (that's where it was the hottest).  Room temperature at the time was 19 degrees.  A couple of hours later when I checked it again, the water was gone and the temperature was coming down.

Right now (22 hours after molding), the soap is still a few degrees above room temperature -- I take that to mean there is still some saponification going on?  I was thinking I would wait until it reaches room temperature before cutting.

It feels hard when I push on the sides of the silicone mold, much harder than I might have expected.  And the colour of it is now more of an off white, rather than the yellow it was yesterday.

Thanks for reading, will post again when I cut!


----------



## FlybyStardancer

The olive/soy loaf is still too soft to cut, but sturdy enough that I felt safe unmolding it and carefully peeling away the paper liner for pictures, and to help it evaporate off more water.

The top is very oddly colored. It's like it started to morph back to green and blue, and then got all funky. (For reference, this is what it looked like when I was finished putting it in the mold, and this is what it looked like a couple hours later.)

I was expecting more of the color around the outside towards the top, rather than just that thin layer on top. Sure, I swirled it, but there should still be some evidence of the color... 

As far as the colors go, the website says that the green is supposed to morph to lime green in high pH, and that the blue is supposed to morph to light blue in high pH. Clearly that's not what happened here. And they're supposed to not bleed, but it looks like they have shifted around, thanks to those dots on top!

There's also orange blobs/streaks along the sides in the white areas... I"m not sure what the heck those are! Looks kinda like bits of tree sap. 

This is the largest batch/loaf I've made, so there is that layer of uncertainty for me.


----------



## houseofwool

I wonder about using turmeric as a ph indicator...  I know for me it turns hot pink in high ph environment and as the saponification finishes, it calms down to a yellow color.


----------



## krunt

Well, I unmolded and cut my soap not long ago.  It was 1 degree above room temperature, I figured that was good enough.  It ended up being 25 hours after pour.  It was surprisingly hard, and based on this one experience, I wouldn't want to let it sit too much longer before cutting!

Here's a pic.  Please excuse the crappy cutting, I just used a kitchen knife and cut by hand.  I really should get a thinner knife/cutting blade and cutting guide.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Those came out a lovely creamy white! I really like that about this recipe. You should be able to clean up your cutting job with a knife and rubbing alcohol. I like using my wavy cutter for castile- it gives it a little extra character in a rustic sort of way 
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Those are much nicer than any cuts I've done with a knife!


----------



## MzMolly65

ilovesoap2 said:


> it didn't weep or drain anything and looks like it will set up.
> What do you guys think?
> 
> http://s1351.photobucket.com/user/ilovesoap2/media/IMG_0023_zps226d75b3.jpg.html



That's exactly what mine looked like when I poured it. I think you'll be very happy with it when it's set.


----------



## krunt

Thanks AnnaMarie and FlybyStardancer 

AnnaMarie, thanks for the tip about cleaning them up.  To be honest, it doesn't really bother me too much, they'll just be for personal use and I'm not too fussy about how my soap looks.  It's just a bit embarrassing when other soapers see them, and you feel like you should be presenting something better!!


----------



## FlybyStardancer

I really don't know what's going on with this olive/soy loaf. :/ Top continues to change, and when I picked it up to slice today, I discovered a pocket of amber liquid near the bottom. (I hadn't pulled it away from the liner on the bottom yet, which is why it had remained undiscovered.)

What the heck is this amber liquid? And will I end up needing to rebatch?


----------



## soap_rat

Wow, Flyby, that looks like a tiny trap door swiveled to the side to let the liquid out! I'm guessing the color is from the lye-water picking up one of your colorant? That's what mine did. Once you cut your loaf you'll have better info on whether you might need to rebatch, but if that liquid is lye-water, well, others here lost lye water in their soap too and I think the soaps turned out? (it's getting hard to keep track, maybe we need to make a grid)

Here is the picture-story of my first batch, part 1:

Part 2:


----------



## AnnaMarie

Wow! Thank you for the lab report soap rat! Sounds like you had a very adventurous soaping experience  . You could market your "concrete" soap to Home Depot as builder's soap  I'm going to have to branch out with additives like you guys are doing. So far I've been pretty plain Jane. I'll have to add some color...
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## newbie

I am ready to throttle this recipe. I started once again 70 minutes ago, no stick blending and only stirring with a  spatula and there are no signs whatever of it going together and far from trace. What the heck? Am I in a slow-to-no trace vortex? It certainly doesn't apply to other recipes. I swear I'm going to scream.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Oh dear:Kitten Love: :Kitten Love:


----------



## soap_rat

I found that if I sat down to internet, things happened very quickly!  try that?


----------



## newbie

That's why I'm here. So I don't lose my f'ing mind. I finally SB'ed it for a few seconds just to get the oil and water blended- it was seriously still yellow oil on top and water on the bottom after about 80 minutes. I'm 8 minutes short of 2 hours now and trying to keep my back turned.


----------



## btz

newbie said:


> I am ready to throttle this recipe. I started once again 70 minutes ago, no stick blending and only stirring with a  spatula and there are no signs whatever of it going together and far from trace. What the heck? Am I in a slow-to-no trace vortex? It certainly doesn't apply to other recipes. I swear I'm going to scream.



Maybe you can try raising the batch's temperature a little bit to help the saponification.


----------



## newbie

I did! It actually was hot for a while at first. I know this recipe does't like it too hot, so i cooled it down to warm after about 30-40 minutes. Man, I need to make this right next to someone else to see what I'm doing that makes this recipe so long for me. 

I let it sit for some time and when I came back, it was still water underneath so I SB'ed briefly. It started becoming grainy so I stirred and SB'ed a bit until it looked like my cellulite. Even with some SB'ing it wouldn't go the lotion stage but I was able to stir it together. I just didn't want the rubber ball thing again. It took a while to get my colors mixed in but it stayed together and I was able to pour, although it didn't go quite like I thought. The truth is in the cutting. 

All told, 2 1/2 hours. Shoot me now.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Did you follow the original recipe or did you alter it?


----------



## soap_rat

I've been tempted to try it the "true way," all diluted from the beginning.  You are talking me out of that!


----------



## newbie

Follow the recipe to a T, except I'm only making a half batch. I do use FO's but other people do too. No colors until it's together. 

If I do it again, I will try the oil plus the lye water and SB'ing to trace, then adding the extra water. 

I did not use a SB until I was close to 2 hours into it. This time I stirred with a spatula only, for the first (roughly) 2 hours until I broke down. Stirred slowly for about 30-40 minutes then started taking 10 min breaks until I finally SB'ed it. I swear my house is possessed or something. I use Costco OO, ED food grade lye (fresh bottle today), purified water and although i measure volume-wise, I do it on the scale so I can see if I'm seriously off. I'm usually within 1 ounce and at a 40+ % lye discount, I can't see the 1 ounce being an issue, esp since this is an old recipe that I doubt they weighed out.

This is batch #4. The first two, no heat at all. The third, I warmed the oil/water mix to warm to the touch. On this one #4, I warmed the oils to a higher temp and added the lye water while it was hot. The fastest time I had was on #3, when I warmed it slightly and SB'ed almost the whole time, alternating SB'ers. Took me 1.5 hours that time, or 2 hours with a 30 minute break just before the end.

Sigh.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I don't understand what could be going on??? I use costco olive, food grade lye, and distilled water myself with great results. I also don't think being an ounce or two off is going to drastically affect this recipe. If I weigh (sometimes I weigh, sometimes I measure) this one I just do a straight 32 oz each of water and olive plus the 6 oz lye and 3/4 cup of water for diluting lye. This should come together for you within an hour. I don't get it??? I wish I knew how to help.... I'm sighing with you...

So sorry!!!!


----------



## newbie

Not your fault! I think other people said they stirred slowly but constantly. Maybe I should just stir 5 times altogether, but I'm not confident that would work either. I'm utterly perplexed.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I stirred pretty constantly, but with breaks. It really began to trace after about a half hour or 45 min, but a good thick trace will be around an hour.  I never heated anything. I mixed the quart of water and olive together; I combined the lye and 3/4 cup water; I added the lye solution to the olive/water combo and began stirring.  I just don't get it....


----------



## soap_rat

So Newbie, what is different about this batch vs. your other batches?  This is the warmest batch, and the only batch you tried only hand-stirring (until you decided to SB)?  Is the FO a different one from before?  How is the duration compared to the first two batches?


----------



## FlybyStardancer

soap_rat said:


> Wow, Flyby, that looks like a tiny trap door swiveled to the side to let the liquid out!  I'm guessing the color is from the lye-water picking up one of your colorant?  That's what mine did.  Once you cut your loaf you'll have better info on whether you might need to rebatch, but if that liquid is lye-water, well, others here lost lye water in their soap too and I think the soaps turned out?  (it's getting hard to keep track, maybe we need to make a grid)



The colorants I used were blue and green. It's an amber color, similar to what the water was when the emulsion broke. And I think it might be caustic, because my finger tingled afterwards, until I got it washed off really well.

I'm hesitant to cut into it with those pockets of liquid, especially since I just purchased a cheese slicer board that's bamboo, and I wouldn't want the pockets messing that up.


----------



## Pilar

AnnaMarie said:


> Get ready to croak soapers...
> 1 quart (yes, quart) of olive oil
> 1 quart water
> 3/4 cup water (to dilute lye)
> 6oz lye
> 
> Yep! Yep! Yep! On all of it. Mix the quart of water and olive oil. Mix the lye in 3/4 cup water. Combine it all (no heating) and it will trace in approx. 20 min. Makes the best castile!
> Ill brace myself for the lectures



This recipe is not only Andalusian (I'm Andalusian) is the oldest recipe castile soap and is used for laundry if use oil used (fryer, old) Produce a white soap foam that winning quality one year after cur. It's the old recipe that grandmothers made ​​soap and we called: 6-6-1. That is, 6 liters of water, 6 liters of oil, 1 kilo lye. Some also does 5-5-1. 
It is the original castile soap. Is this soap base for liquid detergents also


----------



## btz

Pilar said:


> This recipe is not only Andalusian (I'm Andalusian) is the oldest recipe castile soap and is used for laundry if use oil used (fryer, old) Produce a white soap foam that winning quality one year after cur. It's the old recipe that grandmothers made ​​soap and we called: 6-6-1. That is, 6 liters of water, 6 liters of oil, 1 kilo lye. Some also does 5-5-1.
> It is the original castile soap. Is this soap base for liquid detergents also



Do you also use other oil with this recipe Pilar? Or is it exclusively for castile soap?

Edit: And thank you for the traditional recipe of 6-6-1, it's easier for me to remember and do because I use those measurement


----------



## Pilar

btz said:


> Do you also use other oil with this recipe Pilot? Or is it exclusively for castile soap?
> 
> Edit: And thank you for the traditional recipe of 6-6-1, it's easier for me to remember and do because I use those measurement



nooo! Never! This recipe is so. But notice that it is a soap that is used for laundry. Also called castilla that just olive oil but with a different concentration
hahahaha and my name is María Pilar 
http://translate.google.com/transla...http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgen_del_Pilar


----------



## btz

Pilar said:


> nooo! Ever! This recipe is so. But notice that it is a soap that is used for laundry. Also called castilla that just olive oil but with a different concentration
> hahahaha and my name is María Pilar
> http://translate.google.com/transla...http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgen_del_Pilar



Oh, so this is the recipe for laundry soap? Annemarie said she uses it on skin though, is it okay to use it like that?

*fixed error*
*run*
*hides in embarrassment over the typo*


----------



## Pilar

btz said:


> Oh, so this is the recipe for laundry soap? Annemarie said she uses it on skin though, is it okay to use it like that?
> 
> *fixed error*
> *run*
> *hides in embarrassment over the typo*



I understand that 1 quarter is 1 liter 
if you divide the recipe between 6, 1 kilo(1000 grm): 166 grams of lye 
166g = 5.8555oz
 That soap is used for pimples, acne, only! This causes the skin too dry!!


----------



## AnnaMarie

Hi Pilar! It's great to have you join the conversation! Did you look at the link that I pulled this off of? The author clearly implied this soap was for skin- not that it necessarily is. I'm very interested to hear from someone else who's familiar with the recipe as well. I've used it in the shower and personally loved it (and I have dry skin), but I use new, pure olive oil. I would love to hear more about it from your perspective
Cheers!
Anna Marie

I should add that in looking over the blog again one of the commenters (also Andalusian) said that using recycled oil for this doesn't make it good for skin and is used only for laundry. Do you have another traditional Andalusian recipe? I love experiments :-D Here's the original link:
http://spanishjourneys.com/oliveme/2009/06/08/make-your-own-pure-castille-soap/

Another interesting side trip on the road to find the perfect castile soap....


----------



## newbie

Soap rat, you asked what I did differently in my 4 batches.

First two were in SS. I didn't heat the oil/water combo at all. SB in both. The first one I SB'ed and stirred and the second one I SB'ed but in pulses and stirred some. Both took about 3 hours. Peppermint FO. First batch I tried to cpop and I saved only 1/2 the batch, I think. That turned out well. The second batch started to gel and that was a bust.

Third one I did in a plastic bowl. Warmed the oil/water combo a bit. SB'ed almost constantly, alternating between SB"ers. Took 2 hours but I had to leave for 30 minutes in the middle, so really only 1 1/2 hours. THis is the time I got the rubber ball soap. Very difficult to stir in any colors because it was so ...bouncy and kind of impermeable. Hunter's Moon. THis soap turned out the best so far in terms of air pockets etc..

4th batch in a big pyrex measuring cup in a SS bowl. Heated the oil/water more. It was hot, but not boiling hot (I could keep my hand on the cup) to the touch. Hand stirred only for about 2 hours until it broke my spirit. Then I dumped it into the SS bowl and resorted to the SB. It took about another 30 minutes. It was intermediate between the lotion like texture and the rubber ball. Soap turned out fine.

I suppose I should try no heat at all and hand stirring, but I don't think I want this much castile! 


I just can't figure out why it takes so long for me.


----------



## Pilar

AnnaMarie said:


> Hi Pilar! It's great to have you join the conversation! Did you look at the link that I pulled this off of? The author clearly implied this soap was for skin- not that it necessarily is. I'm very interested to hear from someone else who's familiar with the recipe as well. I've used it in the shower and personally loved it (and I have dry skin), but I use new, pure olive oil. I would love to hear more about it from your perspective
> Cheers!
> Anna Marie
> 
> I should add that in looking over the blog again one of the commenters (also Andalusian) said that using recycled oil for this doesn't make it good for skin and is used only for laundry. Do you have another traditional Andalusian recipe? I love experiments :-D Here's the original link:
> http://spanishjourneys.com/oliveme/2009/06/08/make-your-own-pure-castille-soap/



 Thanks, AnnaMarie .
There is confusion in the web but because whoever wrote it mixes two concepts. Like you can see that is the method of grandmothers , a bowl and a stick and turning for hours until the stick is left standing in the batter. This soap is made from recycled oil ( here in Spain we have plenty of olive oil, fry in 3 liter fryer oil used and changed every 20-30 days ) Realising that used oil, took advantage to make soap with that amount of soda because it was the soap washed when no detergents. It is a great soap today is highly coveted because it leaves very white clothes.
It also happened when the kids are old enough to have pimples on your face , but only used in that area. As you will understand if you use that soap with that amount of soda leaves a hard soap, excessive cleaning, few bubbles (but in this special case is not fulfilled what the calculator makes since to cure the better over time, has a lot of foam ) but the conditioning is very low : this indicates that it is not a cosmetic soap, please do not use it regularly you 're doing a peeeling !
So far I think all clear and now I commented that when they speak of soap bought in Sevilla ( I am from Sevilla) is a soap with the same ingredients (no recicled oil) but different formula and it is the best.
 I put a photo of my mother with soap that formula. you'll see that are crude soaps and cleaning because they are dissolved in water used to clean the floor, especially marble. 
I've laughed a lot because reading the web says "Bragas Limpias" (traduction: Clean panties) hahahahahaha She will be the cleanest village woman and this is because we often put people nicknames. 8)
 AnneMarie I only know of two other types of experiments I did, one that is the laundry soap with percarbonate (6 l de aceite, 6l de agua, 1Kg de sosa, 1Kg de percarbonato) and Savon noir, maroccan or beldi that I put it on this site
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=42736


----------



## MzMolly65

newbie said:


> Not your fault! I think other people said they stirred slowly but constantly. Maybe I should just stir 5 times altogether, but I'm not confident that would work either. I'm utterly perplexed.



I didn't.  I stirred around the pot a couple of times (about a 10 second stir) and walked away for 10 or 15 minutes.  Came back, stirred around the pot a couple of times and walked away again.

Repeated that .. had a slight trace (could have been a false) at 20 minutes but a full and proper trace by 1 hour.

ETA:  I'm sorry you're having so much trouble with this recipe.  I can't say for sure but I think it's combination of the heat and the stirring.  I didn't heat mine at all and I barely stirred it.  If you're up for more soap I'd say try doing it with no heat and very little stirring in a container that is wide and short.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Pilar said:


> Thanks, AnnaMarie .


----------



## Pilar

AneMarie, Castile soap depends superfatted you want, it can be like this:

Oliva Virgen, oil ............. 1000gr
Supperfated ...................... 7%
Concentration ....................... 40%
Water ................................ 189gr
Lye ................................ 126gr

A trick to arrive before the trace is to heat a little oil or lye and oil both have the same temperature and not cold at all. In this formula (I use the calculator mendrulandia Spanish (http://calc.mendrulandia.net/ It is also in English) the conditioning is high and cleaning is low. You can play with the calculator to get the value that you like but whenever values ​​are high conditioned and low cleaning (SOS! my english is terrible, sorry :roll: )
 AHH! Castile soap to perfectly cured and ideal, has one year to cure!


----------



## AnnaMarie

Thank you so much Pilar! I'm going to try this, and to find some beaten black olives as well for the other recipe......


----------



## Pilar

AnnaMarie said:


> Thank you so much Pilar! I'm going to try this, and to find some beaten black olives as well for the other recipe......



Perfect, AnneMarie, if you need help, just send me message


----------



## soap_rat

AnnaMarie, maybe this wasn't meant to be used on skin, but you've used it on your dry skin and liked it!  We talked about the science behind why it may become skin-safe, and CMZ talks about how her soaps are 0 superfat, so just keep on doing what works!  

Also, have you used this castile day after day, or just occasionally?


----------



## AnnaMarie

Soap rat, I used it daily. Once I put soap in the shower then that's what I use. At that time all I had made was that batch, so that's what I used. I may use recycled olive oil for making the laundry version of this, but I make it with new oil so I have to imagine it's more conditioning. Thank you for the encouragement Soap rat!
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## MzMolly65

Well I'll be honest, I'm not liking this soap anymore.  As mine dries it's turning a nasty shade of yellow and is becoming all "crispy".  It feels like really dried out leather  :-(


----------



## AnnaMarie

So sorry it's not working out for you Molly!


----------



## soap_rat

My first batch is really ugly too, but my 2nd batch is beautiful!  ...so far.  Keep your leathersoap curse away from my soap, lady!


----------



## DeeAnna

My homely olive soap is leveling off on its moisture loss. The pretty safflower-lard soap bars have lost an average of 29% of their starting weight, but the rate of loss is slowing. 

The bars of the pretty soap are almost completely covered with a fine white, powdery ash that washes off easily. This ash developed about 6 days after I cut the bars. Before that time, the bars were cool and slightly clammy to the touch, indicating a lot of evaporation. The relative humidity in my home has been running 40-45%, so I expected this fast drying rate.

I cut one bar of each recipe in half and tested the center of these bars for zap. Nothing. Not even a metallic/salty/bitter taste. Just the taste of plain ol' everyday bland soap. Seriously. I had not expected that, but it was certainly a pleasant surprise. 

I took half of each test bar and lathered up. The homely bar (olive) lathered fairly nicely with a good blend of lotion-y lather and large fluffy bubbles. The pretty bar (safflower-lard) is still having trouble lathering well for me. Both soaps were very slick when I first wet them -- is this what folks mean about "slimy"? I get varying degrees of this slipperiness with soaps that don't have a lot of additives -- but I must admit these two are slippery little devils.

Since testing these soaps, my hands are somewhat dry and taut -- I'd like to put lotion on them. On the other hand, I don't normally wash my hands for several minutes at a stretch and my skin is always dry from winter weather and what I do in my day job. If these soaps were lye heavy, I would expect my skin to be rough, itchy, and reddened. I'm not getting any of that.

PS: Molly -- my first batch is leathery looking too, but the second is as pretty a soap as I've ever made. thanks for the offer to send me a soap!


----------



## FlybyStardancer

DeeAnna, did you see the pictures of my second soap? Any ideas what that amber liquid is?


----------



## DeeAnna

Another thought ... I realize this recipe breaks the "common wisdom" of handcrafted soaping that a body soap must be superfatted. I just read an interesting article on industrial soap making and came across this interesting fact:

"...Soap with free fatty acid (FFA) content at more than 5% of the total fatty acid (TFA) content are often called superfatted soaps. ...superfatted soaps are less common today than they were in the period from 1970–1990. Most toilet soaps now contain zero or only fractional amounts of FFA...." Source: Soap Making Technology, Luis Spitz, editor, 2009.

Not saying I want to make soap just like "store boughten", but I think this points out that superfat is not an absolute, mandatory requirement for a mild bath soap. 

Your experience confirms this castile soap can be lovely for use in the bath, not just the laundry, so I'm all for hanging in there with this recipe to see where this experiment leads us. So far this soap has broken a lot of my preconceived notions about soap making, and I'm curious to learn the next lesson this soap has to offer.


----------



## DeeAnna

StarDancer: "...Any ideas what that amber liquid is?..." 

I did see your picture -- Post 350, right? 

I'm guessing it's probably a lye, water, and glycerine solution with maybe some of your colorant thrown in for good measure. Some of the liquid that drained out of my homely soap was a thin milky-clear syrup, but some was very thick and amber colored. The parts of my homely soap that oozed the thick goop are still the softest part of this soap, but these areas are not wet or goopy anymore. They feel more like taffy and are gradually getting firmer with time.

If I were you, I'd just let your soap continue to cure and dry out. It might look awfully homely like mine, but I'm thinking mine might turn out to be reasonably nice soap in the end. 

Hope this helps!


----------



## AnnaMarie

I still like my soap! I fully plan on using it, enjoying it, and making more . I am always open to others ideas and improvement, but so far this recipe fits the bill for me 
Cheers!
Anna Marie
Ps- I like how mine looks too


----------



## FlybyStardancer

DeeAnna said:


> I did see your picture -- Post 350, right?
> 
> I'm guessing it's probably a lye, water, and glycerine solution with maybe some of your colorant thrown in for good measure. Some of the liquid that drained out of my homely soap was a thin milky-clear syrup, but some was very thick and amber colored. The parts of my homely soap that oozed the thick goop are still the softest part of this soap, but these areas are not wet or goopy anymore. They feel more like taffy and are gradually getting firmer with time.
> 
> If I were you, I'd just let your soap continue to cure and dry out. It might look awfully homely like mine, but I'm thinking mine might turn out to be reasonably nice soap in the end.
> 
> Hope this helps!



Yeah, pictured there. There's tiny pockets of the liquid along the side, but the bottom has a HUGE pocket with a very thin veneer of soap covering it (which I broke into when I discovered it). It's caused the bottom to be "sunken in" (or what would have been sunken in if it were the top instead of the bottom). I'm not entirely sure that there's colorant in it, but a mix of lyewater and glycerin solution. And thick and amber is definitely a good description! The loaf is still too soft to cut, so I haven't cut it open to see what's going on inside.


----------



## MzMolly65

I wonder if my soap is turning leathery due to the embeds I put in .. ?finicky soap Gods cranky that I dared to embellish a Castile soap?

Honestly, I'm scared to put my tongue to it.  My fingers tingle if I don't wash quick after handling it.  It can sit for a week before I look at it again.  I'm wondering how to rebatch it .. with all that lye is a regular rebatch going to work?  I like making sugar scrub cubes with my scraps and fails but scared to do that with a super lye heavy soap and end up with skin scalding scrubs :-(


----------



## DeeAnna

Molly -- I don't think I'd reuse the soap in scrubs. Like you said, I'd be concerned about the excess alkalinity in this soap being troublesome. Rebatching might work fine -- you know what's in it, so you should be able to figure how much additional oil is required to saponify the excess lye. Forgive me if I've missed important details about your soap -- there are so many posts to keep track of, I might have missed something. If it were me? I'd set the soap away and give it more time. I'm seeing both of my soaps becoming far less zappy as time goes on, so the simplest solution may just be patience. 

"...Honestly, I'm scared to put my tongue to it. My fingers tingle if I don't wash quick after handling it...."

Don't zap test it, m'dear. Your fingers are telling you plenty! I've noticed that too with this soap.

"... the bottom has a HUGE pocket with a very thin veneer of soap covering it..."

Stardancer -- The stuff in the pocket is still pretty gooey, right? Would it work to cut the soap into bars, even with the goo problem? You might get some ooze, but if your soap is similar to mine, the ooze may stop a few hours after being exposed to the air. Since I'm not right with you to see what it's like, take this suggestion with a grain of salt (err, soap).

I was musing this morning about the soda ash on my second soap and did some calculations about how much ash would form if the only way excess alkali is neutralized is by reacting with CO2. For every ounce (or gram) of excess lye that reacts with CO2 in the air, it is going to form 1.3 to 3.6 ounces (or grams) of ash, depending on the specific type of soda ash being formed (anhydrous vs. decahydrate) and assuming my calculations are more-or-less correct. 

AnnaMarie's original recipe is about 2 ounces lye heavy, so it should form a total of 2.6 to 7.2 ounces of ash all over the surfaces of the soap bars. That is a lot. Way, way, way more than what's forming on my soaps, which started out just as lye heavy.

So, I'm not sure just the formation of soda ash is the whole story. If ash formation is the only thing that is neutralizing the excess lye, the soap should be covered in a thick fur coat of soda ash. No one who has made this recipe, including me, is finding this to be the case. 

Not having a chem lab to study this, I'm not sure exactly what else is going on. Despite my ignorance of the reasons, it's clear this type of soap becomes considerably less lye heavy as time goes on. AnnaMarie's experience shows the soap will become mild and skin safe, given time, and that's impressive.

This is intriguing.  I love it...!


----------



## Happysoap

OMG! Are there Cliff Notes available for this thread? 

What happened with the lye heavy castile? How does it feel? Is it worth trying?


----------



## FlybyStardancer

DeeAnna said:


> The stuff in the pocket is still pretty gooey, right? Would it work to cut the soap into bars, even with the goo problem? You might get some ooze, but if your soap is similar to mine, the ooze may stop a few hours after being exposed to the air. Since I'm not right with you to see what it's like, take this suggestion with a grain of salt (err, soap).



So far it's been as soft as nearly every other soap I've made, so I haven't cut it yet. Aside from the bottom, the rest of it is firm, but will dent if I put enough pressure on it. For the other soaps, this has meant drag marks when cutting.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...What happened with the lye heavy castile? How does it feel? Is it worth trying? ..."

Uh, I need cliffs notes too! So far I believe most of the new batches from this recipe are still somewhat to very definitely lye heavy. Mine aren't zapping anymore, but I wouldn't take a shower with either one just yet -- they're both under 2 weeks old and clearly need more cure time.


----------



## kerry100

MzMolly ... you are SO funny ... make me giggle with your comments 

To ALL the other hero's and heroines .... I joined your excellent thread last night and spend the whole of Saturday night reading it!  Well done to you all ... you were all amazing, and scientific and persistent and all in the name of soap !!! 

I even popped back tonight to see how you were all getting on 

sending ya much love

k
x


----------



## newbie

Batch 3 and 4 I umolded within 24 hours and cut. Because it's so wet, it cuts extremely cleanly and no drag marks at all. The soap itself is soft but will hold its shape fine after cutting unless you drop a bar or something. Smooth as silk on the surface of the cut. I waited on batch #1 until it was hard, but then it was too hard and I had some breakage at the bottom of the cut.

I just got my first appearance of bubbles this am on a trial wash. Soap made on Feb 23. The water in the sink got quite bubbly but I couldn't generate that much lather in my hands. My hands felt a bit tight after washing. No zap and no tingle even if I leave my tongue on the test bar, but it was one that leaked lye water. I can still pick up a touch of tingle if I leave my tongue sitting on the bar for a bit on the 1/2 of that batch that didn't weep.


----------



## DeeAnna

Great lab report, Newbie! Thanks for sharing! I am utterly surprised by how fast this soap loses its zap. Not sayin' it's super mild just yet, but it's way less "hot" than I would have guessed before we all made this recipe.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Happysoap said:


> OMG! Are there Cliff Notes available for this thread?
> 
> What happened with the lye heavy castile? How does it feel? Is it worth trying?



No kidding! I need cliff notes too! I'm trying to keep up.... I think this will prove to be a unique experience for everyone, and you'll just have to decide for yourself if you're up for it. I won't tell you to do it, and I won't tell you not to do it- how's that for an answer :-D? Truthfully, I'm very surprised that this many people have engaged in this experiment. I never expected anyone to make it when I first posted it . I may whip out a two month cured bar to try here and report back.
Cheers!
Anna Marie

Just to let everyone know, I did try to contact the original author of the blog post from which I got this recipe. I asked for some clarification on whether or not it's for skin and the issue of its being lye heavy, etc. I'll let everyone know if I get an answer. I'm not hopeful because it's such an old blog post, but it is still a functioning blog so who knows?
Cheers!
Anna Marie



kerry100 said:


> MzMolly ... you are SO funny ... make me giggle with your comments
> 
> To ALL the other hero's and heroines .... I joined your excellent thread last night and spend the whole of Saturday night reading it! Well done to you all ... you were all amazing, and scientific and persistent and all in the name of soap !!!
> 
> I even popped back tonight to see how you were all getting on
> 
> sending ya much love
> 
> k
> x



Thank you for the moral support! We are a crazy bunch!
Cheers!
Anna Marie

Wow! That was quick! Here is Teresa's response to my inquiry about this recipe (Teresa is the original author of the blog post)

Dear Annamarie,

Seeing your question about the olive oil + lye soap and whether it works as body soap or is too harsh, here are some thoughts and research that I hope will make you feel good about this soap.

- The recipe comes from an 85 year old andalusian friend (mother of a friend, but I know her well) who has great skin… and YES she uses this soap on her body
- She points out that the oil is very high quality, pressed from her own olives and superb for eating… it is not “recycled” in any industrial sense, but rather quite clean, not from frying proteins or anything greasy or aromatic. Just from a round of roscos, and well strained thereafter, so, if anything, slightly sugar and lemon scented. Most oils that commercial soaps are made from are likely inedible, in terms of quality.
- She says that lye is what saponifies fat… y punto… although people do make soaps with glycerine… which itself contains lye… just that you don’t have to handle the lye yourself.
- The key is in using good quality oil and lots of it… with just enough lye to saponify it.

Here’s an article on the subject which points out that seemingly mild substitutes or even fancy commercial brands that say “organic” likely contain sodium lauryl sulphates and other undesirable ingredients:

http://www.humblebeeandme.com/why-there-is-no-such-thing-as-making-soap-without-lye/

Comment by Teresa — March 9, 2014 @ 1:26 pm


----------



## Lin

I'd be curious to reply to her and point out her last point doesn't apply to this soap. It has much more lye than 'just enough' to saponify it. It sounds as if she doesn't make soap herself?


----------



## newbie

I had the same thought, Lin. It makes me wonder what old process they used back in the day to determine how much lye it takes to "just" saponify the oils. Whatever it is, that process is way different from today's!


----------



## DeeAnna

I would say Teresa has never made this (or any) soap, but I really appreciate her kind reply. Her friend's mother is clearly well versed in making soap, even if it is quite different than the way most of us make soap. I'm enthused about what I'm learning and I really enjoy the sharing that's going on about this project. AnnaMarie is right -- this thread has taken on a life of its own, and I'm glad about that!


----------



## AnnaMarie

To be fair to Teresa, this quote was not presented within its full context and perhaps should be read fully on the blog post first before conclusions are drawn by the masses on this thread  If you read the page she does detail some sources for good advice on soap making, and I got the impression that while she's clearly not an expert, she has at least made soap. I also could see that she was learning old school Soapmaking and not the modern soap making we are used to. How much lye to saponify oil with? That could be relative depending on the culture or time period we are dealing with and what they felt was enough. What I felt was cleared up a bit was that this soap has been used on skin with good results. It would very interesting to find out more about this recipe within the country of its birthplace, but my research hasn't turned up anything yet. I'll keep looking....
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## MzMolly65

Fwiw .. I looked at my soap again today.  The 1/2 with embeds is the drying, leathery bars that don't look very appealing.  However, the unscented, unadulterated round cavity bars are still clean, bone coloured and drying nicely without getting leathery.

That does make me think that blaming the embeds might not have been too far off the mark.  Perhaps something in the embeds is reacting badly to the excess lye in this recipe???  No scientific proof to back up my thoughts, just thinking out loud.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...To be fair to Teresa..."

Point taken, AnnaMarie. Thanks for the clarification!


----------



## AnnaMarie

DeeAnna said:


> "...To be fair to Teresa..."
> 
> Point taken, AnnaMarie. Thanks for the clarification!



I wasn't trying to single you out DeeAnna  . I noticed the string of comments following my post all made the same conclusion, and having read the whole blog post I had a pretty good idea that the author had made soap before . In other news, I think I will pull out a bar of the "original" today and try it out  I will report back....
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## DeeAnna

Please don't worry, AnnaMarie, I didn't take it that way. I just wanted to let you know I understand and appreciate your point of view.


----------



## seven

i believe that 85 yr old woman use this soap on her skin for many years w/o a problem. that's all i needed to know  

both of my soaps are okay now, as in they don't zap and no funky feeling on my skin. just waiting for the lather now (and of course, to be more milder). i reckon it could take at least 2 months.

i wonder if the -40 SF is a must. can we reduce slightly and still not get gooey?


----------



## FlybyStardancer

I think Anna Marie posted earlier in the thread that she had tried a -20 SF once and it got gooey.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...i wonder if the -40 SF is a must. can we reduce slightly and still not get gooey? ..."

See AM's posts 99, 174, 179 and my posts 103 and 168. StarDancer is right -- looks like -20% lye excess is not enough. 

I don't recall if anyone in this thread has tried something like -30% -- chime up if you have!


----------



## AnnaMarie

I may try this at -30 or -35 to see what kind of results I get. I honestly think there is a little wiggle room- just not a lot.


----------



## seven

dang! if only we're closer i can do -30 and you can do -35 and swap results..


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Okay, last night I tipped the olive/soy loaf on its side and peeled the bottom away so that it could air dry some, and then I sliced it today. Forgot to take pics before I sliced off the first bar, so the first three pictures are after I sliced it off. Last one are of the first six slices, which was half of the loaf. You can see the amber area on the bottom, that's the area with the amber liquid, though it's firmed up some.

Stat refresher--it's a 57/43 mix olive oil/soybean oil, 1kg oils, and I added 2/3 cup milk powder (enough for 2 cups milk), and blue and green micas for colors. The micas are known color-morphers, but they're supposed to stay within their respective blue and green ranges (blue is supposed to become light blue and the green is supposed to become lime green).

My poor brand-new slicing board ended up stained from whatever that amber stuff is.  Sadness.


----------



## Alaska beauty

Looks like super gel from powder milk. I have same problems long time ago from yogurt powder. It was looking well mixt, but at ended in one corner and create a gel pound. I re-cook mine. How is PH on top and bottom?


----------



## AnnaMarie

FlybyStardancer said:


> Okay, last night I tipped the olive/soy loaf on its side and peeled the bottom away so that it could air dry some, and then I sliced it today. Forgot to take pics before I sliced off the first bar, so the first three pictures are after I sliced it off. Last one are of the first six slices, which was half of the loaf. You can see the amber area on the bottom, that's the area with the amber liquid, though it's firmed up some.
> 
> Stat refresher--it's a 57/43 mix olive oil/soybean oil, 1kg oils, and I added 2/3 cup milk powder (enough for 2 cups milk), and blue and green micas for colors. The micas are known color-morphers, but they're supposed to stay within their respective blue and green ranges (blue is supposed to become light blue and the green is supposed to become lime green).
> 
> My poor brand-new slicing board ended up stained from whatever that amber stuff is.  Sadness.



So sorry :-( Maybe you can trim the brown stuff off and make mini soaps/guest bars?



seven said:


> dang! if only we're closer i can do -30 and you can do -35 and swap results..



I don't know what part of the globe you're located, but if you change your mind and want to do a swap go ahead and pm me. I know international rates are so expensive, sigh!


----------



## Jencat

Picked up two jugs of OO at Costco yesterday.  I want to play too!  Probably will have to wait a couple of weeks though.  Pesky work getting in the way ;-)


----------



## AnnaMarie

Jencat said:


> Picked up two jugs of OO at Costco yesterday.  I want to play too!  Probably will have to wait a couple of weeks though.  Pesky work getting in the way ;-)



Woo hoo! (On wanting to play that is  )


----------



## DeeAnna

I'm in the midwestern USA and willing to do either -30% or -35% lye excess if that would help. A good friend and I went to Costco this weekend (my first time!) and I bought the famed 6 L of Kirkland olive oil. So I can even do a proper OO recipe. I ship all the time for my small home-based business, so I'm quite willing and able to do international priority mail if folks want to do a swap.

Where are you, Seven?


----------



## soap_rat

Would it also be fairly simple to make recipes for both 30%and 35% superlye, for example 300 g each, then make up a 600g batch at 30% superlye, pull out half to stay at 30% and then add the extra lye to make the other half 35%?  (keeping some water out of it as well for dissolving the lye)


----------



## Alaska beauty

Why do you need to do %? 1 oz of lye need minimum 1 oz of water to be dissolve. or . 1 gr of lye need minimum 1 gr of water to be dissolve. If you want to do Castille with strong lye you will have wonderful aged soap right away (HP) or in couple weeks (CP). Just be ready- it's will be like 100% coconut "sea" soap- stiff right after trace.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Alaska beauty said:


> Looks like super gel from powder milk. I have same problems long time ago from yogurt powder. It was looking well mixt, but at ended in one corner and create a gel pound. I re-cook mine. How is PH on top and bottom?



What do you mean by "super gel"? I didn't notice anything to do with the soap going through gel phase. There's no rings of partial gel, and while it did experience a color change, there was nothing that looked like gelling to me going on. I don't have anything to test the pH, and I haven't tried zap testing it.



AnnaMarie said:


> So sorry :-(  Maybe you can trim the brown stuff off and make mini soaps/guest bars?



What looks brown in the pictures is actually amber. The lighting in my kitchen is REALLY bad. Entirely artificial, with yellow covers. The only way I can come close to true colors is if I can get it close enough and time it right for a shot with the aquarium lighting spilling over it (which some of the early shots of the loaf top had).

As far as the size goes... Even with cutting off the bottom, I could probably get three mini bars out of it! Those slices are thin (about 3/4"), but huuuge. It filled up a large tissue box.


----------



## DeeAnna

AB -- "...Why do you need to do %?..."

I get the feeling you might be missing the point because you may not know the full context of this thread. We're exploring a specific type of soap recipe that is outside the normal "rules" for soaping. The -30% and -35% we're talking about is a negative superfat (or superlye or lye excess), not the lye solution concentration.

SoapRat -- "...Would it also be fairly simple to make recipes for both 30% and 35% superlye..."

Hey, I think that's a really good idea. I wonder if it would be possible to make one 50% lye solution, enough for both recipes, and just measure out different amounts -- one batch of oil gets a little more lye solution to make the -35% version and one gets a little less to make the -30% version? Would keep a person from having to handle dry lye but once. If we are stirring by hand mostly (or entirely), then doing two smallish batches at one time should be do-able.

Stardancer -- Your pocket of dark amber goo looks similar to the pocket of lighter amber goo that my "homely" first batch has. The goo was definitely soft and runny at first and was much zappier than the solid soap around it. Almost two weeks later, the goo is still like soft taffy, but no zap. 

Your goo pocket is closer to the bottom and is more defined and larger than mine, but otherwise the whole thing looks pretty familiar. I suspect it is where the emulsion "broke" and the lye water separated from the oils. I'm living with the bars as is, but if my gooey area was lower in the bar like yours, I might be tempted to do a little trimming.


----------



## AnnaMarie

FlybyStardancer said:


> What do you mean by "super gel"? I didn't notice anything to do with the soap going through gel phase. There's no rings of partial gel, and while it did experience a color change, there was nothing that looked like gelling to me going on. I don't have anything to test the pH, and I haven't tried zap testing it.
> 
> 
> 
> What looks brown in the pictures is actually amber. The lighting in my kitchen is REALLY bad. Entirely artificial, with yellow covers. The only way I can come close to true colors is if I can get it close enough and time it right for a shot with the aquarium lighting spilling over it (which some of the early shots of the loaf top had).
> 
> As far as the size goes... Even with cutting off the bottom, I could probably get three mini bars out of it! Those slices are thin (about 3/4"), but huuuge. It filled up a large tissue box.



Lol! Sorry about the color mix up! And if the bars are huge, well, all the better
So glad you're hanging in there with all of us!
Cheers!
Anna Marie
Ps- if you haven't already tried it, some boiling water might take the Amber stains off your cutting board. I use boiling water when my wood utensils and boards get stained.

I do believe I'll try to do a split 30/35 batch this week- maybe tomorrow. I'll need to check my costco oo supply first.


----------



## Alaska beauty

By Super Gel - I mean milk powder react with lye on it's own, burn it and make a hole. ( In my case )


----------



## FlybyStardancer

DeeAnna--would I be able to do anything with the trimmed parts? I'd hate for it to go to waste! And even with the odd bottoms, they're still balancing nicely on them for curing. I have them standing on that end in a cardboard box with a piece of freezer paper on the bottom, and they stayed upright until I accidentally gave them a big jar when setting down the box. lol

AnnaMarie--Thanks for the tip! Do you just pour the boiling water over it, or scrub in the boiling water, or what?

Alaska Beauty--that's interesting. I haven't heard of milk doing that with lye.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I wonder if the trimmed parts could be used for laundry soap??? Maybe when they are dry they can be grated up and combined with washing soda and a few drops of essential oil for laundry?

On the boiling water tip, I start by pouring a kettle of boiling water over the affected area and go from there depending on what happens. If I'm getting out red stains then I usually don't need to scrub. For stained wooden spoons I might actually boil them for a bit (especially if blueberry is involved). If you feel some scrubbing is warranted then I would try some salt or baking soda. I scrub carefully when boiling water is involved . Lemon juice is a natural bleaching agent as well. You could always try a paste of lemon juice, Dawn, and baking soda (my homemade soft scrub). Hopefully, one of these tips will work for you!
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Tonight's load of laundry is the last of the storebought detergent, so I can switch to the liquid laundry soap I made weeks ago. lol I don't trust my machine to be able to dissolve powdered laundry soap, and I'd never remember to heat up water inside to dissolve it. Heh (My laundry machines are out in the garage.)

I'll have to see if any of it works! And being careful around boiling water is a given.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Lol! One would think the being careful around boiling water is a given, but sadly we have been trained to cater to those who don't use the brains God gave them :roll:  I really didn't think you needed the caveat as you seem quite intelligent to me. It was more or less out of the old CYA habit :-D
Cheers!
Anna Marie
Ps- just put in an order with BB. Looking forward to fun goodies and more soap!


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Well, there's also the Genius Ditz folks too.  lol I definitely have my own blonde moments!

Yay for fun goodies!  I'm planning on trying to HP bar soap for the first time tomorrow. We'll see if I get it done! lol Won't be one of this recipe a gain, not for a bit at least. I'm running out of places cure soaps! I also need to figure out a storing situation for the ones that have been curing a month...


----------



## ilovesoap2

seven said:


> i believe that 85 yr old woman use this soap on her skin for many years w/o a problem. that's all i needed to know



I have a love/not so love relationship with this soap but dang if I'm not waiting to use it on my face lol...any chance for good skin at 85.


----------



## krunt

Regarding AnnaMarie's soap which had a 20% lye excess, but still got gooey...
Assuming I was looking at the right recipe, yes, it had the excess lye, but it did not have the excess water.  Perhaps not enough water was the reason it still got gooey?  Perhaps if it had've had the excess water, it would've been non-gooey?  I was under the impression it is a combination of high water amount and excess lye (or, at the very least, the exact amount of lye to saponify all the oil) that resulted in the non-gooey soap.  But perhaps I am wrong about that.

I have been considering trying this recipe with just 10% excess lye, but still with the large water amount, to see how it comes out.


----------



## seven

AnnaMarie and DeeAnna.. i am far away from you guys (Indonesia). and while you guys are lucky to have priority flat rate envelopes/boxes, we have no such thing here. everything is weigh by 500 gr, and the rates are ridiculously expensive  i can go on and on about our crappy postal system but i think i better spare you from it.

i was gonna join last BB swap but didnt coz they say it's gonna cost me 40 bucks. for 40 bucks, i can get 2 sacks of lye, 25kg x 2.


----------



## DeeAnna

Krunt -- Yep, thanks for catching that. There were two changes in the "gooey" recipe -- lower superlye and less water -- and you might well be right that it's more about the high water content than the high superlye percentage. We don't know for sure at this point, so I agree that the it's worth doing a -20% superlye, high water content batch.

Stardancer -- "...would I be able to do anything with the trimmed parts?..." Sure! Rebatch them with other soap scraps, grate them for laundry soap, use them with new soap batter to make "confetti" soap. Or mini handwashing soap bars for the sink if they test zap free and mild. I grated a bunch of odd little bits in my food processor and they're going into my homemade laundry soap. I saved some larger curls that I may use to make confetti soap.

Seven -- That purely sucks! I see your point. Bummer.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Well, I was going to make a split batch today, but I have a cut of fabric and new pattern staring at me. Stick blender vs Pfaff- who will win???


----------



## soap_rat

I'm imagining a robot war between your two machines, AnnaMarie!


----------



## btz

Flip a coin, AnneMarie . It's a fun way to choose.


----------



## ilovesoap2

Pilar said:


> Thanks, AnnaMarie .
> There is confusion in the web but because whoever wrote it mixes two concepts. Like you can see that is the method of grandmothers , a bowl and a stick and turning for hours until the stick is left standing in the batter. This soap is made from recycled oil ( here in Spain we have plenty of olive oil, fry in 3 liter fryer oil used and changed every 20-30 days ) Realising that used oil, took advantage to make soap with that amount of soda because it was the soap washed when no detergents. It is a great soap today is highly coveted because it leaves very white clothes.
> It also happened when the kids are old enough to have pimples on your face , but only used in that area. As you will understand if you use that soap with that amount of soda leaves a hard soap, excessive cleaning, few bubbles (but in this special case is not fulfilled what the calculator makes since to cure the better over time, has a lot of foam ) but the conditioning is very low : this indicates that it is not a cosmetic soap, please do not use it regularly you 're doing a peeeling !
> So far I think all clear and now I commented that when they speak of soap bought in Sevilla ( I am from Sevilla) is a soap with the same ingredients (no recicled oil) but different formula and it is the best.
> I put a photo of my mother with soap that formula. you'll see that are crude soaps and cleaning because they are dissolved in water used to clean the floor, especially marble.
> I've laughed a lot because reading the web says "Bragas Limpias" (traduction: Clean panties) hahahahahaha She will be the cleanest village woman and this is because we often put people nicknames. 8)
> AnneMarie I only know of two other types of experiments I did, one that is the laundry soap with percarbonate (6 l de aceite, 6l de agua, 1Kg de sosa, 1Kg de percarbonato) and Savon noir, maroccan or beldi that I put it on this site
> http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=42736




Not sure what happened to the image 
My soap now looks just like this.  I will wash a white shirt with it today and see how that works out.


----------



## newbie

Okay, if I wanted to make a solution of this soap to test it with a ph tester made for liquids, what sort of proportion would make sense? I can dissolved some grated soap in distilled water, but how much would give something accurate? I guess this is mostly a question for DeeAnna, but perhaps other people know as well.


----------



## DeeAnna

I'm basing my procedure on info I've gleaned from Scientific Soapmaking by Kevin Dunn. 

Make a water and soap solution by dissolving about 1 gram of soap in about 100 grams of distilled water. Super accuracy is not required. Definitely do not use tap water -- distilled or reverse osmosis water only.
Calibrate the meter with pH 7.0 and 10.0 standards.
Be sure everything is more-or-less at room temperature to avoid adding error due to temperature to your pH check.
Test per the instruction manual.

To the best of my understanding, the soap should have a "natural" pH roughly between 10.7 and 11.2 if made with olive. If it has excess alkali, the pH will be higher than that.


----------



## newbie

Thank you! I thought it would be fun to check the pH as this soap ages. I'll post what I get when I do the test.


----------



## krunt

Hi again everyone,

I did this recipe again not too long ago, the difference being I only used 10% excess lye as opposed to 40%.  I used the same method as last time, and everything appeared to go exactly the same.  I only noticed a difference when I poured, and that was that the mixture was runnier (although it appeared the same thickness in the mixing pot), and it was a few degrees cooler (26 degrees Celsius vs 29).  Just like last time it's maintaining it's temperature. 

As per last time, I made a concentrated lye solution and mixed that into the oil until it traced, and then added the extra water in a bit at a time, stirring it in completely before adding more.  This time around, I noticed that it reaches a point where it becomes "plasticky", where it was not like that with the previous water addition.  It made me think that perhaps when it reaches that point, that is a sign of enough water -- that it is unnecessary to add any more water into the mix.  I still had water to add when I reached that point, so I kept adding it, but I think that is definitely another variation to try in the future.

I will be interested to see if this batch is hard and ready to cut tomorrow (like the last batch), or if it will need more time in the mold.

So the reason for this batch is to see if a 10% lye excess (with excess water) is enough to produce non-gooey soap.


I worked out the lye excess of the recipe based on the 6-6-1 information Pilar provided (rather than the slightly altered version on the blog), and assuming I haven't made a mistake, it is around 33-35%, depending on how you work out the weight of the oil.  I used an online calculator, and 2 different values from a locally produced olive oil's profile sheet.


----------



## seven

krunt, how much excess water did you add? 100% of oil weight?


----------



## krunt

The amount of water I used was oil weight + lye weight.  For the batch I made today, that was a total of 574g of water (500g olive oil, 74g lye).


----------



## DeeAnna

Nice work, Krunt! I'm very interested to see how the soap turns out. It will be a data point for the lots-of-water but only -10% super-lye to balance our lots-of-water and -40% super-lye batches. It's intriguing to see how we've first figured out what technique is required and now are working on what the proportions of the lye and water can be in proportion to the oils used. 

Bear in mind that the emulsion might be sensitive to temperature. Don't know this to be true -- just a thought to consider. I was looking at the notes I took during my 2nd batch in which I used the same method as you -- add the 50% lye solution, bring to trace, then stir in the extra water. This batter did not go through a plastic-y stage at all; it just looked and acted like normal soap batter. This batter was slightly warmer than yours -- about 32 C (90 F) at the point when all the water had been added to the soap.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Just a little update, I have tested castile (not lye heavy) with larger amounts of water several years ago and the results were more gooey soap. That being said, I would still encourage experimentation

My hand stirred batch is doing fine. Interestingly, it has developed very few, if any lye crystals as compared with the SB'd batch. Hmmmm...more old school magic???

Finally, I did a 5% lye reduction batch a couple of days ago. For me, the lye calculator was showing a -38.5 superfat, so I went up to -32.5%. I quartered this recipe, and it traced by hand stirring within a couple minutes. Wondering if volume is related to the stir time? Anyway, everything went the same, and the soap is rock hard. I will try soaking a bar for a couple hours in water to see if it passes the "goo" test. I really think that a 5% reduction in lye will cause little change in this recipe. I'll try 10% eventually and see what happens.


----------



## krunt

I unmolded and cut my 10% excess lye batch a couple hours ago.  It came out of the mold easier than the 40% excess lye batch.  It is firm, but quite "moist" and I can easily squish it between my fingers.  It was very easy to cut.  The -40% batch was almost rock hard when I unmolded and cut it.

DeeAnna, with my -10% batch, I had the same effect as you did with your olive oil batch, with the darker bit in the middle of the bars from the centre of the loaf (see photo).  I didn't apply any heat whatsoever though, and had just a cardboard box over the loaf during saponification.  I also have what appears to be oil spots in a few bars, also visible in the photo.  There doesn't appear to be any pattern to them though, as they appear on end bars as well as middle bars.

I intend to do -20% & -30% batches over the next couple of weeks.  Will keep in touch as I do them.


----------



## AnnaMarie

And we will meet in the middle :-D


----------



## btz

seven said:


> AnnaMarie and DeeAnna.. i am far away from you guys (Indonesia). and while you guys are lucky to have priority flat rate envelopes/boxes, we have no such thing here. everything is weigh by 500 gr, and the rates are ridiculously expensive  i can go on and on about our crappy postal system but i think i better spare you from it.
> 
> i was gonna join last BB swap but didnt coz they say it's gonna cost me 40 bucks. for 40 bucks, i can get 2 sacks of lye, 25kg x 2.



I'm from Indonesia too . And I agree about the international shipping cost, it's so expensive to sent item out of the country. 

I had to return a cd once that I bought from Japan, it cost around twice of what I paid to send it here in the firat place.


----------



## seven

btz said:


> I'm from Indonesia too . And I agree about the international shipping cost, it's so expensive to sent item out of the country.
> 
> I had to return a cd once that I bought from Japan, it cost around twice of what I paid to send it here in the firat place.



wow! halo, nice to see a fellow indonesian here  yep, i agree, our kantor pos sucks! do you know that they take shipping cost into calculations when deciding for the *ahem* tax we have to pay when it's above 50 bucks? and one time they didn't give me a receipt!


----------



## btz

seven said:


> wow! halo, nice to see a fellow indonesian here  yep, i agree, our kantor pos sucks! do you know that they take shipping cost into calculations when deciding for the *ahem* tax we have to pay when it's above 50 bucks? and one time they didn't give me a receipt!


 
 l know it all to well. I bet my bea cukai nightmare stories are worse than yours, lol. My family like to order books, cd and dvd from overseas. Once, my sister order a photobook from Japan. It was less than $50 including shipping, but she still have to pay the custom tax :cry:. Apparenty that happened to all incoming package via DHL, and yes, no slip from the post office. We have to pay, no option. The extra cost was around $25 if I remember correctly.


----------



## newbie

SOmeone just posted that they did their recipe accidentally with water weight equal to the oils weight, but normal lye amount. He got it together but it broke overnight. I'm hoping he will try to blend it back together and see if it works. It would be an interesting variation on this- excess water but lye discount. I posted the link to this thread. I hope he tries to save it and posts his results. We may have another experiment in the works!!


----------



## seven

@btz 
arrgghh.. bea cukai! tell me about it! i bloody hate them!


@newbie
i instantly remember this one as i read that thread, lol. scary that he/she has 3 times the maximum water amount. and he/she doesn't have the excess lye like we do here.


----------



## newbie

I'm hoping he tries to blend it together. Who knows? It could lead to some interesting things. With this recipe and some of the ways Alaskan Beauty soaps, it's clear that there are rules which can be broken successfully or ideas that can be challenged.


----------



## Alaska beauty

Thanks. But.... I will recomend to do opposite- 
1. Don't mix it at all. Live soap along. let extra water concentrate on top of your soap- some times it's happened. Did you see curious-soapmaker mono soaps tutorial , specially one with jojoba? This is exactly the same problem- to much water. 
2. Or cook it until all extra water evaporate. Lil separation during cooking can happen, just mix it a lill bit.
 Good luck.


----------



## newbie

THe guy who posted said he had a big layer of oil on top, but with 3x the water amount, I wonder if it's all oil. He didn't post too many other details of the separation so I can't comment on that, really.


----------



## DeeAnna

Well, here's my update on my two soaps. 

Both are continuing to lose weight, but I'd say the rate of weight loss for batch 1 (the homely soap that cleaned my oven) is starting to stabilize. Batch 2 (the pretty soap) has lost a whopping 1/3 of its original starting weight, and it's not done yet.

The darker, softer centers of the bars from Batch 1 are getting smaller but are still soft. The lighter pale-yellow areas around the soft spots are very firm -- I cannot possibly dent these areas with hard pressure from my fingers. You can see a bit of pure white ash on the top of the bar that is upright.

The bars in Batch 2 are staying an attractive ivory. All surfaces are covered with fine white ash. The tops have an especially thick coating of ash -- they look like they've been dusted with fine confectioner's sugar as you can see. These bars cannot be dented with hard finger pressure.

Both soaps are absolutely zap free inside and out. There is no metallic, salty, zappy flavor anywhere -- they are completely bland. 

I tested the lather on my hands. First I gently scrubbed off the ash from the outer surfaces -- this definitely cuts the lathering ability of the soaps. I then rubbed each soap 20 times over one wet hand, adding a bit of cool water as needed for lubrication. I then rubbed both hands together 10 times to develop the lather and took a photo of my hand immediately after. 

The wet soaps are slick and slippery, which I associate with soap made only with water and no other additives. I don't get any sense of unusual slimy-ness, but I'm not a castile "slime expert" -- I can only compare these soaps with my usual bath soaps.

Both soaps lathered well, with a nice range of bubble sizes. The Batch 1 bar had slightly fluffier bubbles -- this is the 100% olive soap. The Batch 2 bar had slightly denser, creamier bubbles -- this is the 70% high-oleic safflower and 30% lard soap. I could be happy with the lather from either one, quite frankly. 

My hands, now that they've dried off, feel slightly taut, but are not irritated, red, or rough. The skin feel is very slightly lotiony and my hands are slightly shiny, which is a surprise -- last time I checked the lather, my hands felt more dry and dull, and that was what I was expecting this time. I'd say these soaps are slightly harsh yet, but improving.


----------



## newbie

Ah DeeAnna, we are neck and neck!!! I tried mine out late last night but it was 2 am so I didn't take a picture of my lather. It was almost exactly as shown in your picture. I used one of my sway back bars and I had the exact same sense you did; the bar is very slick and a touch slimy feeling but the lather was not. Also, my hands were also a bit taut and shiny. Also not zap or tingle at all. I have only a 100% OO bar.


----------



## soap_rat

Has anyone done a -40 version with no extra water?
Or a 0 or 5% SF with all the extra water?
These are versions that may give an insight into whether the water is important for ditching the lye, or for not being slimy.


----------



## AnnaMarie

soap_rat said:


> Has anyone done a -40 version with no extra water?
> Or a 0 or 5% SF with all the extra water?
> These are versions that may give an insight into whether the water is important for ditching the lye, or for not being slimy.



I have done this recipe with the extra water and "proper" lye amount- it didn't work. I have experimented with different levels of water and "proper" lye- it didn't work. I am currently working backwards on sf and have recently done a 32.5% sf that looks the same, but I have not done the "goo" test yet  I am fairly certain from the appearance of the soap, however, that the sf can be brought down to 32.5% and still keep the integrity of the soap.
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## DeeAnna

Nice to hear I'm not the only one getting these results -- thanks for sharing that, Newbie!!!

What I think is telling is that my second batch doesn't have a drop of actual olive in it, and the slippery feel of the bar and the lather are fairly similar -- not exact, but similar -- to the first batch that is all olive. I wondered, early on, whether this technique might work well for saponifying other soaps that are all or mostly liquid oils. I am curious to know if this superlye method could reduce the occurrence of DOS in oxidation-prone polyunsaturated oils. Hard to say at this point.

I think ... ugh, I  forget now ... was it Bts? who used this method with a coconut oil recipe and got almost instantaneous saponification? I'd like to hear how that batch is doing and whether the maker would use this method again with a recipe that had most or all hard fats.


----------



## soap_rat

Aha!  So what's still left to try is -40--or so--and normal water.  (wait, maybe cmz's batch was something like that.  Another thing to dig for!)


----------



## DeeAnna

So we're establishing these data points. All soaps are olive unless noted (or unless I made a mistake).

*Confirmed not gooey or probably not gooey:*

-32.5% superlye + super water = probably non gooey (AnnaMarie)
-40% superlye + super water = non gooey (AnnaMarie)
-40% superlye + super water = at 2.5-3 wk: non gooey, no zap, good lather (DeeAnna, 24 feb 14)
-40% superlye + super water = at 2.5-3 wk: non gooey, no zap, good lather (DeeAnna -- HO safflower/lard blend, 26 feb 14)
-40% superlye + super water = non gooey (FlyByStarDancer)
-40% superlye + super water = non gooey (Newbie)
Anyone else?

*In the works:*

-30% superlye + normal (38%) lye concentration =  at 2.5-3 wk: exterior no zap, good lather, v little slime, v low ash, v low water loss (Cmzaha, posts 30, 493, 23 feb 14)
-10% superlye + super water = ? (Krunt, posts 452/454/457)
-20% superlye + super water = ? (anyone?)
-40% superlye + super water = ? (FlyByStarDancer -- olive/soy blend)
-45% superlye + super water = at 2 wk: no zap (Btz -- sweet almond)
-45% superlye + super water = ? (Btz -- coconut)
-40% superlye + super water = ? (Seven -- pomace, ?)
Any updates on these soaps?

*Confirmed gooey:*

AnnaMarie: "...I have done this recipe with the extra water and "proper" lye amount- it didn't work. I have experimented with different levels of water and "proper" lye- it didn't work...."

normal superfat + super water = gooey (AnnaMarie)
normal superfat + normal water = gooey (AnnaMarie and many others)
-20% superlye + regular water = gooey (Krunt 442)
-20% superlye + regular water = gooey (AnnaMarie)
*
Tips:*

Due to the unusual amount of water in this recipe, the final emulsion can break (separate) at trace or in the mold. Avoid furious stirring while bringing the soap to trace and avoid too much warmth during saponification.
If you stick blend, do so with restraint and moderation. Gentle hand stirring or the equivalent is all that's required. Take breaks -- you don't have to stir all the time.
Expect the time to trace to be 30-90 minutes with the average being about 60 minutes.
The soap batter should be somewhere between room temperature and comfortably warm to the touch. The lye solution can be quite hot when it's added to the oils -- the long mixing time and the added water will cool things down.

Cover the molded soap lightly or leave it uncovered at room temperature, as you wish. 
Avoid gel and absolutely do not CPOP this recipe.
If the soap separates and weeps in the mold, let it drain freely as best you can. It will still make good soap.

Individual bar molds, log/loaf molds, and slab/tray molds all work fine.
Avoid ingredients that may cause the soap to heat up in the mold (sugars, beer, etc.). If you do add "heaters", then consider using a slab/tray mold or individual bar molds to keep the soap cooler during saponification.
Colors that normally change color with high alkalinity may act differently in this soap.

When handling this soap, use care -- expect this soap to be lye heavy for at least 2 weeks after unmolding.
This soap should be unmolded and cut while soft (within about 24 hours). It will cut cleanly like firm cheese. If you wait for it to be hard before unmolding and cutting, it can be so hard you may have some breakage at the bottom of the cut.
Allow the soap to dry in a well ventilated area away from pets, children, and unsuspecting adults.

Have I misspoken on any of these tips? Any more to add?

*** I will be continuing to edit this post as time goes on, so check back here to see the updates ***


----------



## grayceworks

DeeAnna said:


> ... I wondered, early on, whether this technique might work well for saponifying other soaps that are all or mostly liquid oils. I am curious to know if this superlye method could reduce the occurrence of DOS in oxidation-prone polyunsaturated oils. Hard to say at this point.
> ...



DeeAnna -- remember when I rescued that rancid coconut oil by washing the oil and then doing a 0% SF so that it all got saponified so that there would be no oils left to go rancid ?

Still have bars of that and it is fine with no sign of DOS yet, although it has only been a few months, but still... it was just a 0% SF , possibly slightly lye heavy, since part of the final oil weight was a bit of water left from washing the oil... and no signs of any spots. 

Also I don't remember where I read it, but it was a prelude to me trying that... that you can also simply use rancid oils and completely saponify them, and the soap will be fine as there's no free oils left in it to go rancid. I will see if I can find the reference. I think it was a question asked at some soaping conference or something on what to do with rancid oils, and the answer was to 'Make soap!' I'd been thinking of getting more super-cheap CO to play around with in making cleaning stuff, if just making sure it's all saponified can keep it spot-free...

I've been thinking about that as I've been following this thread, and wondering if  I could use some of the oils that are prone to rancidity, if they were done like this. I hadn't tried before, as I figured it would be too harsh with no SF. But that was with normal lye and water ratios -- seems like maybe this method could work with that though, and still end up with a mild enough bar that won't get spots? 

And if they're completely saponified, will the soap lose the possible benefits one would be trying to get from those oils? Since they're not free oils anymore, they're not leaving anything behind on the skin the way some SF'd soaps do...


----------



## newbie

Thought I would add some visuals to my results.

First pic is lather from my first batch, the half that did NOT weep or leak any lye water. It's about 3 weeks old.

Second picture is the lather from the other half of the same batch, the half that leaked a ton of lye water and is the swayback bar. Significantly different and lower lather (because there was less of an excess to saponify the more difficult to saponify oils?)

Third picture is from my rubber ball soap, that was made 4 or 5 days after the first batch- I'd have to check.

I worked up the lather the best I could in warm water. I didn't do X number of swipes and then X number of rubs. I figured I would work out each bar to the best of its ability!

My hands are very shiny right now but not particularly dry.

It was strange though. The first time I lathered up my swayback bar last night, I got decent lather. Same as tonight. I went through to try out different bars then decided to photograph. I couldn't get the same lather I had last night on the swayback bar, no matter how many times I lathered up for the pictures. Is it a shy soap?


----------



## newbie

DeeAnna, I would also add that this is a soap you can unmold and cut cleanly while soft (about 24 hours). If you wait for it to be hard before unmolding and cutting it can be so hard you may have some breakage at the bottom of the cut.

I have to add that cutting this soap early is a very interesting experience. It does not cut with any drag, as softer "normal recipe" bars would. It's been one of my favorite parts about this soap, as odd as that is to say.


----------



## soap_rat

DeeAnna, I often feel guilty for how much you do for us.  I wish I could buy you a drink.  I would even just mail you some cash so you could have a drink on me.  (Or buy more soaping stuff!)  Earlier I thought "we need a chart of all the attempts" and wandered off to make soap.  You made the chart!  <3

I have two batches that are younger than most all the others.  I haven't tried soaping them up yet, but neither zap anymore.  I will have that info to add in a day or two.  In both of my batches the temps were usually over 100.


----------



## AnnaMarie

DeeAnna, I second Soap Rat's comments about all you do: you are awesome-truly! I actually feel pretty honored to be a part of a great group lab experiment like this, and I've enjoyed every minute of it. Truthfully, it also gives my mind something to chew on which has been lacking in my life. I love my friends, but they just aren't the kind of people I can talk science, history, or old classic books with. And forget critical thinking/logic....
Anyway, I did my official "goo" test this afternoon on my latest 32.5% sf soap. I completely submerged a bar in water for several hours. The results, a thicker layer of which I'm still wondering is glycerine- thicker then the goo test for the 38.5% bar. The layer was rather sweet and no zap- very mild. Lots of bubbly bubbles when I washed the layer off. The soap is drying now and is still hard. I do sense a bit of change though, and I am wondering if even going to 30% will still keep the integrity of the soap. DeeAnna, if you would like I will send you a bar from each of my batches (I'll pay) and you can see them for yourself. Just pm me 
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## btz

DeeAnna said:


> I think ... ugh, I  forget now ... was it Bts? who used this method with a coconut oil recipe and got almost instantaneous saponification? I'd like to hear how that batch is doing and whether the maker would use this method again with a recipe that had most or all hard fats.



 I did that . The soap is very hard and still curing. It'll be 2 week tomorrow, so I'll do that zap test and lather test then. I'm not brave enough to try it before. 

However I weigh the bar, it's down 30% from original weight.

@DeeAnna, I use -45% superfat for both DeaAnna, because I saw you soapcalc screencap (http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=404391&postcount=124) and used that. I sundried 1 bar of the sweet almond one, and I think that's the only one that's ready to test. The others are still a little bit soft. Will let you guys know soon.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

DeeAnna, why do you say not to use a slab mold? That was how I molded my first batch, and that turned out fine. If anything, it countered the fact that I had heaters in my soap (milk & honey), which allowed it to avoid gel.


----------



## seven

thanks for posting the updates DeeAnna, you are super! 

I am gonna update mine tomorrow by testing the lather on both soaps. will post later..


----------



## DeeAnna

Hi, guys -- thank you for the compliments. I'm glad my summary is helpful to y'all. I was motivated to do it as much from self preservation as anything. I'm looking for patterns in the information, and finding data scattered amongst 480+ posts was driving me nutty. If I'm going nutty, I figure you are too.

I'm a scone making virgin and it's time that changed, so I'm going to make AnnaMarie's scones tonight. I'm going to add bits of homemade dried peaches to one batch and dried cherries to another. Yum!!!!! She shared her recipe here: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=43191

But I'm planning a soapy experiment for later this week, once I get the details puzzled out. I'll share more when I get it going!


----------



## AnnaMarie

I hope you like the scones DeeAnna!


----------



## DeeAnna

*MzMolly* -- I forgot about you!!! I'm sorry about that. Do you have any updates on your soap?

****

"...I couldn't get the same lather I had last night on the swayback bar, no matter how many times I lathered up for the pictures...."

*Newbie* -- I've been having the same issue. Sometimes the soap lathers, sometimes it doesn't. I am not sure about this ... still checking ... but I think maybe the surface of the soap has a lot of ash on or in it. Try gently scrubbing the soap bar to clean off the surface layer of "stuff", whatever it is. Also, experiment with adding a few drops of water as you lather up -- more than you'd use for another type of soap. It seems like this soap wants a lot of water to lather well. 

"...this is a soap you can unmold and cut cleanly while soft (about 24 hours). If you wait for it to be hard before unmolding and cutting it can be so hard you may have some breakage at the bottom of the cut...."

Ah, good point. I edited Post 473 to note this. AnnaMarie said much the same thing early on -- that the soap acted more like cheese when she cut it. I tried beveling the corners of a bar with a vegetable peeler -- and found out THAT wasn't going to happen! At age 2 weeks and counting, this soap is not interested in being prettied up!

Post 473: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=409854&postcount=473

***

"...I have two batches that are younger than most all the others. I haven't tried soaping them up yet, but neither zap anymore. I will have that info to add in a day or two. In both of my batches the temps were usually over 100. ..."

Forgive me, *SoapRat*, for not remembering the details -- did your two batches stay intact? I was saying to soap cooler because it seemed as if the emulsion might break if the temps were warmer. But that was also during the stage when we were all thinking to stick blend the h*ck out of the soap. That might have given me the wrong impression that temps over 100 F might not be the best. If this soap is not overly temperature sensitive, I sure need to change or delete the tip about soaping cool.

*** 

"...I do sense a bit of change though, and I am wondering if even going to 30% will still keep the integrity of the soap...."

So, *AnnaMarie*, I think by this you thinking the 32.5% superlye is borderline too low -- that -30% might not be enough? Am I interpreting your words correctly?

***

"...I use -45% superfat for both... I sundried 1 bar of the sweet almond one, and I think that's the only one that's ready to test...."

Thanks, *Btz*! I updated Post 473 to show you did your batches at -45%. I am very curious to see how the sweet almond one turns our for you -- that sounds like it could be a lovely soap.

***

"...why do you say not to use a slab mold? That was how I molded my first batch, and that turned out fine...."

Wups, *StarDancer*! Thanks for bringing this up -- I've edited Post 473 accordingly. I came up with that tip based on AnnaMarie's batch that she poured into a slab mold and it cracked apart internally. She thought at the time that it might be the difference between the log/loaf mold she had been using before vs. the slab mold. See: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=404423&postcount=128 Maybe she has some more thoughts on this issue now that some time has passed.

***

"...you can also simply use rancid oils and completely saponify them, and the soap will be fine as there's no free oils left in it to go rancid.... I've been thinking about that as I've been following this thread, and wondering if I could use some of the oils that are prone to rancidity, if they were done like this...."

And last but not least -- *Grayce* -- I have been wondering the exact same thing. Time will tell -- we'll just have to try it and see, hey? As far as the references about using rancid oil in soap, I have two squirreled away. I think the second one is the article you have in mind. 

See: Adel Y. Girgis. Production of high quality castile soap from high rancid olive oil. Grasas y Aceites, 54:3. 2003. pg 226-233. http://grasasyaceites.revistas.csic.es/index.php/grasasyaceites/article/viewArticle/235 

And see: http://handmadesoapcoach.com/dont-throw-out-that-rancid-oil-make-soap/

My understanding of rancid oil is this: 

As an oil ages, the triglycerides slowly break down into free fatty acids and glycerin. The FFA's are what make soap trace quicker when using older fats vs. fresher ones with less FFA's. There's nothing really wrong with FFA's in a fat -- the lye has to break the triglycerides apart anyway to make soap, so it's no big deal as far as the lye is concerned.

The FFA's continue to degrade as more time passes, especially if the fat is exposed to oxygen, moisture, any organic contaminants, heat, and light. The ketones, aldehydes, and other chemical compounds that form from the breakdown of the FFA's are what make the fat actually "rancid", meaning the fat has a bad odor, may change color, etc. 

These smelly, dark chemicals can be partially washed out of the fat, leaving just the remaining fat and FFA's behind for use in soapmaking. The authors in the first reference washed rancid olive oil with a 3% salt brine before making soap. If the fat is just a bit "off", the fat can just be used as-is for soap making -- this is what the author of the second reference does. A commenter at the end of this "don't throw out rancid oil" article explains how she used rancid fat at 0% superfat, used a hot process method, and added fresh fat as superfat at the end of the cook. Nice touch. 

***

Night, all!

PS AnnaMarie -- I got to writing this post, didn't get the scones done like I wanted to, and now it's time for bed. Tomorrow's another day!

Oh, I have one more thing to share. I took a sample from my second superlye batch (the pretty safflower-olive soap) into the shower with me this morning. I washed just my forearm with my usual bath puff and the soap. As a control, I washed the other forearm the same way except I used a well-cured bath soap. 

I was a little apprehensive about doing this, to be honest, but scientific curiosity won out over common sense.  I didn't use my usual lotion after my bath, so it was going to be pretty obvious to me if my skin was unhappy about being washed with this soap. (It's been a long winter here in Iowa, and I have winter-dry skin to show for it.)

My experiment worked fine. No itchy, no red, no irritation. (whew!)


----------



## newbie

It's interesting that you are having this same on and off lathering, DeeAnna. I thought about the ash issue but it was when I first lathered it up that I had the best results. Then it was left overnight to dry. My first lather of the night next day was pretty good, but then on subsequent washings within an hour window, it would simply not bubble up. The swayback bar I've been using doesn't have much ash, if any, on it because I've been testing with it on and off. I thought perhaps it had something to do with what was on my hands, in some way, as it wouldn't lather after my hands had been washed several times, but I don't think that's logical. Could it be a surface issue, where the very surface of the soap is fully saponified or somehow lather-ready, but once you wash down a layer or so, it is not?

THank you for your charting and editing our results. I can scarcely keep up with what I made much less all the other batches going on. 

I tried again last night with the low stir method and it worked better. It thickened but did not look smooth at the end and then it started getting grainy and separating. I don't know if anyone had this break up with hand-stirring, so I was quite surprised.  I SB'ed it and it fully broke but then would not go back together with SB'ing, only with hand stirring. It was super-slick. SOmehow my batch was smaller even though I measured out 2 cups of oil and 2 cups of water plus the lye water. That pissed me off because my design was measured out for the full mold and then I was short! I swear this recipe has it in for me!!


----------



## btz

DeeAnna said:


> Thanks, *Btz*! I updated Post 473 to show you did your batches at -45%. I am very curious to see how the sweet almond one turns our for you -- that sounds like it could be a lovely soap.



Yup, gonna test the sweet almond this evening. Hopefully that one turns out great. 

BTW, I took a pic of the coconut oil one this morning before going to the office and trimmed it a bit and saw there are white crystal (?) in it. 





I hope you can see it clearly, I couldn't get my camera to focus if I take the pic any closer. Is it lye crystal? If yes, I'm just going to wait for the crystal to disappear before letting my tongue near that soap.


----------



## cmzaha

soap_rat said:


> Aha! So what's still left to try is -40--or so--and normal water. (wait, maybe cmz's batch was something like that. Another thing to dig for!)


 
I poured mine on 2/23/2014 used -30 superfat with a 38% lye solution. I will cut one in a month and see if it is zappy inside. It quit zapping this week which actually suprised me. Just weighed a bar and it has only lost 1 gram in weight and has formed very little ash. I am also very suprised how well it lathers and already has very little slime. I do plan on curing these for min of 6 months.


----------



## btz

I've test the sweet almond oil one. It passed the zap test, has a strange salty aftertaste though. Washed my hand with it, more lotion-like than bubble. Will see what happened in week 3. 

Have not tried the coconut one yet because of the crystal, will wait a week to see what happened to them.


----------



## DeeAnna

Cmzha -- You said "...-30 superfat with a 38% lye solution...." Okay, I got that added to the list in Post 473. Just want to doublecheck -- is that 38% "water as % of oils" or a 38% lye concentration? I think you mean the second one, but I'm not absolutely sure. Thanks!

Btz -- It's hard to say whether the dots in your soap are lye crystals. When you posted pics of making this coconut oil soap, I noticed you had a lot of clumps of soap in the batter -- almost a type of ricing. I thought at the time that this might have been one type of fatty acid reacting very quickly to make grains of soap. The spots in your soap might possibly be grains of that early soap, but I'm not sure.

You said: "... It passed the zap test, has a strange salty aftertaste though..."

I am of the opinion that this odd taste from a soap is probably from soda ash. I tasted a sample of just the ash recently, and the flavor was reasonably similar. Fragrance can affect the flavor in odd ways too, if you added any.

Post 473: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=409854&postcount=473


----------



## btz

DeeAnna said:


> Btz -- It's hard to say whether the dots in your soap are lye crystals. When you posted pics of making this coconut oil soap, I noticed you had a lot of clumps of soap in the batter -- almost a type of ricing. I thought at the time that this might have been one type of fatty acid reacting very quickly to make grains of soap. The spots in your soap might possibly be grains of that early soap, but I'm not sure.
> 
> Post 473: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=409854&postcount=473



Yes, that happened, but overnight, all the soap turn into the same color as the ricing thingies. I just notice that the white dots appears again in the past few days. When I trimmed the soap, I found more under the surfaces. AnnaMarie talks about lye crystal appears and then disappears in her oo soap, so I thought that may be the same thing. 

Just to be safe, I'm going to wait for 1 more week before zap testing .


----------



## DeeAnna

"...It's interesting that you are having this same on and off lathering, DeeAnna. I thought about the ash issue but it was when I first lathered it up that I had the best results. Then it was left overnight to dry. My first lather of the night next day was pretty good, but then on subsequent washings within an hour window, it would simply not bubble up...."

Newbie -- yes that's pretty much my experience, although I've not been as careful to document when I do get lather vs. not. I'm puzzled too -- we'll just have to keep working on it....

edit: Another thought is that the water evaporation will also carry glycerin to the surface of the bar. I think AnnaMarie is seeing this too when she soaks a sample in water -- a clear, sweet-ish layer on the surface. Glycerin would inhibit lathering. I can't say why the soap surface would have more glycerin at some times vs. others, but just another idea to think about.


----------



## cmzaha

DeeAnna said:


> Cmzha -- You said "...-30 superfat with a 38% lye solution...." Okay, I got that added to the list in Post 473. Just want to doublecheck -- is that 38% "water as % of oils" or a 38% lye concentration? I think you mean the second one, but I'm not absolutely sure. Thanks!
> 
> I used a 38% Lye concentration 28.432% Water as percent of oil weight. I was interested to see if the excess water was really needed, but of course will have to cut one, if I can cut one of these rocks, to see how the middle is doing. My soap was 100% pomace and is lathering extremely good.


----------



## newbie

BTZ- I have gotten similar crystal in my CO soaps. Mine were definitely not lye and I'm pretty certain it related to the rate of cooling of the soap. They look like crystals or bits of fuzz. very annoying but they didn't affect lather. Come one, on touch of the tongue, a mouthful of water available..... 

I was wondering if the goo on the soaked soaps was glycerin as well but I think AM said that it was thicker on the bar with the 32% excess than it was on the 40% excess lye bar. Would that make sense? I would think the more thoroughly saponified the oil, the more glycerin would be produced, which would result in the 40 % excess bar to have more glycerin, or is my thinking wrong?


----------



## btz

newbie said:


> BTZ- I have gotten similar crystal in my CO soaps. Mine were definitely not lye and I'm pretty certain it related to the rate of cooling of the soap. They look like crystals or bits of fuzz. very annoying but they didn't affect lather. Come one, on touch of the tongue, a mouthful of water available.....




Must.
Resist.
Temptation. 


I love my tongue too much. 

And I'm a bit of scaredy-cat about zap testing.


----------



## newbie

I thought you guys might enjoy these pictures of the soda crystals forming on my latest batch of this soap. Definitely not lye (I tested).


----------



## DeeAnna

WOWSER! Pretty cool! Looks almost like fur. Thanks for sharing. The crystals on my soaps were more flat to the surface, but really glittery in bright sunlight.


----------



## newbie

I picked up one bar just to check it out and it crunched under my fingers. Some bars are furrier than others and some have the incredibly long crystals I tried to catch in pictures. No idea why this batch is like this.


----------



## MzMolly65

Looks like the surface of some far off planet!!


----------



## btz

woah, that's actually looks great newbie. What do you use as additive in your soap? Milk?


----------



## seven

i did the lather testing for both soaps but couldn't get it on photos coz i was doing it alone 

to sum up, the lather is not bad, but certainly hasn't reach their full potential.

i've been using my good soap (-40 sf) on my face for 2 nights in a row. no funky stuff, except my skin feels really clean but not tight nor dry, which is funny.  you can really feel the difference on your skin a soap with sf and w/o. my face is really oily to begin with, so that's prolly why it's not dry and tight at the end. someone with a dry skin might feel different.


----------



## DeeAnna

I am chagrined; I have a true confession to make -- I had an inadvertent tester for my -40% superlye soap (name withheld to protect the innocent). She said the soap irritated her skin -- it was itchy for awhile after bathing. She also reported her face was reddened and unusually oily the next day, which we both agreed was due to the soap stripping her skin of too much oil. We also unanimously agreed the soap needed more cure time before repeating this experiment. :???:

Ahem. Moving on....

I did some reading about why olive-oil soap has a slimy lather (or very silky lather depending on who you talk to) and gets goo on the bottom of the bar if it sits in water. It's all about the amount of oleic acid in the formulation. Irish Lass reported her findings on this, so I'll share a couple of the best threads and let you read her words for yourselves:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=26367
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=24908 

I intentionally let two bars of superlye soap (one from each batch) sit in a puddle of water the other day along with a well-cured bar of my "normal" soap -- a blend of beer, lard, RBO, high oleic safflower and castor. The beer soap got slightly softer and whiter on the wet face, but the structure of the soap stayed intact. The superlye soaps both acted differently -- they had a separate thin layer of a firm, translucent gel on the bottom. I could scrape this layer off with my finger. The soap beneath the gel layer looked pretty much like the beer soap -- white, slightly softened. When I let the bars dry out, they returned to their usual firm pale-colored state. I also observed a slight amount of stickiness in the translucent goo that seems to be similar to what Irish Lass described -- I could pull short threads from the goo by pressing my fingertip into the goo then drawing it away.

Another thing that I think is connected to this -- Newbie and I have seen in our superlye soaps is an odd variability in the lathering of this soap. One time, the soap will barely lather. What lather it does make is rather sticky and scant, and looks to me a bit like the goo I just described. The next time, the soap will make a lovely suds with a nice blend of creamy and fluffy lather. 

The difference in lathering is (I think) the relative amount of water in proportion to the soap that is being rubbed off the bar. Oleic acid soap will create a gel when mixed with a low amount of water, unlike the straight chain fats in PKO, CO, palm, lard, tallow, etc. That is why the snot/slime/gooey thing happens, if I'm understanding things correctly. If the oleic soap gets more water, it will dissolve into solution with the water and can then finally create a nice lather.

Now what's interesting is that one of my soaps is 100% olive oil, but the other is a 70% HO safflower and 30% lard blend -- no OO. Both of them are behaving the same way with the gel formation and the on-again off-again lather. I intentionally created the blend to have an estimated fatty acid profile close to OO. In my opinion, the goo or gel issue is not so much about the olive oil itself, it's about the % of oleic acid in the formulation. It may also be related to when only water is used to make the soap -- some folks in the links above even mentioned that using milk with 100% olive tended to cut the goo/slime factor.

Now are my superlye soaps as gooey or slimy as "normal" castile soap? I don't have a clue -- I've never used castile before this -- but AnnaMarie says they aren't and I'll take her word for that.


----------



## MzMolly65

DeeAnna said:


> I am chagrined; I have a true confession to make -- I had an inadvertent tester for my -40% superlye soap (name withheld to protect the innocent). She said the soap irritated her skin -- it was itchy for awhile after bathing. She also reported her face was reddened and unusually oily the next day, which we both agreed was due to the soap stripping her skin of too much oil. We also unanimously agreed the soap needed more cure time before repeating this experiment. :???:
> 
> Ahem. Moving on....



*raises hand* .. guilty as charged .. *hangs head in shame*

It's really quite silly because I've been reading this thread from the beginning.  I KNOW when you made that soap and how long it's had to cure.  I really have no idea why I didn't think about that before jumping in the bath with it  :think:  No real excuse for stupidity is there? :mrgreen:

I sent you two samples of the normal castile so hopefully you have enough to do some experimenting.  It was made Jan 27, 2014 .. so while it's considered fresh for a castile that's supposed to sit for a year .. it's safe to use hahahah *ducks*

Hope you get your package soon, I'm curious to see what you think when comparing the two.


----------



## DeeAnna

Oh, Molly -- ya didn't need to out yourself! Okay, so we're both chagrined and ashamed.  

But I hold myself more responsible cuz it was MY soap that caused the trouble. I do apologize.

I got your package today -- THANK YOU -- so many lovely treats to enjoy! I explored briefly this morning, but did not have time to try anything out, much as I want to. I am very curious to compare your castile compared with my superlye versions. I'll PM you with more soon.

Sit up and take notice, y'all -- our Molly does nice work!


----------



## ilovesoap2

I intentionally used my lye heavy soap early.
I just wanted to see what it would do.
I was just thinking of the 85 year old lady with beautiful skin 

ETA
I had slight tingling after the wash and some peeling
the next day which I just buffed away.


----------



## DeeAnna

Ilovesoap2 -- You are much braver than I! Maybe we could market young superlye soaps as a whole-body-exfoliation product? 

(I am seriously not serious with this idea, just in case someone is wondering!)


----------



## seven

i think this soap would be too harsh for the face, coz like DeeAnna said, it stripped the oils from our skin too much. but it sure is good for like a once a week thing me thinks.


----------



## MzMolly65

DeeAnna said:


> Sit up and take notice, y'all -- our Molly does nice work!



Oh stoooopppp you're making me blush!

Hey .. on a side note.  To anyone that's reading this.  DeeAnna and I were talking (around the water cooler) about a, not lye heavy, semi-normal Castile I made on March 13th, that's acting like frozen cheese .. I took a look at my notes.  

It's 100% pomace, 2% SF, 40% lye

I took it to thick emulsion (not tracing) with hand stirring and then poured it into round cavity molds and just left it alone.  It didn't separate but it also didn't turn into soap.  A week after pouring and it's super soft and crumbles like cheese that's been frozen.

I decided to rebatch it today.  

Here's pics, if anyone has any feedback or thoughts on why this soap didn't harden I'd love to hear from you.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Well, I've been using my soap daily with no ill consequence. My skin feels a little taut after cleaning, but that goes away in about a minute. No drying. No flaking. Nothing. This soap is rock hard and lasts forever! I may try it as laundry soap too. Since I've been using it for a couple weeks now I decided it was safe for the rest of the crew, and so I added it to the rotation.


----------



## newbie

I think it's not fair to judge this soap on harshness this early.

BTZ, I don't add anything to the soap, no milks or anything. I have been using FO and colorants.

I can't seem to stay away from this recipe, as much as a I kind of hate it. I've noticed some cool things with the colorants so I had to try something last night to see what will happen. Last night it took the longest time ever- 4 hours. I briefly hand stirred every 15-30 minutes and at one point I did SB briefly. It so pissed me off. I think I may have had just a touch too much water compared to oils- that's my theory- because I just measured instead of weighing. I did an OO/Castor combo, but I did that once before and it took about an hour. After 3+ hours, I considered that I may have too much water, so in the most unscientific move ever, I just poured a couple dollops of OO in, figuring with a 40+% excess, I was probably okay to do so. It didn't take long after that to start thickening.

Every time I've made this soap, it has broken/separated and I've stirred it back to the thick plastic state. LAst night, it got very thick indeed but didn't break. If I stirred it certain ways, it would get glossy and slick looking, but if left it would start looking less smooth and very very slightly apple saucy. Because of the way it was sliding and moving, I decided to color and pour wondering if it would set, as AM said once that just taking it to trace did not work. About an hour later, i poked it and it had that same rubbery slippery consistency it had after breaking and being put back together. I just cut it (I'm sorry but cutting this before or at 24 hours is a sensual experience- not sexual- because of the glide of the knife and the incredible smoothness of the surface of the soap after cutting) and it is perfectly fine.

Relating this back to the frozen cheese soap, I can say that stirring it to what appears to be a thick trace but without the break in the emulsion, which was initially considered necessary, resulted in fine soap. I wonder if stirring to emulsion but not trace means that the water had not surrounded the soap in small enough particles or molecular groups, leaving the texture rough and chunky. Maybe this sounds stupid, too. I don't know.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Newbie, I love your spirit. Your kind of like me that way in that I don't like something to defeat me, and so I need to settle the score  I am truly mystified at all the trouble you've have with this soap, but I love that you keep going 
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## newbie

I think I'm flipping insane.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I've been saying I should be certified for the last 6 months (long story)


----------



## DeeAnna

"...I think it's not fair to judge this soap on harshness this early...."

Oh, yes, I totally agree with you, Newbie. The fact that some of us are trying the soap out doesn't mean we're passing final judgement on it at all. I'm all for being patient -- I just want to tinker and experiment while I wait!


----------



## newbie

I suppose that typed out a little differently than I meant it. It sounded like I was slightly admonishing, perhaps, but I didn't mean it to be.


----------



## krunt

I made a -20% batch yesterday, everything seemed to go the same and I had no reason to think anything was wrong.  I unmolded it not long ago, and this is what greeted me (see photo).

I did everything the same, so I'm kinda stumped as to why it didn't work out this time.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Hand stir or SB? Insulated or no?


----------



## krunt

Combination of hand stir and stick blend.  I stick blended it to trace with the concentrated lye solution, and then hand stirred the additional water in, but gave it the odd blast with the stick blender after each water addition to make sure it was mixed.

I covered the mold with a cardboard box, so I guess you could say light insulation.

My previous 2 batches were both done in this same way and worked out fine.  However, after giving it more thought, perhaps I didn't stir well enough.  I got done stirring in less time than my previous batches, although I did feel sure it was still well mixed.  It's really the only thing coming up as a possible explanation for me.


----------



## soap_rat

That looks a lot like what happened to someone else earlier, the very thin layer of good soap on what was the bottom of the mold, then lots of brownish liquid inside.  Check out post 356 and earlier ones by FlyBy.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I got liquid when I used the SB. I got holes in my soap from over heating (probably over insulated). It's funny how much difference there is in this recipe between using an SB and hand stirring.


----------



## DeeAnna

Not to say I have the answer for you, but here's my thought. 

For my second batch, I used the same technique as you -- blend to heavy trace with a little SB and a lot of hand stirring, add extra water, pour in mold. In looking back at my notes, when I added the extra water, I used the SB for only the first 1 or 2 water additions. I realized at that point that the water was going into the batter really nicely with only hand stirring, so I added the last 4 water additions with hand stirring only. 

I think the strong mixing from the SB in this recipe does the opposite of what we're expecting -- it breaks down the soap emulsion in this batter rather than makes it stronger. We're trying to load the emulsion with more and more water which is making the whole structure more and more fragile, so a gentle touch is needed.

I'm with AnnaMarie -- hand stirring is the key. Where I (currently) differ with her is that I think a moderate amount of SB'ing is okay, especially at first. Maybe 30 seconds of SB'ing out of every 5 minutes with gentle hand stirring the rest of the time. Once it reaches trace, however, hand stir only. 

I do reserve the right to change my tune if I make another batch using this method and have it break and make another mess! And I will also humbly take a well-deserved scolding from our Good Leader AM.


----------



## seven

DeeAnna, i can understand why your 2nd method works. bear in mind that i'm not a science person, so this is just from a logical pov. with your 2nd method, you SB first with the normal water amount, like we usually do when we make soap. the emulsion is already stable (batter has reach trace) when the extra water is added. so, the batter is absorbing the extra water slowly.


----------



## DeeAnna

Hi, Seven -- Yes, you have said it very well. The batter needs to absorb the extra water slowly. Hand mixing is the key. At least that's what I think is happening!


----------



## ilovesoap2

DeeAnna said:


> Ilovesoap2 -- You are much braver than I! Maybe we could market young superlye soaps as a whole-body-exfoliation product?
> 
> (I am seriously not serious with this idea, just in case someone is wondering!)



We could but I'ld be scared.  We would tell people to leave on about 3 minutes then rinse, but they would think if 3 minutes work then 300 minutes would be better and probably burn themselves 

I am a serious anti-ager though so I'm up for anything.  Plus I'm always looking
for a remedy for these crusty heels.


----------



## DeeAnna

Soapmakers never die, they just burn off the years with lye. 

Ugh. Even I think that one is pretty bad. :Kitten Love:


----------



## seven

lolololllll DeeAnna! i have to admit though, i think i'm becoming rather immune with lye burns. sure it hurts, but i'm used to it now


----------



## newbie

AM- when you said normal SF level plus extra water did not work, in what way do you mean? Do you mean it did not produce a non-gooey castille or do you mean the batter did not take all the extra water?


----------



## AnnaMarie

newbie said:


> AM- when you said normal SF level plus extra water did not work, in what way do you mean? Do you mean it did not produce a non-gooey castille or do you mean the batter did not take all the extra water?



I meant it did not produce a non-gooey bar. I didn't have a problem with the batter using the SB.


----------



## DeeAnna

MzMolly -- about your soap in Post 439 -- I found this info today that might relate to your troubles. It's from Kathy Millers' website in her article about troubleshooting. Maybe something she has to say will fit with your situation --

"...Soft and crumbly... soap that just wants to disintegrate when you cut it but when rubbed between the fingers produces an oiliness... is generally caused from inadequate mixing and saponification. There is usually a factor of too much heat loss during the stirring period. The smaller the batch, the quicker it will lose heat. With hand stirring, it could be from heat loss during stirring time and/or the stirring was not vigorous enough or until a real trace was reached. With a stick blender, it might be heat loss and too much mixing without frequent breaks, which created the illusion of trace when the thickening was really from hardening fat particles or emulsification.

"If the recipe you started with was quite small, you should raise your initial mixing temperatures. As an example, soap that might have been blended at 110 degrees would be mixed at 120 or 125 degrees. People who make really huge batches will often drop their temperature below 100 degrees since large batches retain and build up more heat after pouring. If the soap begins to look grainy right away after mixing in the lye solution, it's a good idea to apply some gentle bottom heat to the pot for a minute or two... until you see it smooth out and develop a satiny texture on the surface. You will be doing your stirring during this warming time. Then turn the burner OFF. For those using the stick blender, review the suggested stick blending technique on the “Modern Procedures Page” and be sure you mix in short bursts and turn the blender off and and stir in between. This will ensure that you are not fooled by a "false trace" and pour your soap before it's really ready...."


----------



## AnnaMarie

"I'm with AnnaMarie -- hand stirring is the key. Where I (currently) differ with her is that I think a moderate amount of SB'ing is okay, especially at first. Maybe 30 seconds of SB'ing out of every 5 minutes with gentle hand stirring the rest of the time. Once it reaches trace, however, hand stir only."

DeeAnna, I think I mentioned this earlier, but this thread has grown so stinkin' long (I don't really want to spend a day reading back through it  ), but I did hand stir until trace and then pulled out my SB to thicken it up a bit. I know this is the opposite of what you recommend, but I think our mutual experiences show that this recipe will put up with a moderate amount of technology, but hand stirring is key.
I was looking at my hand stirred batch this morning, and I still am in awe over the difference hand stirring can make with regards to the soda ash and lye crystals (apparently). My original bars are coated thickly, but these have very little. The more I read this thread the more I become convinced that simplicity is the key to success here. This recipe does not respond to technology well. DeeAnna, my offers still stands if you want to test a bar of my original batch-just pm me, and I will send you one.
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## MzMolly65

YES!!! that's it!  Thank you so much DeeAnna.  I had no idea that losing heat could cause a problem and this makes total sense.  I thought it would work to just hand stir it a little because I did that with the lye heavy batch BUT the lye heavy batch is generating so much more heat all on it's own.  There's the difference and probably also the reason why SB isn't a good idea, it's over heating and causing the separation.


----------



## DeeAnna

AnnaMarie -- "...DeeAnna, I think I mentioned this earlier, but this thread has grown so stinkin' long (I don't really want to spend a day reading back through it )... the more I become convinced that simplicity is the key to success here..."

Yes, I know what you mean!!! I'm sure I read your original post about using the SB, but it is really difficult to keep all the details straight after 460+ posts. Thanks for setting the record straight. 

"....the difference hand stirring can make with regards to the soda ash and lye crystals (apparently)....."

It's also possible that humidity levels may also affect the amount of ash formation. My guess (and it's JUST a guess) is that low air humidity may cause more ash, all other things being equal. Water will evaporate from the bar more quickly when the air is dry, thus it will bring more lye to the surface of the soap, and so there is more lye to react with the CO2 in the air. But I could well be wrong on this. I need to make some batches this summer when it's the most humid (our house is not air conditioned), and see if the bars get a lot of ash or not. Won't definitively prove my idea, but it would be interesting to know.

MzMolly -- "...probably also the reason why SB isn't a good idea, it's over heating and causing the separation. ..."

Hmmm, yes, I'll have to give that a think. You may well have a point there. I was focusing on the SB'ing itself as the culprit, but perhaps it's more than that. 

I'm glad I stumbled across some good info to solve the mystery of your other castile. Wasn't really looking specifically for an answer, but when I read Kathy's troubleshooting tips about crumbly soap, I thought immediately of you. I know problems like this can gnaw at me until I solve them, and I think you're that kind of person too.


----------



## ewenique

I've just spent half my day reading this fascinating thread.  Thanks to all who have joined in and shared the results of your experiments!


----------



## MzMolly65

DeeAnna said:


> My guess (and it's JUST a guess) is that low air humidity may cause more ash, all other things being equal.



This may be a good guess.  I'm in the pacific NW .. land of wet and I have very little ash on this particular bar.

Now some of my others have a ton of ash on them .. just not this particular recipe.


----------



## newbie

I seem to be on the far end of the bell curve with this recipe but I will still offer my opinion about SBing. 

I've made 5 or 6 batches and I've required SB'ing for all, even the one I had the most normal experience with. I've needed a few bursts around the first third, timing-wise, to get the water layer in more contact with the oil layer and I've required SB'ing to get them all to a good trace. SB'ing gives that strange slick plastic texture; I have not gotten that without the blender, although my hand-stirred to heavy trace batch was bordering on it. The batch I made blending almost the entire time resulted in the rubber ball soap, which had this resilient pretty well unstirrable texture to it; at the end, I just ended up pushing the ball of soap around with a spatula. It's almost like SBing toughens the soap the more you use it in the process. My (mostly) hand stirred batch was the most delicate, the most easily colored and softest batch to make. How you stir didn't seem to affect the actual soap in that all the bars have turned out fine as long as they did not get hot in any way.

So I have not had the impression that this recipe is too delicate for the stick blender at all. I have had the impression that too much stick blending actually changes how it emulsifies and can even make the soap over-emulsified (is that even a real concept?), to the point that it's hard to break into. When I had the rubber ball soap, it was very difficult to break into portions for coloring and it was very strange and difficult to get color blended in, although it was possible. Batches that were SB'ed but not as much were still strangely self-contained, for lack of a better word, where the soap was gliding along on a layer of water and would not stick to the surface of the bowl. In unmolding those soaps, you could actually see how the soap had layered and folded itself as it was poured. Really bizarre. My mainly hand-blended one was more normal and did stick to the bowl as we expect batter to do. 

Just my 2 cents.


----------



## btz

Zap test the lye heavy coconut heavy soap today, no zap. The soap is very white and very hard, and I mean rock hard. 

Wash my hand with it, produce big bubble. It felt really clean afterwards. Didn't feel like it was drying on my skin, but I guess I need to use it a few time to see if it has that effect. It has no smell at all. My other soaps, including the lye heavy sweet almond one, has a subtle smell of soap, but not this one. 

Not sure if this soap need more curing time, because after I wet it, the soap was still hard, no mushy-ness at all.


----------



## DeeAnna

When this recipe goes into the plastic-y "ball" stage, it's my opinion is that the physical structure of the emulsion has radically changed. 

To explain what I mean, forgive me -- I need to put on my professor hat....

An emulsion is a mixture of droplets of one liquid suspended in another. (You can have gas-liquid emulsions or liquid-solid emulsions, but that's another story.) 

Getting back to a liquid-liquid emulsion, Liquid A can be suspended in liquid B OR Liquid B can be suspended in Liquid A. Either way works. 

Usually, but not always, the liquid that is the smaller amount is the one that is suspended in the second liquid. A good example is when you squirt soap into a pan of water to wash dishes. Droplets of soap are emulsified and suspended within the very large amount of water. 

But there are times when the reverse is true -- you have water emulsified within soap. Handcrafted liquid soap paste before it's diluted is an example of a water-in-soap emulsion. (Another interesting emulsion is bar soap -- it is actually an emulsion of sheets of liquid water suspended within a structure of solid soap.)

Under the right conditions, a given mixture can even switch from one type of emulsion to the other. Liquid soap changes the form of its emulsion when water is added or when people try to thicken it with salt, etc. When people have problems with their liquid soap being too runny or not thinning out is that they cannot find the sweet spot where the proper type of emulsion is present to give them the thickness they want.

A typical soap batter is normally a water-in-oil emulsion. The fat is the main "outer" liquid and the water droplets are suspended within the fat. It's easy to visualize because the fat is usually the larger portion of liquid in a soap recipe -- it "makes sense" that the smaller amount of water should be suspended within the fat.

With this superlye recipe, there is a roughly the same amount of fat and water. So which emulsion will form? Fat in water? Or water in fat? 

When the batter looks normal throughout the whole process, like cream or gravy, the emulsion is water-suspended-in-oil, just like the usual type of soap batter. When the superlye batter starts to look plastic-y and "run around" in the bowl, I suspect the emulsion is becoming a blend of oil droplets suspended in water. Why does the emulsion switch for some batches and doesn't switch for others? A combination of factors -- temperature, intensity of mixing, the specific ingredients, etc. -- will determine what happens.

If it does switch, the emulsion will be the least stable at that time. And the same combination of factors  -- temperature, intensity of mixing, the specific ingredients, etc. -- will determine whether the emulsion remains intact during the switch or whether it breaks down, at least partly. I think this is contributing to the variable success that we're seeing with the superlye recipe.


----------



## newbie

That follows with my experiences. Given this, the change from water-in-oil, to oil-in-water must happen when it breaks or separates and has to be stirred back together. The only time I did not have this happen was when I hand-stirred to thick trace, the one that stuck to the bowl. However, when I poked at it later and now unmolded, it seemed/seems rubbery like the oil-in-water texture. Could it switch over time within the mold? WOuld one emulsion be able to tolerate heat when the other could not? It seems like this recipe does not like heat under any circumstance.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...Could it switch over time within the mold?..."

Yes, it could. Not to say that I know it actually does, but it's possible. 

An example of an emulsion switch -- An enthusiastic newbie grates up NaOH soap, mixes it up with water, gets a nice and thin soapy solution, and congratulates herself for being the first to make wonderful liquid soap so easily and simply. Then she comes back a day or three later to find a container full of "snot". The initial thin solution is an emulsion of soap dissolved in water. The thick, gloppy gel is a water in soap emulsion. Given time, the soap will make this rather amazing switch all on its own. (Yeah, I don't like snot either, but it is amazing even so!)

"...Would one emulsion be able to tolerate heat when the other could not? It seems like this recipe does not like heat under any circumstance...."

I'm sure some emulsions are more heat stable that others, but in the case of this soap, I don't think it likes heat, regardless. I get the feeling the more "normal" batter may be a little more warmth tolerant, since AnnaMarie said she has insulated the molded soap. But even she has experienced some issues -- internal cracking -- that might have partly come from emulsion failure. Not sure -- I'm just speculating here.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Okay, so my milk & honey castile turned four weeks old on Monday.  I just weighed it and took pictures. It's at about 65% of its original weight (a weight loss of 35%). 

Also, the parts that were mixed with TD are more of a creamy pale tan. There is a layer of ash on the top, turning the pink nearly white!

I haven't tried any form of testing yet. There's enough ash formation that a zap test wouldn't be valid, and I'm too chicken to try washing with it yet! (Not to mention I"m in the middle of testing other soaps. lol)


----------



## newbie

I just tried a wash with OO/castor oil one I made a couple weeks ago, the one with all the ash crystals. I meant to just rinse off the thick coating of ash (by far the most of any of these batches) but in doing so, I noticed the soap quickly became very snotty. I had strings of goo that would stretch out between my hand and the bar and also noted a layer of slimy goo was immediately coming off the bar, enough that it would leave a pile on my finger when I wiped the bar. I have to assume this is the castor as the OO bars did nothing like this. It lathers a lot more than the straight OO and that lathers starts pretty bubbly and then becomes more dense and foamy, but the goo factor is very unappealing. It's a young bar though.


----------



## ilovesoap2

I can see why the soap is considered a laundry soap.  I made the 100% OO version and finally got around to washing a white item...it came out sparkling white.  Not sure what it would do to colored/black items, but I'm pleased with this one piece I hand washed.


----------



## Robert B

I know it was mentioned that this may not be the best for a new person, and I was not drawn by the challenge, but more of the 'old' way about it (sort of hard to explain).

So with one batch of other soap under my belt, I gave it a shot but am not sure it is 'working'.  Today is the second day and it is the consistency of buttercream or room temp butter.  I removed one from the mold this morning and placed the log on a lined tray.  It held it's form all day.  I removed the other one from the mold and weighed both (the molds are wooden and were showing some small signs of leaching of oil or something where the freezer paper had a gap).   

-------
When I started making the soap, it was hand mixed for almost 2 hours and only reached a light trace (that was dedication :smile:...and a sore arm).  I eventually pulled out the heavy artillery and stick blended on and off for another 15 minutes.  I said a prayer and poured. 

A few details:
1. I used extra virgin olive oil by accident.  I read that this oil takes longer to trace.  The color is a butter color and not white.  The oil was pretty dark.  
2. It did not gel. I read that non-gelled soaps can take longer to harden. Plus this is not a solid oil. 
3. There is no separation or puddles on top going on and I take that as a good sign with all the water that is in there.

Can this soap be saved?  If not, I promise I will not give up on it.


----------



## newbie

Oh you are trying to compete with me for longest time for this damned soap to come together! My longest was 4 hours. 

Until it has really traced, it does look yellowish, very pale. My soap got very firm within 24 hours though and certainly firm enough to cut. I think you may not have gotten to the proper trace on this one, which is a bugger to tell. Thank goodness you didn't gel. This soap really doesn't like that, at all. People have made it will pomace to regular OO so I don't think the extra virgin OO would make this soap not work.

I have had the slippery slidey plastic type trace, the rubber ball rolling around type trace and the Cool Whip type trace. The cool whip one tended to get thicker faster and be more solid that the plastic ones.

When you were SB'ing at the end, did it break up and look like a horrible cellulite problem before it went back together or what did you consider trace before your pour?


----------



## DeeAnna

Oh, boy, my brain is fried. Been a long day. But here's my lab report....

I weighed my two "superlye batches" again today. I wanted to compare the weight loss of these soaps with my "normal" soaps, so I had to do some re-thinking of the data. So the attached chart is not just an update of the charts I've presented earlier -- I had to put the weight loss for all the soaps on a consistent basis so I could compare the data properly.

Because superlye soap has such a high water content, the rate of water loss is also very high at first -- much higher than for a soap with a lower "normal" moisture content. When the water content of the superlye soap drops to the same water content that a normal soap has when it is first cut, the rate of water loss of a superlye soap is pretty much the same as a normal soap after that. This happened about 17 days after the superlye soaps were cut. You can see this on the chart -- all four curves lie reasonably close to each other if I match up the moisture content for the four soaps on Day 17.

I did a lather test at the sink today. I compared my two superlye soaps with a young "normal" castile that a fellow soaper graciously shared with me. I really appreciate her generosity, because I had no idea what a real handcrafted castile is like. Now I have a lovely "normal" castile to compare with my soaps. 

What I found was the normal castile made a small amount of lather. The lather was a foamy lotion made of all small bubbles. I can see why some people might call the lather slimy, but "lotion" was the word that came to my mind instead. I liked the silky feel. I also liked that the soap left my hands clean feeling, but not dry or tight. Very nice.

The superlye castile (the homely soap that cleaned my oven) and the superlye safflower-lard (the pretty soap) both produced slightly more lather than the normal castile. That surprised me. The superlye castile lathered the most, the superlye safflower-lard was second, and the normal castile was third as far as lather volume. I kept trying all three soaps one after the other to see if my technique or personal bias was affecting the lather. I finally decided that, yes, the superlye castile really was lathering more than the normal castile and the superlye safflower-lard.

The lather for both superlye soaps is different than the normal castile -- the lotion-like dense suds is overlaid with a fluff of larger bubbles. The sense I got was of a "looser" lather, so I think this lather might be acceptable to someone who doesn't care for "castile slime". The superlye soaps also left my hands feeling clean, but not dry or tight. 

Conclusions: I expect the moisture content of the superlye soaps to stabilize in another 30-40 days, if my normal soaps are any indication. All three soaps -- normal castile, superlye castile, and superlye safflower-lard -- are not big lather-ers at this point in their lives. All three like a lot of added water to do their best job of lathering. The lather of the superlye soaps is "looser" and fluffier.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...There is no separation or puddles on top going on and I take that as a good sign with all the water that is in there...."

Hang in there, Robert! I'd let the soap do its thing for awhile longer if I were in your shoes. If it's not weeping all over the place, it may well be fine -- just a sloooow saponifier of a batch. 

Please share your story as it unfolds -- I'm very curious to hear how things go for you....


----------



## Robert B

Newbie --- 

4 hours? Wow! I realize I should have stirred longer now but was unaware of the effect. After the stick blender, I would say it was a medium trace (based on pictures I have seen). The trace was like a very light lotion but not nearly like AnnaMarie's picture. It never broke apart. I sort of find this exciting though!

DeeAnna ---

Thanks for the encouragment. I checked it this morning and it is still holding it's shape. It is no where near cutting as I could run a finger to smooth out the indentations/smudges from the freezer paper. I am hoping that by having the logs out on the tray it will help with evaporation (with more sides exposed). The bits left on the freezer paper side after unmolding seemed a tab firmer this morning. I tried to wash with a tiny bit of the bits left and it did have snall bubbles so that was encouraging. My finger did not sting but it is a combo of smooth and dried right now --- maybe too caustic still.


Anyone ---

One thing I noticed is that AnnaMarie wrapped hers in towels very well. Wouldn't that cause some sort of gelling? Her soap seems to work every time. Just curious. I read about the oven process impact too.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...I am hoping that by having the logs out on the tray it will help with evaporation (with more sides exposed)...."

Yes, that will definitely help. If you look at the chart I posted last night, you can see how dramatic the water loss is for the first few days. When the log is firm enough to cut, that will help the soap dry out even better, but I agree with not rushing that.

I'd be careful with the handwashing tests. I know it's hard to not try a new soap, but this one will roughen and irritate the skin until it mellows for a few weeks. Be sure to wash after handling the soap so you don't accidentally rub any in your eyes or on your face -- a little bit of lye can have a big effect in a tender area!


----------



## newbie

Don't take me for any sort of baseline on this recipe! I am way out on the bell curve. Nearly everyone has had this go from start to finish in about an hour and I seem to be the only sucker sitting out there tending to the soap for hours on end. Okay I don't watch it every minute but still, no one else has had it take 2, 3, 4 hours to make this. I don't know what is wrong other than I live in a slow trace vortex.


----------



## DeeAnna

I want to share that I've discussed this recipe with Kevin Dunn. I asked him for his thoughts on what is causing the lye to neutralize. I truly don't think he'll mind my sharing his part of our discussion with y'all, so here is our email conversation:

***

Hello, Dr. Dunn,

May I ask for your thoughts on a soap making problem?

There are a group of us on the Soap Making Forum (http://www.soapmakingforum.com) who are experimenting with an unusual Castile cold-process soap recipe originating in Andalusia. The recipe is basically this: 

Olive oil, any given volume (the original recipe called for 6 L)
NaOH sufficient for saponification plus a -40% "super lye" excess (in other words, if 100 g of NaOH is sufficient for saponification, we would use 140 g for this recipe)
Water equal to the NaOH weight
Water equal in volume to the olive oil

Dissolve the NaOH in the first portion of water to make a 50:50 lye solution. Add the lye solution to the oil. Add the second volume of water to the batter. Stir by hand until trace; this usually takes about 60 minutes. Pour into a mold and let set.

As you would imagine, the soap is very lye heavy at first, but our experiments are showing the bars of this soap are becoming tongue neutral in about 2 weeks. I have split some of these bars and confirmed that the centers are tongue neutral as well as the exterior.

The purpose of the NaOH excess is to eliminate or reduce the gooey and slimy nature of Castile. We tentatively think a -30% to -40% super lye is critical -- less lye does not reduce the goo/slime factor.

The water excess may also have something to do with reducing the slime/goo factor, but it definitely looks like it is the key for reducing the excess lye to safe levels. For about a week after the bars are first cut, the soap is unusually damp and cold from evaporation. This evaporation is transporting NaOH solution to the surface where some of the Na+ is reacting with CO2 to form soda ash.

But my calculations suggest the formation of soda ash can only be part of the neutralization process -- there is much more excess lye than there is soda ash formation (see photos). Being an engineer, I'm not content to just accept that this neutralization just magically happens. Unfortunately, my studies are not dredging up any clues about other routes of dealing with this lye excess.

Can you suggest any ideas for me to research?

Many thanks for considering my request -- I sincerely appreciate any help you care to offer.

Regards,
DeeAnna Weed, PhD 

[I also sent pics of bars from the two batches I've made plus pics of the lather for both.]

***

Hi DeeAnna,

Wow, that's a lot of water for a CP soap. I'm surprised it sets up at all. As for the lye excess, my experiments with excess lye up to about 5% also show that the soap becomes tongue neutral over a few weeks. I have supposed that CO2 from the air neutralizes the excess lye, but I have not tested this. If I were to do this I would proceed as follows:

1) Cut identical bars from the superlye batch
2) let 1 bar cure in air as usual
3) seal 1 bar in a mason jar to exclude CO2 (this bar will not dry out)
4) the last test is a little more involved--you want to exclude CO2 but allow water to evaporate. If you have access to bottled nitrogen gas you could fit up a sealed box with a slow nitrogen purge. Otherwise, place the soap in a sealed container large enough to hold an open mason jar of dry NaOH. Over time the NaOH will absorb both water and CO2, allowing the bar to dry out.
5) from week to week, test a sample of each bar of soap for neutrality. The tongue test would give you some information, but if you want to follow the process precisely, titrate each sample to determine total alkalinity, as described in my book.

Please let me know what you discover. This sounds very interesting.

I am also surprised by the lather you are getting from this soap. I wonder whether it comes from the sodium carbonate. To test this you could knead a little sodium carbonate into a "slimy" castile soap to see whether the lather quality is improved.

Kevin M. Dunn
Professor of Chemistry
Hampden-Sydney College

***

Hello, Kevin,

Thank you for your kind and thoughtful reply!

I am setting up an experiment similar to what you propose. I thought about the design of the last test (item 4 in your email). I don't have the ability to create a dry nitrogen purge and I hesitate to use NaOH as a desiccant, so I think I will use a silica gel desiccant pack instead. I was looking for the old calcium chloride desiccant I used to use in the lab, but silica gel was easier to find locally. As far as doing TA analysis, no problem. I used to work in an industrial chem lab. It's going to be weird to titrate without a buret and all the other bits of lab equipment I used to use, but I'll get used to it!

As far as the lather goes, yes, the soap is lathering well, although it seems as if there is something on the surface of the bars that is interfering with easy formation of the lather -- maybe soda ash, maybe glycerin, maybe lack of water for bubble formation? I'm not sure. At times the lather seems scant and "ropy", but then it will develop a nice froth of bubbles as in the photo I sent. I'm not too concerned about it at this point, since most of our soaps are only 3 weeks old or less, but it will be something we will continue to test as the soaps get older.

And I agree with you -- this recipe calls for a LOT of water -- the final NaOH solution concentration is roughly 15% w/w. The abundance of water makes for some tricky moments during the mixing and molding. A few of us have had problems with the emulsion failing during trace or later when the soap is in the mold, but we're finding this is related to a couple of factors. One is any extra warmth created by over-insulating the molded soap or putting the mold in a 170 F oven to CPOP.

The second factor is too much agitation. Some of us getting the most consistent results by hand stirring only, but others are doing okay by mostly hand stirring and just lightly stick blending for short periods up to heavy trace. After that, it's safest to pretty much hand stir only until it's time to pour in the mold. We do know if the emulsion does break from stick blending that it can be re-established by going back to hand stirring. That seems counter-intuitive, but I'm thinking a fragile water-in-soap emulsion is able to form with only low-energy stirring, but the high shear from stick blending is breaking down this structure and allowing some water to separate from the batter.

I re-read chapter 15 in your Scientific Soapmaking book about the alkalinity tests you did on the 11 week old soap. It sounds like what you observed is what we're seeing with this recipe -- an unexpectedly large reduction in the alkalinity with time. I would not have expected remotely as much reduction as we're seeing, but our simple zap tests and handwashing tests are showing a striking decrease in the excess alkalinity.

I will keep you informed! Thank you for your insights and suggestions -- I appreciate the help in getting unstuck in my thinking.

Regards,
DeeAnna 

***

So ... I'm back ... I'm in the process of gradually setting up an experiment or series of experiments to test this soap recipe. I'm open to your suggestions and ideas on how to proceed. Although I think Kevin's suggestions are worth following, I'm sure you folks will have good ideas to consider as well. Let me know! 

Oh, and if anyone has a burette or a 125 mL or 250 mL Erlenmeyer flask collecting dust in the pantry, I'd be glad to buy it.


----------



## newbie

How cool is that? Yes, very cool.

Here is a listing for 3 erlenmeyer flasks. It all looks kosher but you would know the manufacturers better than I, for sure. Is this a reasonable price? It also ships free.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Glass-Erlen...013?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a860cb585


----------



## DeeAnna

Thanks, Newbie. Yes, that's a decent price. I'll haunt eBay and see what I can find. Might also talk to my local high school chem teacher and see if I can beg or borrow some equipment.


----------



## Robert B

My soap looks almost white today.  I thought it might have been soda ash but I doubt it (see below).  I decided to cut it today (fifth day).  I kept getting nudge to do it yesterday but did not listen.  

The inside was a nice almost white but as I kept cutting, I noticed a bar would crack in half (on a few bars).  It was a bit crumbly and the bits that cracked off would not come together in a ball.  I did see moisture on my gloves though.  

1.  Is this the nature of Castile when it is young or is it bad?  If bad, do you think I could still cure it and use for laundry soap?  Only about 5 of 18 bars cracked in half.  About 6 look good.  The other 7 are OK looking. Maybe I need a wire cutter?  I used a stainless steel thingamijiggy (cutter?) and also a knife.

2. By accident, I used bottled spring water and not distilled (I realized yesterday).  I am thinking that can up the chances of it becoming rancid earlier.  Correct assumption?

I feel a bit addicted to soap making but I only have so many people to eventually give it to.  I have an urge to do something each weekend.  I am sure that will wear off over time but right now, I may try another batch of this soap in a few weeks. 

Thanks for your support!


----------



## Robert B

newbie said:


> Don't take me for any sort of baseline on this recipe! I am way out on the bell curve. Nearly everyone has had this go from start to finish in about an hour and I seem to be the only sucker sitting out there tending to the soap for hours on end. Okay I don't watch it every minute but still, no one else has had it take 2, 3, 4 hours to make this. I don't know what is wrong other than I live in a slow trace vortex.



That slow vortex comment and the rest of it gave me a chuckle!  Good sense of humor is a positive...even when you have to keep stirring.

I think I may have started out stirring toooo carefully (taking AnnaMarie's comment to an extreme). I'll let you know how the next batch goes.  I would prefer I did not surpass your record 4 hours! :razz:


----------



## FlybyStardancer

The cracking was from waiting too long to cut! I had that problem myself, though not as extreme.

And don't worry about using spring water instead of DI.  Some people use water straight out of their tap. DI water simply gives one less variable for things going wrong with saponification.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...1. Is this the nature of Castile when it is young or is it bad? If bad, do you think I could still cure it and use for laundry soap? Only about 5 of 18 bars cracked in half. About 6 look good. The other 7 are OK looking. Maybe I need a wire cutter? I used a stainless steel thingamijiggy (cutter?) and also a knife...."

I can't speak to regular castile, but this soap gets really hard really fast. I'm not surprised to hear this. Just cut a little sooner next time -- about the time when the soap feels like a firm cheese. 

"...2. By accident, I used bottled spring water and not distilled (I realized yesterday). I am thinking that can up the chances of it becoming rancid earlier. Correct assumption?..."

Possibly. Possibly not. Honestly, don't worry about it. DOS (Dreaded Orange Spots, rancidity) is triggered by a lot of things. Water purity is certainly on the list, but even handling the soap with dirty hands can trigger DOS. One big factor, in my opinion, is the presence of free fat or free fatty acid in the soap. With a large lye excess, it's pretty safe to say you don't have a lot of free fat or FA's in your soap.


----------



## newbie

Robert, if you do this again and you come even close to 4 hours, you and I are going to have to meet and have a stir-off. One of us will be dead of old age by the end of it.


----------



## cmzaha

DeeAnna, let me know if you would be interested in one of my bars that I made with a -30 Superfat with a Water:Lye Ratio of 1.632:1. Might be another one to add to your testing soapies..


----------



## soap_rat

DeeAnna, I have a burette but it's mine mine mine!  I also have to figure out what to use for stopcock grease.  But this site has some for good prices:
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=burette

I recently spent NINE HOURS trying this one again, doing it the watery oil way.  I will write more about it soon.


----------



## DeeAnna

Thanks for the link, SoapRat!

"... stopcock grease ..."

Go to a good hardware store and look for silicone grease in the plumbing section. Here's an example: http://www.essentialhardware.com/product_detail.php?pid=130318

Do I have a case of "burette envy"???? Hmmmm........   :Kitten Love:

Nine hours???? Oh, my ......


----------



## soap_rat

Thanks for the advice on the grease!  I bugged my former chemistry professor for info and he wasn't any help.  

I used to go to estate sales with a then-boyfriend, and one sale was the belongings of a former chemistry teacher.  Oh, the jokes we constantly heard about about meth labs while we were there!  I got the burette and my double-balance scale.  (Your little digital scale looks much more convenient than mine, though, so I may abandon it soon.)

Also, in Chicago we have American Science & Surplus, which has TONS of surplus chemistry labware and just days and days of weird-stuff browsing.


----------



## newbie

There is something about lab glass...It seems to get hoarded quite a bit. I used to do it myself but after moving it a million times in my peripatetic life, I finally divested myself of it. That Chicago place sounds fun...and dangerous!

Soap Rat, you know i must hear about your 9 hour experience. I have been trying to figure out what I am doing differently than others but because we can only describe what we do, I really don't know. Am I stirring differently? Too softly? With too much motion? What? I am dying to know.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Wow! This thread has a life of its own! My life got crazy for a couple weeks, so I thought I'd check back in and read the latest. DeeAnna, that is awesome on contacting Dr. Kevin Dunn- great thinking! I'm wondering if he's going to try experimenting with this recipe . I've been using my super lye soap everyday and it's working great. Today I tongue tested one of the first bars and there was no zap, bitter taste, or anything. This soap really does get milder with time. I even used some of it to make a homemade wood polish (lovely recipe). If there's a stir-off between Robert and Newbie then I want to watch :-D  
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## DeeAnna

"...I'm wondering if he's going to try experimenting with this recipe..."

He didn't offer. :-( 

But he did ask to be kept informed. 

I really am working on setting up the experiments he suggested. It will probably be May before I get going on the actual experiment, but I'm truly serious about it. I need to get a little more equipment and train myself on the free alkali test he describes in Scientific Soapmaking. Given my past experience working in a chem lab (rusty, but not forgotten), the sweet lab-quality balance that's on its way (eBay!), and Kevin's instructions that he's written for non-chemist soapmakers, it won't be tough ... just some practice.

What I'm thinking is to make another recipe of the superlye castile and divide that batch into the three groups he suggested. I would measure weight loss and change in excess alkalinity (EA) in each group as time goes on. I am especially interested in how the EA changes in the "leave the bars to cure in open air" group. Info from those bars will help answer the question of "when is this soap mild enough enough to use?"

I am thinking if someone else wants to contribute a few bars of freshly made superlye-castile to the cause, that would be great. Everyone does their soap differently, so bars from different sources would help even out any effect due to how the bars were made. I'd put them into the "leave them to cure in the open air" treatment and monitor their weight loss and EA change. I'd need the recipe -- ingredients weights and method -- and an initial bar weight right after cutting.


----------



## DeeAnna

In my conversation with Kevin Dunn, we spoke about an experiment he had done. 

He told me "...As for the lye excess, my experiments with excess lye up to about 5% also show that the soap becomes tongue neutral over a few weeks. I have supposed that CO2 from the air neutralizes the excess lye, but I have not tested this...." 

In response, I mentioned a figure in his book that showed the alkalinity of 1-day-old and 11-week-old soaps. Since some of you might not have Dunn's book, I've attached the figure from the book so you can see what we were talking about. The left hand part is a scan from Dunn's book, page 250. The right hand part is my comments about his results.


----------



## The Efficacious Gentleman

I am LOVING the direction this has gone in


----------



## AnnaMarie

DeeAnna, I'm happy to donate. From all appearances my experience with this soap comes closest to the most "normal" compared to the original. I could be mistaken, but when we are talking stir offs, well.....
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## DeeAnna

Well, hey, I'll keep everyone informed when I get closer to actually doing the experiment and we can set up a firm plan then. Howzat? 

For now, here's what I'm thinking....

I'd say to keep the experimental soap a true castile, meaning 100% olive with plain water.  No milk, no color, no fragrance, no sugar, no other additives. I have regular Kirkland olive oil, not pomace and not virgin. What olive do y'all use?

As far as method, we've got about 3 or 4 methods that folks have tried with varying amounts of success. The methods that seem reasonably-kind-of-reliable are Anna Marie's "classic" method and the method I used for my second batch:

(1) AnnaMarie's classic -- combine all of the ingredients together, SB lightly at first to emulsify, then hand stir to trace. (Am I remembering right, AM?)
(2) DeeAnna's two step -- SB and hand stir the 50% lye solution to trace, then hand stir the added water into the batch
(3) ???

If we only do one superlye percentage, I vote for the superlye based on AnnaMarie's classic recipe. 

If we added a second superlye %, I'd say to go with the consensus about what is the lowest superlye % that is the most likely to produce a non-gooey soap. Not sure we have a consensus on that, but I'm also sure I don't remember all that's been said.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I use Kirkland oo as well. As far as method, I made a small batch recently using the classic method with only hand stirring with excellent results. I would do this again. Keep us posted

As a side note, I found my stir time significantly reduced when I quartered the batch (maybe I halved), but still less time stirring.


----------



## DeeAnna

I promise!


----------



## AnnaMarie

I just went and started zap testing all my batches from the experiments for this thread- no zaps, icky taste, burning, etc. Feel encouraged folks. I feel that hand stirring is crucial for whatever the reason to the mildness of this soap. My hand stirred ones lost the burning taste far more quickly then the SB batches. In the end, the mildness is there with all of them.
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## Robert B

AnnaMarie....thanks for bring the recipe up.  

As a new soap maker, I am enjoying this recipe.  Too bad I did not listen to my nudge and cut sooner.  But with having 1 other batch under my belt, it was a good learning experience.  

Even though many bars cracked, I am amazed at how white it has gotten and how smooth the exterior of the soap is.  I am definitley trying my hand again this weekend or next...but will cut sooner!


----------



## DeeAnna

It ~does~ make a lovely looking soap. Even my first "homely" batch is lightening up with age to a pale, pale yellow. The second "pretty" batch is a handsome ivory color.


----------



## soap_rat

"I made a small batch recently using the classic method with only hand stirring with excellent results."

That's how I ended up spending 9 hours!  I wanted to see how it went that way, with half the batch kept warm, half of it at whatever temp.  I never got good trace--NEVER!

Yes, I need to type up the details, I will try to get that done tonight.


----------



## newbie

I would happily donate a bar for the experiment!

I think it would be VERY interesting to see if method used to make the soap made any difference in the trajectory of alkalinity, if the recipe is the same. I think it would not but my experience is the opposite of yours, AM. None of my soaps zap, but some still tingle if I leave my tongue on it. The one I SB'ed almost entirely has the least tingles. To me it doesn't make sense that the method of stirring would affect the mildness of the soap in the end but actually testing that hypothesis could be revealing. I use Kirkland OO (non-organic), for the record.

When you mention a possible third method, DeeAnna, I think it would be a hybrid of the two, which I have done but varied a bit. I stir initially and then SB'ed very briefly after about 15-20minutes. I will then return to stirring every 10-15 minutes with occas SB bursts. I sometimes have SB'ed near the end to ensure trace. A method could be outlined for consistency, rather than basing it on frustration, as I have been doing. It might take longer, but it has consistently made the soap.

I actually want the slippery slide-y rubbery trace but have been unable to attain it recently, which is exceedingly frustrating. It's like I'm suddenly doing it right when I WANT to be doing it incorrectly. How ridiculous is that?

Soap Rat, Robert and I need to meet somewhere (preferably really fancy) to have an Andalusian Castile Soap Conference and Contest, which is tax-deductible, of course, and see whose method is the most frustrating. It would also be in the name of science, of course.


----------



## DeeAnna

Well, then, you need an official contest monitor. I volunteer!

Seriously, it sounds like Kirkland olive oil is the product of choice. That's good, because it sounds like Kirkland is reasonably reliable. I'm rather leery of olive oil, given all the adulterated olive oil on the US market, so it's good to settle on a consistent product.

"...How ridiculous is that?..."

Pretty ridiculous.  But I get what you mean. It's kinda cool when it happens. 

I was making some shave soap tonight and was seeing a bit of the plastic-y trace we get with AnnaMarie's recipe. It was, like, hey, this recipe does it too! For the record, this plastic-y stage came when I had mixed about half the fat with all of the lye solution and the batter was starting into trace. I SB'ed and the texture changed instantly from grainy/curdled into smooth plastic-y gravy. Cool...

The shave soap is HP'ing right now ... and I'm tired ... so I hope it gets done soon.


----------



## soap_rat

Well, we obviously need to have the contest in an Andalusian Castle!


----------



## AnnaMarie

I think DeeAnna needs a co-judge to help. I'll start looking for group package deals on Andalusian castles


----------



## newbie

I'm all for it!!! I've seen some good deals on trips to Ireland so maybe we could pretend it's an Irish recipe, just for a week. But ****, you can't take a liter of Kirkland Olive Oil on the plane.

Seriously though. I truly find it RIDICULOUS that I can't get the rubber ball or the plastic trace now. DeeAnna, were you using Songwind's recipe? I made it the other day and followed your lead of adding the lye water to just the coconut oil. It was over the double boiler but it didn't really trace but it did start to break up/curdle, just like this one (castile) used to for me. I didn't SB or stir it back together so I wonder if I would have gotten plastic if I did. I never HP so I was uncertain if that was supposed to happen so I quickly dumped in the stearic and stirred it up. SO do you think the trick is the lye excess, or the relatively high water? If you just did high water with a regular recipe, do you think you'd get the funky trace or does it have to be with excess lye, for some reason?


----------



## newbie

RIP my trusty stick blender. I'm sorry I rode you so hard but I just wanted this ***** of a soap to break so I could have my rubber ball soap. I didn't think it was too much to ask, but it was. The soap won.

I can only hope the soap will be a worthy tribute to your splendid life. It sure as heck trashed my kitchen.

(My SB is shrouded, so you needn't worry about seeing the carnage.)


----------



## AnnaMarie

Maybe we should scatter its ashes in Andalusia? Just saying...


----------



## DeeAnna

Ohhhh, my. I'm in awe of your determination, Newbie. To take an innocent stick blender and abuse it so.


----------



## newbie

I suppose it is simply an excuse, a dodge of my personal responsibilities to those under my care, but frankly I feel abused by this soap. I am a victim and my stick blender is therefor also victimized. Ultimately this is AnnaMarie's fault for introducing this recipe. You owe me hours of my life back, girl! And a stick blender!


----------



## newbie

On a factual level, the batter would NOT break. It simply would not. I took it all the way through to a full-on heavy trace. I added more water, thinking that maybe the ratio needed to turn in order to get the soap-in-water emulsion, but it just would not do what it used to do. This is what I mean by now doing it right when I want to do it wrong. I SB'ed it mainly and had a definite trace by under an hour (a personal record) but I wanted that switch because I want to do some experiments with that rubber ball texture but now it will not come to me.

I used a mixed recipe. It was 70% OO, 28% tallow and 2% castor, -35%SF. So I am wondering if part of the plastic trace or the oil-in-water emulsion has to do with the oils as much as the oil-to-water ratio. I have been trying with various recipes and cannot achieve the plastic I seek using a mixed oil recipe.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Well, we all have to live with our choices :-D


----------



## DeeAnna

Oh, gosh, you guys ... <holding my sides, laughing>


----------



## AnnaMarie

I'm going to hold a soap conference next year to teach this recipe. Newbie's presence will be required.  It will be held in Andalusia.


----------



## newbie

I shall be honored. 

What do you think? Worth dying for? My stick blender weeps (or would if it could).


----------



## newbie

Wait a minute. Do you mean my presence is required because I can't do this recipe?

Of all the nerve.


----------



## AnnaMarie

It kind of looks like heavenly clouds (in a psychedelic sort of way) which is very fitting. You should name your soap "your soul is free now" in honor of your SB.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Or better yet, "I'll fly away"


----------



## newbie

More like "I'll burn away."


----------



## grayceworks

I love it. It's gorgeous.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Wow! That looks totally amazing!


----------



## cmzaha

newbie said:


> I shall be honored.
> 
> What do you think? Worth dying for? My stick blender weeps (or would if it could).


 
Oh yes it was. They are absolutely stunning, gorgeous, spectacular....In other words I love them!! :mrgreen:


----------



## DeeAnna

An amazing end result for such a difficult journey! Very nice, Newbie!


----------



## newbie

Thank you. My stick blender thanks you. We shall see what the end result is. Remember this soap shrinks down a LOT! It's currently growing a beard. Of crystals.

Back to the recipe though. Is it possible the oils used will make this recipe incapable of breaking or going presumably from water-in-soap to soap-in-water?


----------



## DeeAnna

I wish I had a good answer for you, Newbie. I don't really know. Your recipe (70% OO, 28% tallow and 2% castor, -35% SF) is somewhat similar to my second batch, which was 70% high oleic safflower and 30% lard. Mine didn't "rubberize" either, but I didn't murder a SB either. ;-) I just hand stirred the extra water into the batter after it was at trace, so our methods are definitely different. 

Assuming it might be a chemical difference .... According to my recipe calculator spreadsheet, our two recipes are higher in stearic (7-8%) than AnnaMarie's 100% olive (3%). I don't see anything else that would make our non-olive recipes stand out from the all-olive version. The numbers I'm looking at are in the first image -- maybe you see something I don't. 

If it's the stearic .... why? Sodium stearate is the least soluble of the typical soaps that we would normally see in our soaps. Sodium oleate is the most soluble. (See second image.) Maybe the stearic soap does a better job of stabilizing the soap-in-water emulsion? 

I'm really just guessing here and hoping y'all might see something in all this that I don't.

PS: In looking at the solubililty chart, can you see why I like to use the sum of the palmitic and stearic acids as a rough measure of the long-lasting property of a recipe?


----------



## newbie

Yes, that graphic is very good for explaining why you like higher stearic and palmitic for longevity. 

It can't be just the stearic in stabilizing the soap in water emulsion. The stearic in my recipe is very close to AM's, yet I can't get it to soap in water (or maybe if I could, it would be very stable.) To be honest, I've tried this excess water and varying amounts of lye excess with a few different recipes, normal everyday recipes and not castile or bastile, and they will not give me plastic or rubber balls. I can just get the cool whip type of normal trace. I have been wondering if it's the fatty acid profile that makes for that type of texture but does it have to be that castile profile or how far can one change it before you lose that ability to "go plastic" and with which FA's is there give or no give? Why? I really want to work with that texture but I don't think I need or want boatloads of castile which is why I've been playing with it.

Also of interest, I note on last night's soap that I am getting few to no crystals on the soap that I poured with all the rest. I am getting tons of crystals from the soap that sat for a bit in the containers and which I scraped out of the bowls etc.. and smushed on top of the already poured loaf. Because it had sat, the texture was soft (so much water) but different from what was already poured. Perhaps a bit stiffer and chunkier, and it was added maybe 10-15 minutes after pouring, maybe more. It is putting out crtsyals like mad, but the other parts are not. Strange.


----------



## Robert B

newbie said:


> Thank you. My stick blender thanks you. We shall see what the end result it. Remember this soap shrink down a LOT! It's currently growing a beard. Of crystals.
> 
> Back to the recipe though. Is it possible the oils used will make this recipe incapable of breaking or going presumably from water-in-soap to soap-in-water?



That is awesome looking soap!


----------



## DeeAnna

My apologies. The names in my table should be switched -- Anna Marie should be Dee and vice versa. Ugh, this is embarassing.

I'm sorry for the error. I've corrected it in my earlier post.


----------



## Robert B

It is with a little regret that I mention that I may no longer be eligible for a stir off (but my arm and shoulders thank me)...but I will cheer everyone else on.    Attached (if I did it right) is the remake of recipe.  It was nagging at me to try again this weekend. 

Difference:

1. Used pomace olive oil instead of extra virgin.
2. Did not stir as gingerly as I did last time.  
3. Stirred constantly -
a. 20 minutes by hand, then 10 second stick blender blast....repeated every 10 minutes until 1 hour passed.
b. I got, what my new soaping eyes perceived, as a light trace at about 30 minutes.
c. At 1 hour, things were getting thicker so I alternated between the sticker blender and hand stirring for another 10 minutes.  The soap had a heavier pudding, lotion-like look.  
d.  I experienced no separation.   ​Here is what I have today....air pockets and all.  It felt good.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Very pretty!


----------



## newbie

Aha! Achieved with a SB no less! I too had heavy trace within an hour using SBing. The question is, will our SB'ed soap have any different qualities than hand-stirred? My guess is no but who knows?

Also, why does this soap break sometimes and not others? Robert, you said your soap did not and I assume it showed no signs of doing so while you SB'ed at the end. Is it temp related? What was the temp of your batter like at the end? You probably did not take a temp, but I mean by hand feel. Mine last night was pretty warm all through.

DeeAnna, the disappointment I feel in you for your mistake is acute, just crushing. You are not allowed. Such a fall from grace!! But seriously, looking back at that chart now, maybe the 3-4% difference in the stearic is significant, although now Robert just SB'ed the OO recipe a fair amount and had no separation. I thought perhaps the SB'ing was important in breaking the first emulsion and getting it to reverse. Damnation!!!

I do have a question. I added 3% trisodium citrate to my recipe. I remember reading about the chemistry of adding citric acid to lye, which will produce both bi- and trisodium citrate, perhaps leaning toward the production of more tri. When I add trisodium citrate to my soap, it will get very hot, hotter than normal, when the lye water is added. Is this because of balancing between sodium hydroxide, disodium citrate and trisodium citrate? IS that the production of the heat, the production of the disodium citrate to keep the equation in balance? If it is, then some lye is lost I assume but with 3% of oils (the amount of trisod citrate), maybe not enough to affect my excess SF. Or am I off?

The stark white soap this produces is stunning. Are you in love with your soap, Robert? I am.

PS. My new stick blender doesn't seem to want to come out of the box. I keep saying to myself that it wasn't murder, it was involuntary blenderslaughter. I can be rehab'ed.


----------



## Robert B

By golly you are right!  In my excitement to even get it to work AND to cut in time (before it cracks), I forgot all about the stick blender issue.  I promise I shall try again in the near future.  I am thinking I may have developed a highly confidential stirring technique that just may work!  :shifty:

PS...I love the soap!  The bowl felt warm early on but was not warm at the end.  I do remember checking this periodically.  I will try to remember to take its temperature next time too.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...DeeAnna, the disappointment I feel in you for your mistake is acute, just crushing. You are not allowed. Such a fall from grace!!..."

<sob!> 

"...But seriously, looking back at that chart now, maybe the 3-4% difference in the stearic is significant, although now Robert just SB'ed the OO recipe a fair amount and had no separation. I thought perhaps the SB'ing was important in breaking the first emulsion and getting it to reverse. Damnation!!!..."

I think the issue of separation probably has several triggers. Is one sufficient to cause an emulsion switch or an emulsion failure? I truly don't know. And the uncertainty of the unknown is why there are so many superstitions in soaping -- "stir in only one direction" is an old one (but I can see that advice might keep a newbie soaper from splashing lye all around, hadya thotaboutdat?), but we have our own modern day versions. 

I do believe temperature and mixing intensity (or lack thereof) are definitely factors. It seems possible that the fatty acid makeup comes into play too. We may never exactly know.

Phase of the moon? Ley lines? A stick blender sacrifice to the soaping goddess? ;-)

PS: My notes show I poured the first batch (100% OO) at 94 deg F (34 C). I did a LOT of SB'ing, and it did go through a rubber-ball stage. This is the one I CPOP'ed and it separated in the mold. Would it have separated if I hadn't CPOP'ed? Who knows!

The second batch (HO safflower & lard) was poured at 90 deg F (32 C). I SB'ed and hand stirred rather like Robert did. The batter looked "normal" throughout -- no rubber-ball stuff. I left the mold out in the open -- no covering, no insulation. It did okay and looks a lot like Robert's.


----------



## newbie

I should be golden, if sacrifices are called for!

I am pretty certain my mixes were cool the first few times i made this. I brought my OO straight from the basement and my excess water too. Hmmmm...

Can you tell me anything about the heat created by the addition of trisodium citrate to the lye water, or when the lye water is added? What does that change- not the heat, but what chemicals are changed?

Also, here are some pictures of the differences between bars that had set soap scraped off the bowl and added (pics 1 and 2) versus a bar that had nothing added to it after pour (pics 3, 4, and 5). There seems to be something about disrupting this soap after it has set to a certain degree that lends itself to forming crystals- a break of the emulsion? A change to the surface tension? Hypotheses?


----------



## DeeAnna

"...Can you tell me anything about the heat created by the addition of trisodium citrate to the lye water, or when the lye water is added? What does that change- not the heat, but what chemicals are changed?..."

I'm feeling pretty clueless about this issue, Newbie. I'd love to have an answer or even some decent guesses for you, but I don't.

"...There seems to be something about disrupting this soap after it has set to a certain degree that lends itself to forming crystals..."

I saw something similar to this on my second soap, although I didn't get "furry" crystals. More like a heavy dusting of glittery powdered sugar. I do have a guess about this one. ;-)

When people are annoyed about "glyerine rivers" and post pics -- you can see the patterns made by the different types of soap crystals that form as the soap hardens up. The layers of different soap crystals often follow the pattern of the pour or the path of the swirling tool. I bet that is happening in this soap too, but we just can't clearly see the pattern. 

I think you're probably right that the last bits of soap added from the bowl scrapings have a different crystal structure that would allow water to evaporate quickly out of the soap. This would encourage lots of soda ash crystals to form fast ... and there's your "fur" and my "snow".

PS: I'm going on vacation and will be away from my computer starting the middle of this week to the middle of next. I'll catch up with y'all when I get back.


----------



## soap_rat

I found that in the recent batch where I had a thin layer of water underneath the batter, the last bit of batter (which had lots of that water in it)  developed ash faster, and the soaps are covered in it.  I won't necessarily say MORE ash, as molds poured earlier have gotten long spikes of ash crystals.  (I did individual silicone molds with one of my batches).  So with my stuff: 
watery last bit of batter=covered in ash but not as thick as on other pieces.  
Poured earlier, so less watery=looong fuzzy spikes of ash, but not covering the soap.

The little, white soaps were the watery end-batter.  They SHOULD be the same color as the bug soaps.  (They stuck to the smooth silicone like you wouldn't believe, plus had lots of voids where the water was.  UGLY)
The bug soaps got their contrast enhanced so you could see the texture of the ash.  It doesn't look as long as it actually is.


----------



## newbie

Have you washed the little white soaps? Are the soaps white or just looking white because they are covered in ash? How weird that you got two colors from the same batch.


----------



## Obsidian

I'm coming into this discussion pretty late, I've read quite a bit of the thread but its a lot to go through so I have some questions.

1)Does anyone have the original recipe converted into ounces or grams? I'd like something a bit more precise then quarts. 

2)what is rubber ball soap? I seen it mentioned but couldn't find a post that described what it is.

3) for those who add scent, how does it hold up in the long curing process when so much water needs to evaporate? Would EO's or FO's be better?

4) @AnnaMarie besides not being slimy, how is the lather? Does it bubble fairly well? Better then regular castile?

5) What type of OO for a nice white bar? I have regular Kirkland OO but am picking up some pomace when I go shopping.


Thanks in advance for any help


----------



## Robert B

Hello!  This thread was the main reason why I joined this group in the first place.  I took notes prior to joining and I do have 2 questions.

1. AnnaMarie indicates that she wraps her soap up tightly in towels after pouring.  Other posts had mentioned not to gel it.  
a. After pouring the first batch I eventually did put a towel around it (maybe 4 hours later).  The next morning there was some liquid on the top.  The  liquid eventually evaporated or absorbed back into the soap. 
b. I did not cover the second batch and there was no liquid on top.
c. So I am trying to understand the difference….what does AnnaMarie achieve that others may not?  I do not see gel in either of my cases. 
2. This question comes from a new persons perspective.  I thought that by pouring and mixing at higher temps (thinking maybe 110-120 F), that helps to achieve trace faster.  No?  I just remember reading that people do swirl techniques closer to room temp or slightly above to avoid the soap from firming up too much. Assume that there are no fragrance issues accelerating trace. 
a. In this case. would it be of benefit to bring the lye solution and the oil/water to, say 120 F when you pour?


----------



## newbie

RUbber ball soap is kind of hard to describe. At trace, if the batter has separated/broken up and then been reblended together, the soap will get this slick plastic quality to it. It doesn't stick to the spatula or the bowl really and seems to glide along on a layer of water. I and I think it was AnnaMarie have gotten soaps that were like bread dough, like a ball of dough that you could actually spin around in the bowl on the water layer, almost like a ball bearing. The texture of the soap was rubbery and it was actually difficult to separate into different amounts. For mine, I had to almost cut it into chunks with my spatula and then get the smaller ball of soap into a different container. IT was difficult to mix colorants into because of this rubbery texture. It was pretty strange. That is the rubber ball soap I mention in my posts.

I have never covered any of my batches after trying to CPOP one batch- horrible separation- and letting one start to gel- started to separate and it ruined the soap but parts were salvageable. I believe AM has wrapped her soap but in looks, it doesn't seem to have gelled. I will never try to gel this soap. I don't think it can take the heat because of the emulsion and all the water in it. I have unmolded this soap 2 hours to 24 hours after molding with perfect results.

I have scented all my batches. None of them is terribly old though. I made my first one on Feb 23rd. THe scent is holding fine in all of them, but none has really stood the test of time. Because I would never gel it, I think you could use EO or FO's successfully.

My recollection is that one quart of OO weighs very close to 32 ounces. One quart of water weighs just under 31 ounces. Because of the huge lye excess, huge water excess and the nature of the recipe, which in the old days was done by volume, most of us seem to think that precision weighing is not of paramount importance for this recipe.

I have no idea if AM is achieving a soap that none of the others of us is. I don't think she is because many of us have successfully put together the same ingredients. Part of this thread is about method and what works best, not the recipe.

This soap produces a bubbly lather much much earlier than a normal castile. It also doesn't get slimy nor does the bar itself. If you compare a lye excess bar with a normal castile bar at a year, I don't know if the lather is any different. AM might be the only one who has a bar that age to compare.

Most of us are using Kirkland OO, the regular kind. The bars have been pristine white. I think any brand of OO that is truly OO will give a white bar. I don't use pomace so won't comment on that giving a white bar or not.

This soap takes about an hour to come to a trace under most circumstances. SOme people have mixed slightly warmer than others but because it takes so long to trace, keeping the temps at 120 degrees F might shorten the time, possibly. One question that is unanswered is if a higher temp might cause a problem because you have to make this into an emulsion, which clearly does not tolerate too much heat (gel type heat). I have made this while the bowl feels very very warm and sl hot to my hand and it did trace but I did not take a temp. That whole issue is another one that has been discussed but isn't clear. 

This whole thing is quite the experiment and so there are still plenty of unanswered questions.


----------



## newbie

BTW, this recipe is really about proportions. You make a 1:1 lye water for a -43% SF and use equal weights of oil and water. 

DeeAnna posted her recipe on post #40 on page 4 or 5, for reference.

Grayce posted on page 5 or 6 that 1 qt of OO weight 30.98 ounces, but as I said, no one seems to think that absolute precision in water or oil weight will make or break this recipe. You may end up with a -41 or 44% SF which still seems to work.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Obsidian said:


> 1)Does anyone have the original recipe converted into ounces or grams? I'd like something a bit more precise then quarts.



The original recipe is this: You take whatever given amount of OO you want to use (say, 500g). Run it through a lye calculator at -43 superfat. That's the lye amount. Then you have two amounts of water: one that matches the weight of the oil, and one that matches the weight of the lye. You dissolve the lye in the smaller amount of water.

In the original recipe you mix the oil with the larger amount of water before adding the lye water. DeeAnna had better results doing it the other way around--mixing the oil and lye water, then slowly adding in the larger amount of water.

As far as what OO gives a white bar... I think Kirkland does, but I can't say from personal experience. My pure OO trial had milk and honey, so even with TD it's discolored.


----------



## newbie

Pictures of this batter breaking and then going back together are on page 8 and two more on page 9.


----------



## Obsidian

Thanks for the help, I'll run the amount I want through soapcal and get it all figured out.


----------



## ilovesoap2

What was the purpose of this thread again? 
And wasn't lye -40? I'm so tired I can't even look back.
I love watching this soap drive you'll crazy...in a good way


----------



## newbie

The actual lye discount is -43% but people have tried various amounts from -20 to -43%.

Don't talk to me about this recipe driving me crazy. I don't see an appropriately crazy emoticon to place here.


----------



## soap_rat

Among the very weird things about this recipe is: soaping warm does not seem to help.  This is what I've been playing around with, as I am a huge fan of adding heat in order to speed trace.  Chemistry SAYS that heat speeds chemical reactions, right??  I've never messed with emulsions though (other than making "regular soap)--I haven't made lotions or mayonnaise.  Maybe higher heat is detrimental to the type of emulsion we need?  

I must admit though, that both batches where I added heat, at some point I heated it up more than I'd planned, which could have been the reason why heating didn't seem to help.  Maybe it needs to be done again, keeping it at 120 without going to 140 and above like I did.

Regarding my very white soaps, yes, they are competely covered in ash.


----------



## krunt

Hi everyone,

Just an update and recap on what's going on with me and this soap.

I have made 4 batches of this soap now (100% olive oil), the only difference being the lye excess.  First batch was -40%, then -10%, -20% & -30%.  I wondered whether so much extra lye was necessary to achieve a non-gooey soap.

My -40% batch turned 4 weeks old last week, and I have been using it at the bathroom sink as hand soap for the last 6 days.  I am finding it to be a little drying at times, but not excessively so.  What I am most excited about, though, is that I am able to use a 100% olive oil soap as frequent-use hand soap!  If it had've been made the "normal" way, it would've turned to mush after a day or two.  So I know this was the expected outcome, but it's awesome to actually see it in person.  I have to work a bit to get a lather going, but I would expect that of a 100% olive oil soap.  I'll get a photo later for anyone who might be interested.

I was totally almost ready to give up soap making.  I had become so tired of soft, mushy soap.  It seemed the only way to get soap that stayed hard was to use high percentages of hard oils.  But I didn't want to always have to use high percentages of hard oils.  There seemed to be limitations which I feel have been lifted with this method of soap making, and I once again want to thank annamarie for bringing this method to the board.

My -10% batch will be 4 weeks old tomorrow, so I will start using it at the bathroom sink then.  Will be interesting to see if it stays hard or turns to mush when used frequently.

I have used extra virgin olive oil for all my batches.  The -40% batch turned out off white, there's a hint of colour (yellow) in the -30% batch, and the -20% & -10% batches definitely have colour to them.  So even with extra virgin olive oil, you will still get a white bar as long as you use enough lye.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Obsidian, the lather for this soap is nice and bubbly and cleansing, but needs water to really get it going (at least that's my experience). I like this recipe better than regular castile because it holds up better and performs better (IMO). I also like that this recipe is traditional and comes from an area that saw the birth of castile soap (unless I'm wrong). I personally stick to the original instructions because the results have been the best. I have gone as low as 32.5% sf with similar results (I was coming up with 38.5% sf on the calculator for the original recipe). My soap from January has been nice and mild.
Robert, it was during the course of my first hand stirred batch that I tried NOT insulating, and the result was no liquid and very little soda ash. I now only stir this recipe and lightly cover it with freezer paper. I love the results.
Ilove2soap, the purpose of this thread was a question I had for DeeAnna on why a lye heavy recipe that broke the rules made a better castile soap (IMO). This thread then took on a life of its own with all of these variations and experiments 
Krunt, so glad you are loving your soap! I did not like mushy castile either and thought I was doomed to go without it! I was also thinking I shouldn't use my favorite recipe either, but I have tossed that notion aside
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## vuladams

I read this entire thread and I have one question:

With such a high lye excess, even though it's neutralized with curing, doesn't it make your skin dry? 

Whenever I've made lye excess soaps, I find that my skin gets so dry it gets itchy. 

I love the idea of a non-gooey Castile soap so I will be giving this a try!


----------



## krunt

Hi again everyone,

Here are a couple of pics of the lather from my -40% soap.  As you can see it's not a big and bubbly lather, some may not like that, but I have no problem with it.  The lather gets going easily if your hands are already clean.


----------



## krunt

Sorry, for some reason I couldn't get both photos in the one post.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Vuladams,
I have somewhat dry skin myself, but the aged bar of the soap works fine for me, but it is entirely possible that this soap might be too much for someone else. Give it a try and see what you think 

Krunt, those bubbles might get bigger with age. My bubbles get nice and big, but again, lots of water. 

Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## krunt

Vuladams, I am finding the soap a little drying, but it is only 4 weeks old.  I am assuming/expecting it will get milder with time.  With my "normal" cp soap, I would let it rest for 4 months before I used it, as I found that to be the point where I could really notice a difference.  But I just couldn't wait that long for this one.  4 weeks was the best I could do. :smile:  and who knows, this one may need even longer than that.

AM, yes, perhaps the bubbles will get bigger, but even if they don't, I'm not too fussed.  In the future I will probably try this recipe with a small amount of coconut, for easier lathering.


----------



## ilovesoap2

newbie said:


> Don't talk to me about this recipe driving me crazy. I don't see an appropriately crazy emoticon to place here.


 you know you're in your element fighting this soap


----------



## ilovesoap2

AnnaMarie said:


> Ilove2soap, the purpose of this thread was a question I had for DeeAnna on why a lye heavy recipe that broke the rules made a better castile soap (IMO). This thread then took on a life of its own with all of these variations and experiments
> Anna Marie



I'm rather fascinated by you guys and the passion you bring to this craft. I have just never seen anything like it.  The love and wanting to know the whys almost flow through my screen.  I've seen it in lots of threads here and in blogs


----------



## Robert B

newbie said:


> Don't talk to me about this recipe driving me crazy. I don't see an appropriately crazy emoticon to place here.


 
This one may suit us ---

:crazy:


----------



## Obsidian

I've been up since 4AM and just finished reading the whole thread. I feel like my head is about to explode and I should go back to bed:eh:

I'll be making a batch today using pomace. I'm going to use Deeanna's method of adding the lye to the oils and bringing to trace before adding in the larger amount of water. I will use a SB at first but will hand stir once initial trace is reached. Not going to force gel, will leave the plastic log mold uncovered to do what it wishes. I will add scent and scant amount of color.

Has anyone who used -30% SF tested whether or not it is non slimy?


----------



## newbie

Robert, The eyes are good and I suppose the fact that it is bald is also appropriate (tearing at one's hair) but it just doesn't look wild or terrorized enough, for me at any rate!

AM said she felt that at -30%, she felt a goo factor come back on. She has so far found that -32.5% was as high or low, depending on how you look at it, she could go before it got some goo again.

The lather I've gotten has been more bubbly, but that may be a difference in our water, Krunt. I posted pics on the lather of three of my soaps on page 41, post 407. That was at about 3-4 weeks, from soaps made on Feb 23 and 25th and pics taken on March whatever it says (14 maybe?)


----------



## Obsidian

Ok, my batch is done and it behaved unexpectedly. Lets see what you all think of this. My recipe was 16 oz OO, 16 OZ water, 2.9 oz lye and 2.9oz water. If my math was right it should be -38.5 SF, what AM said the original recipe is.

Starting temps:
OO 67 F
Water 60 F
Lye solution 125 F

Mixed lye into OO with stick blender. Turned dark like milk chocolate, smelled of chemicals. Hit trace in under a minute. Shiny and plastic-y looking. 91* F

Mixed in remaining water with whisk. Try to stir slow and gentle, emulsion broke. Gave up being gentle, added rest of water all at once, 94*F. Mixed vigorously for 3-4 minutes. Batter came together, was super creamy and floating around on a layer of water. Added FO, mixed for anther minuter or so. Poured in mold at 85* F light off white at this point.
Total time from start to finish, under 10 minutes. Why did it trace so fast?

Soap looks just like you all described. Shiny with a weird thick rubber like texture. Thin layer of water around batter in mold. Used a plastic loaf mold so water can't drain away. Will watch it very close, think I'll make room in the fridge if it gets over 100* F in mold.

EDIT: its been in the mold almost 2 hours. Temp is holding around 84.6* F. Soap is slowly setting and shows no sigh of separating. I did use a paper towel to soak up some of the excess liquid from the corners. Liquid has no scent even though I used a full ounce of FO.


----------



## AnnaMarie

I imagine it traced quick because of the concentrated lye solution and no other water. I thought I'd read that some soap makers do this with their castile (deep water discount) and the result is a quick trace and thick soap. On the chocolate brown...????? I wonder if you would get the same results if you stirred??? Congrats on your initiation into the crazy castile soap club 
Cheers!
Anna Marie

....don't forget the pics


----------



## newbie

Chocolate brown batter after lye was added? That sounds strange all by itself. I can see it turning a yellowish color but you've got me there.

Was there a layer of water, like a visible layer of water or do you mean just a coating? If there was a distinct layer, your batter may not have taken up all the excess. DeeAnna did it this way but when she added her excess water, I don't recall that she stirred vigorously. I think she said she stirred very gently and it took her longer than 10 minutes but it didn't take forever or anything. She was using a non-casilte recipe then though.

I don't have a picture of my batches in progress (too few hands) but all the water should go into the soap, except sometimes there is the thinnest layer of it surrounding the batter in the case of the real plastic-y batter or the rubber ball, but that's not enough to drain off. It's just a coating.

Post some pictures!! Also I would be interested to know how long it take for your soap to be firm in the mold and firm enough to unmold. 

With FO, scent will seem a bit diluted because of the water excess but as it dries, it will seem more obvious to you, I think.


----------



## Obsidian

Yeah, chocolate brown but it faded pretty quick after all the water was mixed in. I tried to mix the water in slow but the emulsion broke so I used the whisk to beat it in, went back together quick.

There was a thin layer of water around the edges but not a huge amount, I drained off maybe 1/2 teaspoon. I just cut it and any excess liquid has soaked back in. Still quite soft but very easy to slice, didn't stick to the cutter at all.

Looks like it may have gelled in the center. At one point the temp started to rise so I put it in the fridge. Should have gotten a temp then but I forgot.


----------



## soap_rat

Wow!  Milk chocolate in color, and a chemical smell?  That is really strange.  I have done the technique you did, of 50% lye solution then adding the excess water (Kirkland olive oil) , and I sure didn't get that.  I let the batter rest a lot when I did this, I guess I was babying the emulsion, so it took over an hour.  I bet I could have gone faster though.  When I did that technique I got the super-thin slippery layer of water, and the batter was like homemade mayonnaise or thin pudding.  It never got to thick trace.  I can't describe it as rubbery, to me rubbery would mean springing back after I try to push some around.


----------



## Obsidian

I'm betting it had something to do with the OO I used. I bought new brand of Pomace and this was the first batch I made with it. It works just fine though and the soap looks good.
I guess rubbery isn't quite right but its hard to describe. Mine was very thick, went from oil to thick almost instantaneously and stayed their, even when emulsion broke it was thick.


----------



## btz

AnnaMarie said:


> Obsidian, the lather for this soap is nice and bubbly and cleansing, but needs water to really get it going (at least that's my experience).



You know, it's interesting that you said this. My lye heavy coconut oil soap is the same. It took times to produce the bubble. I haven't tried it since week 3, I'll try it in a few days time when it reaches week 6 to see if it's still the same. 

I kinda dreaded trying the sweet almond one, because last time it was slightly slimey and the bar took days to dry after used once. Hopefully it'll be better this time around. 

And if my brother didn't forget to bring it, this weekend I'll have olive oil from greece (where my mum went for vacation and bought recently) to try to make the OO version . Depend on the amount, I might make 2 version at the same time. The lye heavy and normal 7% SF to see which one I like better after they cured. 

BTW, has anyone tried other single oil for this? I tried to remember if anyone did rice bran or palm, but couldn't remember.


----------



## BabyPickles106

Where do those of you that use Pomace oo find it? Our do you have to order?  I've been trying to find it but don't see it anywhere local.


----------



## Obsidian

I can find it in gallons locally at most any grocery store. Not sure where you are but if you are in the Western US, try a yokes grocery.


----------



## cmzaha

If you are US most restaurant supplies carry Pomace. I also have seen it at Cost Plus but not sure of the price. I buy gallons around $15 at Smart & Final


----------



## btz

I finally do the OO version of the lye-heavy soap last Friday and just cut it now. I also use manuka honey in it:










I used volume instead of weight for the oil according to the 6-6-1 rules. The little caves was from the sandalwood FO that refuses to blend in and the evaporate . I added the FO after the temp was down and it seemed to blend in nicely, however when I reached the plastic-y stages, that's when the FO separated on its own. Has anyone experience this too? I have not try this FO before, but I used the peppermint one from the same shop with no separation problem like this in a normal soap. 

I don't use SB btw, just whisk and spoon. It was on the mold for 24 hours, and then I take it out and put it upside down so that the sides that was inside the mold exposed to the air for around 18 hours before I cut it. It cut like a dream, like very solid tofu. No visible drag mark at all.


----------



## newbie

I have no idea. I have used FO's (various) in all my batches without any separation or evaporation like this. Are you certain it was the FO coming out and not water? Did you have any warming in the mold? That can cause some water leakage. 

Your soap is beautiful. It doesn't have that intense white I've seen. Do you think that's the honey? Or perhaps it is your Sandalwood FO.


----------



## btz

Yup, it's FO. Because of the color and it behaved ironically like oil in water in the mixture. I forgot to take a pic of that, but it was interesting to see that the fo separated even before I put in in the mold. 

The color of the soap is very light caramel, and it's from the honey.


----------



## seven

btz, whereabouts are you in indonesia? are you in jakarta? 
was wondering if you've ever purchased any FOs locally.


----------



## btz

seven, I'm in Bandung. I had some eo & fo from overseas and also from local chemist shop. Sending you PM with my contact info if you like to talk about it. I only make soap for personal uses though, so my recipe depends on what I can get my hands on .


----------



## Obsidian

I've been wondering. Has anyone ever rebatched this kind of castile and added SF? I'm rebatching mine today to bring the SF to 5%, regular castile is drying to me so I need to try and make this one at least usable. I did save one piece back to compare.

Its only been 3 weeks or so since I made mine but I tried washing with it today. Its slimy but lathered well. Small bubbles but a lot of them. My skin isn't dry but it feels weird, like there is a film on my skin.

I was quite disappointed in the overall looks, my bars warped and twisted, the sides sunk in. Didn't even really look like soap anymore.


----------



## DeeAnna

Obsidian -- I haven't rebatched the superlye castile, but I'm sure it can be done successfully. It might be a challenge to get it grated up however -- got a food processor?

I'm glad I cut my bars a generous size, because they too have shrunk considerably. I still like how they look ... just a little more rustic than the usual soap I make.

My 8 week old homely superlye olive soap is still lathering more freely than a castile made with a more typical recipe. The lather of the superlye soap is looser and more fluffy. The lather from the "normal" castile is more like a lotion and doesn't bubble quite as much. Both soaps like a lot of water to lather their best. Neither of the castiles lather as well as my favorite bath soap recipe made with lard, castor, high oleic safflower, and olive. 

The superlye castile does not seem overly drying or lye-heavy to me. There's certainly no zap anymore. I don't have super-sensitive skin either, so what works okay for me might bother someone else.

I will weigh my experimental bars and update my chart in the next few days. I also need to get to work on my lab experiment of tracking the alkalinity over time. Time flies when I'm having fun, I guess.


----------



## Obsidian

I went ahead and rebatched this morning, grating it wasn't bad and I only had a pound. It was still damp in the middle and I zap tested at different depths and there was no zap anywhere.

I had cut my bars a bit thicker then normal, once they shrank they were close to 1" but they warped so bad it was crazy. I should have taken pictures. Where there was partial gel, the shrinkage was less which left the bars with a big lump on the face.

I did decide to add coconut oil for the SF and 8oz of 100% peanut soap so while I don't have castile anymore, It still should be a very gentle bar though. The peanut soap had really big bubbles but they didn't last long and were thin. I hope the combo will produce bigger bubble with some staying power.

I'll post up pics of my new bastile once its cut. If I did my math right, it should be roughly 66% OO, 33% peanut.


----------



## newbie

Strangely, my first batch, the half that kind of separated but that I got back together, has had no warping at all. None. A couple of my other batches have sharp corners and some slight swaying but the psychedelic cloud soap I made more recently is hugely warped. I wonder if it has to do with how fast it dries. I have that one in a room with a dehumidifier and the other ones were just out in the basement, but it was really cold and dry this winter. Odd.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Adding, my two batches haven't done any warping, and the second one was cut into large, thin sheets.

Updating on them, by the way. It's been nine weeks since I made the first of my two batches, the honey-and-milk castile. (Used 35g dry milk and 22g honey mixed into the water portion that was equal to the oil weight, heated to allow them to dissolve and then cooled.) I weighed them and they're about 62% of their original weight. I also separated out a smaller portion of the bars and weighed them, so I could keep track of how much more they lose while I try using some of the other bars.

Over time the first batch had discolored so that the areas I had added TD to were more of a golden yellow color and the areas I had added red-orange mica to were peachy orange. However, after a few tests washes they now look their original cream and pink. I can now understand why some people describe castile as slimy... The soap was very very slippery with a very thin, sparse lather that would stretch out between my hand and the bar like mucus when I pulled it away. Sometimes if I got enough on my hands and continued rubbing them together without the bar, I'd have better luck at getting a decent lather.

My hands were very soft after using them, though I'm still trying to decide if it left a slight irritation that went away or if that was just my hands and I only noticed because I was looking for something rather than something that happens normally with me.

As far as the pictures go... The first batch was actually darker in real life than in the pic. And the second batch continues to be odd colors. Now it's shifted so that there's more purple in it again, and has obvious streaks of ash, though not nearly as much as the first batch.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...Strangely, my first batch, the half that kind of separated but that I got back together, has had no warping at all...."

I'm sure you're right -- the warpage is due to the rate and amount of water evaporation. 

My first homely batch with all OO separated and drained in the mold. The amount of water lost after the bars were cut is more similar to the moisture loss of "normal" soap bars. These bars have shrunk some, but not to the degree that the second batch as. 

The second batch with safflower-lard didn't separate or drain in the mold. The bars were a beautiful ivory (and still are) but they have deformed and shrunk a lot. Compared to the homely batch and my normal soaps, these bars have lost a lot more weight due to water evaporation. It stands to reason the water loss = shrinkage in size. 

Here's my last lab report showing the water loss: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=414548&postcount=476

I wonder how Robert B's batch is turning out?


----------



## Robert B

Hiya!

Mine are doing well.  They have not twisted or cracked or anything. They are just standing around like perfect soldiers.   I did not weigh them in the beginning but they look great...apart from the frosting of ash here and there. 

They do look a bit more beige and not as white.  I used Pomace Olive Oil (I think).

My goal ---- is to wait a year but will be happy if I wait til Christmas.  

Now my first batch that was cracking/falling apart) because I waited too long to cut...well, I am thinking I may want to try my hand at rebatching them.  

I will post a pic soon.


----------



## newbie

WEll, that's what I find interesting. My first half batch did not weep or have any drainage at all- zero water loss from the recipe. It has no warping. My other batches may have some very slight warping but hardly any at all and they did not separate or lose any water during the process. My psychedelic soap- same recipe, same amount of water but dried in a less humid place- has crazy warping. Makes me think the rate of water loss makes a difference.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...they're about 62% of their original weight..."

That's comparable to my second successful (no break, no weep) batch. 

"...Sometimes if I got enough on my hands and continued rubbing them together without the bar, I'd have better luck at getting a decent lather....."

That's also what I'm seeing -- I can get some very nice bubbly, fluffy lather from my two batches if I use enough water. Someone (Irish Lass, I think) said she likes to use castile with a bathing pouf or puff -- the puff can develop the lather nicely whereas just skin rubbing against skin to make lather doesn't work as well. What I am seeing that's different than "normal" castile is that there is more lather from the superlye soaps. 

"...Mine are doing well. They have not twisted or cracked or anything. They are just standing around like perfect soldiers...."

And I hope they stay that way for you! I don't think my second batch really showed much warping and shrinkage a lot until just the past few weeks. At first, the bars were very nicely shaped, and I was kind of kicking myself for cutting the bars larger than I usually cut my regular soaps.

"...My first half batch did not weep or have any drainage at all- zero water loss from the recipe. It has no warping. My other batches may have some very slight warping but hardly any at all and they did not separate or lose any water during the process. My psychedelic soap- same recipe, same amount of water but dried in a less humid place- has crazy warping. Makes me think the rate of water loss makes a difference. ..."

Go figure, hey? Maybe AnnaMarie can weigh in with her point of view -- she's got more batches of this soap under her belt than the rest of us do.


----------



## AnnaMarie

Hi all! My life went from crazy to crazier as I am trying to get our house ready to sell (I have never done this before and it's a TON of work). In addition, I am shepherding my two teens everywhere- whew! I have not made any soap for weeks (sniff:sad, nor have I been on the forum sad. I thought I'd check in tonight....
On the mysterious soap (maybe we should call it mystery castile), I have gotten warping only when I insulated (not always though), but I do think there might be something to Newbie's point about the rate of water loss creating warped soap. Since I started doing this soap exactly as in the recipe I haven't had that issue at all because I'm not insulating. As I write, I have beautiful, rustic bars of castile soap waiting to be used in my stock 
On the lather, I really think this soap performs best with lots of water which is why I like it in the shower. I also find it very cleansing and not overly drying and best of all-no sliminess!
My bars have lost plenty of water, but I think that has leveled out now, or slowed tremendously.
I hope I responded accordingly to your query DeeAnna
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## newbie

Earlier on, I had no goop when I washed with them. Now I have some bars developing slime when I start to wash with them, which I did not expect as they matured. I thought if anything they'd have it early on, not later on. I have also found that to get the best lather, I wet the soap and then put it aside for maybe 20-30 seconds, then wash with it. It doesn't take as much work then but i suppose this follows with the solubility factor. The ones that last the longest dissolve the slowest and put less soap on the skin, if I recall DeeAnna's explanation correctly, so the pre-wetting probably allows a little more soap to be available.


----------



## AnnaMarie

newbie said:


> Earlier on, I had no goop when I washed with them. Now I have some bars developing slime when I start to wash with them, which I did not expect as they matured. I thought if anything they'd have it early on, not later on. I have also found that to get the best lather, I wet the soap and then put it aside for maybe 20-30 seconds, then wash with it. It doesn't take as much work then but i suppose this follows with the solubility factor. The ones that last the longest dissolve the slowest and put less soap on the skin, if I recall DeeAnna's explanation correctly, so the pre-wetting probably allows a little more soap to be available.



Is it the clear, thin layer of slime or is it "snot like" slime (sorry for the gross term.) I haven't like castile because it turns into a yellow, yucky mess. I do initially get the clear jelly thing going though.
Cheers!
Anna Marie


----------



## DeeAnna

Can't speak for Newbie, but I definitely get a clear gel layer (I like "gel" better than "slime") when I intentionally let the bars sit in water. I think that qualifies as a "clear, thin layer of slime". It's not ropy or snotty at all -- the best comparison I can come up with is plain Jello (gelatin) made with a little less water than usual.

The bars also get super slippery when I wash with them -- more slippery than my normal soap does. I'm guessing this slipperiness is the soap absorbing water to create a thin layer of soap gel on the surface of the bar. 

I really need to do a lab report update soon -- I'll try to share some pics.


----------



## newbie

WHen I start to wash with some of the bars, I do get goopy ropey stuff that will stretch between my hands, like slime. Just letting the bar sit damp for 30 seconds doesn't produce it. It's when I'm trying to work up a lather that I will get the rope.


----------



## DeeAnna

Krunt -- thanks for sharing your reactions to the -40% soap. That was a good read! (http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=416738&postcount=552). 

I was away from home when you wrote your posts, and I'm just now reading what y'all posted during that time. From your and others' reports and from my experience, I think I can safely say these things -- 

Soap made from high-oleic oils (olive, HO safflower, avocado, etc.) is not very water soluble. The upshot of this is a high-oleic soap will be slower to lather, the lather is less abundant, and extra water is needed to develop bubbles vs. a dense ropy lather. Lather lovers will not like castile, but the advantages of a high-oleic soap is that it will clean more gently, last longer, and cause less skin irritation for sensitive people.

So, with all that in mind, what are we all seeing about the superlye soap that is any different (and hopefully better!) than "normal" castile as most would make it? 

From my perspective, I'd say the superlye castile lathers more freely, allowing for the fact that it is still a high-oleic, lower solubility soap. 

It does not turn into a slimy mush or fall apart when it sits in water, so it will last longer in the bath or at the sink.

I also think another tentative outcome of our experiments is that we're learning lye-heaviness is not the "kiss of death" for an otherwise well-made soap. The experiment I want to set up based on Kevin Dunn's suggestions will help confirm this idea ... I've got to get off dead center and get this going!


----------



## Robert B

I tried washing with the soap from my first batch (that cracked).  The soap was full of ash.  I did experience a clear slimey-ness.  These are only about 5 weeks old tho.  I did not experience over-drying on the hands.  I am chalking it up to the newness of the soap.  

* listen to me...talking like I know anything about soap making *


----------



## BabyPickles106

For those that are put off by the look and feel of slimmy feel; what about using it as felted or in a soap sock?


----------



## krunt

Hi everyone,

I have been a bit tardy in reporting my thoughts and observations with this soap -- deeanna's post prompted me to get to it.

To recap: I have made 4 batches of this soap (100% olive oil), the only difference being the lye excess. First batch was -40%, then -10%, -20% & -30%. I wondered whether so much extra lye was necessary to achieve a non-gooey soap.

As each soap batch reached 4 weeks of age, I used a bar at the bathroom sink as a frequent use hand soap.  Each bar was used for 1 week.

In short, overall I was very happy with the -40% & -30% batches.  The -20% & -10% were mostly fine, but I did not consider them ideal.

-10%: yellow colouring of the oil remained in the soap, soap had a slightly shrunken and warped appearance to it, soap got a bit soft during use -- not so soft that I had to stop using it, but softer than I would like.

-20%: my thoughts on this soap are the same as the previous one, except this batch did not warp or shrink.

-30%: there was perhaps a hint of colour in this batch, but not much.  Soap did not appear shrunken or warped, soap stayed nice and hard during use.

-40%: off white in colour, no shrunken/warped appearance, soap stayed nice and hard.

I found all the batches slightly drying at 4 weeks.  I am happy with the lather once it gets going, but I have to work for it.  In the future I am going to add a little coconut to hopefully make for easier lathering.

The -40% batch is now 8 weeks old, and I am using it at the sink again.  It is definitely milder now than it was at 4 weeks.  I'll give it a whirl in the shower soon.

In addition to staying hard, what I like most about this soap is the fact that 100% of the oil is saponified -- there is no leftover oil to turn rancid.  In the past, I found the unsaponified olive oil in soap would turn bad within a couple of months, and give the soap an unpleasant smell (same can be said about avocado oil, for example).  I had actually stopped using these oils for that reason.  I also like that with the higher lye amounts, the natural colour of the oil is "destroyed" and does not remain in the soap (don't really find yellow soap appealing).


----------



## DeeAnna

Thank you, Krunt! Much food for thought -- I appreciate your sharing this info.


----------



## DeeAnna

It's roughly Day 70 since I made my two batches of superlye soap. The rate of moisture loss for both soaps has tapered off quite a bit and is looks comparable to the data for my normal soaps. The 100% olive soap is still continuing to lose moisture a wee bit faster, but the trend is not greatly different than the others.

Both of my superlye soaps have deformed and shrunk somewhat (photos 1 and 2). The olive soap has very little ash. It has remained more yellow, especially where it was initially soft and goopy in the center. The safflower-lard soap has a thick coating of ash on the top a lot like thin frosting with a scattering of ash on the other surface. It has remained a pale ivory underneath the ash.

Both have similar lather when I wash my hands at the sink. With very little water added to my hands, the lather that develops on my skin is thin and ropy (photo 3). With more water added and a bit more rubbing, the lather loosens and bubbles up nicely (photo 4). I'm sure this type of lathering is due to the low solubility of oleic soap -- it just doesn't want to lather strongly without plenty of water and a bit of encouragement.

I have now been using samples in the shower with a bath puff. The lather is a fairly dense foam with a nice overlay of fluffy bubbles (photo 5). I am getting absolutely no zap and no skin irritation, even in (ahem!) tender places. I do not notice any unusual dryness after my shower either.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Those lather pics from hand washing are quite similar to what I'm getting! Though if I use enough water it actually gets a bit fluffier than that for me.


----------



## DeeAnna

I can get better lather too, FlyBy. I was tired last night and I realize now I didn't really do my best job with the lather tests. When enough water is added and I take more care with the handwashing tests, the superlye soaps can make a much nicer lather. Not quite the same as the bath puff, but closer....


----------



## krunt

Well, I have to take back my comment about the -40% batch staying nice and hard.  It started getting softer yesterday, and is soft in the same way the -10% and -20% batches were (not so soft that I have to stop using it, but softer than I would like).  I am going to stop using it though, as I just don't like it.

In the beginning, and even just a few days ago, the soap dried off really quickly.  It has now reached a point where it just isn't drying out quick enough.  Even hours after I last used it, its still wet.  Hopefully it just needs more time -- it is only 9 weeks old, after all.  I'll keep trying it every month and see if there is a point where it stays hard throughout use of the whole bar.  And well, it is a Castile, and I have always read they need a year to reach their best, so perhaps that's how long it will take!


----------



## FlybyStardancer

Just tried my ugly olive/soy blended soap. 57% olive oil, 43% soybean oil, the -43% superfat, and it also had 65g milk powder (for 1000g oils). The uncolored areas have gone a dark khaki color, while the micas are just weird morphs.

It certainly bubbles a lot easier than the castile I had made! And it's not entirely the sugars in the milk doing it, since the castile had 22g honey and 35g milk powder for 531g oil. It seemed like the linoleic from the soy was making a big difference in how much it dissolved in the water. Towards the end of the shower I could smear off a layer of soap, and the castile never got that mushy.


----------



## DeeAnna

I can see your point, FlyBy. I've been wondering what this technique would do with a non-castile recipe.

The second superlye soap I made had 70% high oleic safflower and 30% lard. The blend was meant to mimic the fatty acid profile of my first batch, which was all olive. The primary fatty acids of both batches are about 66% oleic and 12% each of palmitic and linoleic. (No, the numbers don't add up to 100%.) Apparently my castile-wannabe soap succeeded, because this soap lathers just like the all-olive batch does. At the sink, the lather is ropy and scant for either soap (similar to the castile with a normal superfat) unless I add a lot of water and then it will suds up. 

Just musing here....

Your olive-soy recipe has about 12% palmitic, 28% linoleic, and about 50% oleic. 

A typical "bastile" that people like for easier lathering is often 20-30% coconut oil with the balance being olive. A recipe like this has 50-55% oleic depending on how much CO is used.

I wonder if the oleic content is the key difference -- soaps with oleic below about 55% lather relatively easily; soaps with oleic above 60% lather more like castile.


----------



## FlybyStardancer

It would be interesting to run an experiment to see where the lather mark is! I certainly wasn't expecting better lather from the olive/soy soap.

It would have to be double-blind, varying the percentage of olive oil... Maybe a second set using your lard/sunflower mix instead of olive to see if the results hold up to a recipe without olive oil?


----------



## newbie

I made a normal recipe using this technique, the recipe for the SF swap. Some people are finding it drying but some people found the castile to be drying as well. I will say that there is no ropiness or sliminess like I am getting with my OO/Castor recipe. If anyone is interested in a piece of the normal recipe I made with the lye and water excess, just PM me and I will send you some.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...I made a normal recipe using this technique, the recipe for the SF swap...."

Not sure I'm following -- you made the swap recipe (palm, olive, CO, castor) with -40% superfat? 

I think it's really interesting how the -40% SF soap is doing in the superfat swap. I did a rough analysis of the swap info today -- http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=425710&postcount=12


----------



## seven

i nearly forgot about these soaps 

my ugly batch, zomg! it has lost so much water it shrunk so much, looks so **** funny. this soap really give the term ugly soap a new definition..






my 2nd batch, the good one, has retain its shape. lots of ash present..





both of them are rock hard atm. am gonna take them to the shower soon. very excited to see if there is much difference since my last use of these soaps.


----------



## Twiggy

Ok, this is crazy.... I'm on page 13- must make this soap asap! so curious how will it go for me!?


----------



## newbie

DeeAnna, yes, I used the OO/Palm/CO/Castor recipe from the swap and made it with this technique, using -40% SF and the excess water. The lye water was a 1:1 and then I added excess water equal to the weight of the oils. Some people have found it drying but I also saw some of the SF'ed bars were rated as drying as well. Totally perplexing.


----------



## DeeAnna

Thanks for clearing that up. I am just as perplexed by the results so far, but I think you need more data before drawing any conclusions. It's hugely interesting to me!


----------



## krunt

Hi everyone,

I have recently made an interesting (well, interesting to me :smile discovery/observation with this soap.

To recap, I have made 4 batches of this soap (100% olive oil) of varying lye excesses (-10%, -20%, -30% & -40%).

The -10%, -20% & -40% batches were made with a water amount equal to the weight of the oil + the weight of the lye.  All 3 batches reached the "plastic" stage.

The -30% batch was made with a water amount equal to the weight of the oil only.  This batch did not reach the plastic stage.  And yes, I know I should not have changed more than 1 variable, but I really didn't think it would make a difference.

My -20% batch separated somewhat, when I unmolded it there was a pool of water on the bottom of the loaf which I tipped off (some of you might remember the photo of it I posted some time ago).  But the rest of the loaf was soap and was fine.

The observation I have made is that the -20% and -30% batches have an unpleasant smell to them.  The same smell that was the reason I stopped using olive oil in my soap.  The -10% and -40% batches do not have any unpleasant smell.

My thoughts are that the water amount is responsible for the smell or lack thereof.  With the -30% batch, I used less water, and with the -20% batch, I tipped some of the water off (resulting in less water in that batch).  Based on the -30% batch having less water and not reaching the plastic stage (where the other batches with more water did reach the plastic stage), I tend to think the plastic stage is an indicator that enough water has been added to produce a soap that will not develop an unpleasant odour a couple of months down the line.  I am going to test this theory later in the week by making a batch and adding water to the point that it reaches the plastic stage, and then see if it starts to stink in a couple months.

My thoughts are that a certain amount of water is needed to allow the caustic to completely saturate and surround the oil aspect of the mix, to react with every last molecule of oil, and come into contact with any unsaponifiable matter in the oil to prevent it going bad in the future.

I dismissed the caustic excess as the reason for the smell, as surely if the -20% and -30% batches smell, then the -10% batch should smell too?  And yet, it does not.

I also dismissed the oil itself as the reason -- the -10%, -20% & -30% batches were made with oil from the same container, the -10% batch doesn't smell, but the other 2 batches do.

I hope what I'm saying makes sense, and I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts on this!


----------



## DeeAnna

"...the -20% and -30% batches have an unpleasant smell to them. The same smell that was the reason I stopped using olive oil in my soap. The -10% and -40% batches do not have any unpleasant smell...."

I can't speak to the smell ... I'm not picking up on that, regardless of the recipe. Maybe my nose isn't as well trained as some. What I can say about the high water recipes -- your -10% and -40% batches -- is that the large amount of water evaporation may have carried some of the chemicals that are causing the odors you don't care for to the surface of the soap bars. They might either evaporate if they're volatile enough or perhaps oxidize from exposure to fresh air. Hard to say. 

I have an update about lather quality. The two batches I made -- one that broke and drained and the other that did not -- are now lathering really well at the sink in cold water. When I got this result from bars that I'd already been using, I was so surprised that I dug out some unused soap from both batches fresh from storage. I got the same results. 

When I last reported (post 598, 5 May 2014), I said of my 2-month-old soaps that "... the lather that develops on my skin is thin and ropy..." and it needed a lot of water to develop a loose, fluffy foam. I tried the soaps today (3 months after making) and the lather is surprisingly different -- it develops quickly and easily into a pleasant bubbly foam that rinsed off nicely and left my hands feeling pleasantly clean without feeling stripped or dry. The bubbles are not a huge fluffy froth like a CO soap, but there's definitely no gluey/slimy/ropy stuff going on either. 

Wowser.


----------



## krunt

Hi DeeAnna,

Thanks for your explanation as to why the higher water soap batches may not be smelling.

The smell of olive oil in unscented soap is something I have only ever seen a couple of people post about on this board, so either most people don't find it unpleasant, or most people aren't experiencing it for whatever reason.  I have wondered if the fact I use extra virgin olive oil has something to do with it, however I have never compared it with a refined olive oil to know for sure.  For the record, I have noticed the same off smell with avocado oil (extra virgin, as well).

And that's some good news regarding the lather quality of your soap.  I'll be busting mine out again in a few days, I hope it's as good as yours!


----------



## DeeAnna

Hey there! For what it's worth, I used just "olive oil", not extra virgin, so your point about the type of OO may be a good one. I have made a couple of batches of soap with a high % of avocado oil and have not noticed an odor, but the smell of the oil in the bottle is very mild so I'm guessing the avocado oil is not EV. 

That said, I never notice the famed "piggy" smell of lard soap that some loathe. Lard soap just smells like nice soap to me. I've worked on my family's hog farm and my grandmother rendered her own lard and made lard soap, so I do think I have a clue about this.  Maybe my nose is just different.


----------



## DeeAnna

Well, it's been 121 to 128 days since I made my two batches of "superlye" soap. The soaps are continuing to sllllooooowly lose weight, but I am going to stop tracking this, because the weight loss is so small and looks pretty much the same as "normal" soaps. 

I learned in doing this weighing that I have to convert the weight loss of all the soap recipes so they all share a common basis. If I don't, there's no way to really compare the weight loss of different soaps. That's what this chart shows -- the average water weight in the bars of soap on a particular day divided by the amount of 100% pure soap in the bars.

When you put the data on a common basis and compare the weight loss curves, the superlye soaps really don't behave a lot differently than the normal soaps ... after the superlye soaps (green and orange curves) lose enough water to make them similar in composition to the normal ones (blue and red curves). Before that time, the superlye soaps have a large, fast water loss.

Both of my superlye batches are really pleasant in the shower with a bath puff and for use as a shampoo. They lather well and rinse cleanly with the extra agitation and aeration from puff or hair. 

I've gone back and forth about the quality of the lather at the sink. I checked one of my all-olive bars (from my first batch that broke) and it lathered wonderfully at the sink today. It had an unexpected amount of lather with a pleasant whipped cream texture. The lather developed quickly and easily and rinsed off cleanly -- a real winner. A bar from my second safflower-lard batch had a lather that seems to be more typical of a normal castile -- dense ropes of lather, almost gelatinous, that did not rinse off easily. Fine for the shower, but not something I want to use at the sink. 

The lather has been so variable -- sometimes the soaps lather beautifully and sometimes they don't. I find myself wondering if there is some kind of difference about the soap at the surface of a bar vs. down deeper, because it seems as if the bars I've been using tend to lather better than the fresh bars do. Dunno.....


----------



## Bex1982

What do you think causes the slimyness of regular cp oo soap? I was wondering if castile soap might make an exceptional amount of glycerin and maybe with the lye heavy formula the lye is somehow eating the glycerin.  That paired with obviously no sf %. What are your thoughts Deeanna?


----------



## DeeAnna

No, olive oil won't make any more glycerin when turned into soap than any other fat, regardless of the amount of lye used. Any of the soaping oils, when saponified, makes 3 molecules of soap and 1 of glycerin. 

Glycerin is highly soluble in water, so I really don't think that is the issue. And if it was, then melt and pour soap would have a reputation for being slimy -- it is notorious for oozing glycerin in humid weather. I don't recall that I've heard anyone complain much about that, although lots complain about the sweating issue.

I suspect the issue about slimy lather is more about the fairly high water solubility of a soap that is very high in sodium olivate (aka a castile) and the specific process of how this particular soap molecule goes into solution with water. IMO, when a castile first absorbs water, this type of soap first turns into a gelatinous colloid (this is the slimy stage), then it actually goes into true solution as more water is added. (You can see this translucent gel forming if you put a castile bar in a puddle of water for awhile.) A bath puff short circuits the gel step and mixes the soap more quickly into solution. 

The shorter, straight chain soaps (coconut, lard, palm, etc.) or soaps made with a mix of fats including olive tend to go into solution without going through such an obvious gelatinous (slimy) stage.

I am still wondering why the superlye recipe changes the lathering characteristics of the soap -- no grand theories come to mind.


----------



## Bex1982

I'm still wondering the same (why the lye heavy thing changes it). 
I sort of like the "slimy" castile because I get the gooey parts off and it's like shower gel


----------



## hmlove1218

I've been thinking about this thread for a while now and finally decided I want to make a batch of the lye heavy castile. How has everyone's turned out?


----------



## cpacamper

hmlove, I made a batch in July.  Hardly any lather to speak of after a six month cure, but it seems to be very gentle soap, not slimy in the least.  Very hard, white bars (I used evoo we had in the cupboard).


----------



## DeeAnna

Cpacamper is right -- the bars are very hard and also last a long time. The soap is very mild just like a classic castile -- absolutely zero sign of any harshness or lye heaviness. I use mine in the shower with a pouf or washcloth and enjoy using the soap like this. I don't think I'd use the soap at the sink, because it needs a little more abrasion and aeration to make a nice lather.


----------



## hmlove1218

I've got my OO and water measured out (32 ounces of each), added my EOs (lavender orange YUM!), and letting my lye mix cool off.  Getting ready to park myself on the couch in front of the TV and watch Criminal Minds episodes while I hand stir this soap  I don't have a wooden spoon, so I'm just using my silicone spatula.  I can't explain to others why I'm so excited over soap lol.  At least everyone on this forum understands!!


----------



## DeeAnna

Keep us posted! Whether it goes smoothly or there are some bumps in the road, this is an interesting soap to make.


----------



## hmlove1218

You can bet I'm having problems lol. I thought it was at trace so I decided to check it with my stick blender..instant separation.. now I've been fighting with it trying to get it back together. DeeAnna, you said there was a water layer under your soap but you couldn't see it. There's a water layer completely surrounding mine.


----------



## DeeAnna

Yep, I've gotten a water layer around the batter. The batter kind of slides around on the water like a skater on ice. Weird stuff.

Also, use a light hand with the stick blender -- you can break the emulsion by overdoing it with the stick blender. With regular soap, more SB'ing usually makes the batter better mixed, but not with this baby.


----------



## hmlove1218

Yeah I wasn't using it much at all. I figured out it only made it worse pretty quickly lol. I was using the blade to stir with for a while. After about an hour of that and no change, I started wondering if my measurements were off somehow. I started adding a little more OO  to it because I remember reading where someone (probably you) stated that excess lye could actually be used to salt out the soap. I also started whisking it. First 2 oz there still wasn't any change after 10 minutes of whisking. Added 2 more and it started coming back together.


----------



## DeeAnna

Good save!


----------



## newbie

Mine is also very hard and not harsh at all. It doesn't seem to lather well with just basic handwashing; I think not enough soap dissolves off the bar to lather up, but with a bath poof, it lathers up just fine. It's not my favorite soap but it was undoubtedly the most interesting one I've ever made and you can do some interesting things with it. Design-wise, you do have to take into account the shrinkage you'll get from using the excess water. Some of my bars warped and others just got smaller. Can't figure out why some went one way and others, a different way.


----------



## hmlove1218

Finally got it in the mold after 4 hours


----------



## DeeAnna

Congrats! I bet you're tired. Welcome to the club!

It seems odd but this soap hardens up pretty fast at least for me, even the one that wept lots of lye water all over my oven. (I put my soap in the oven, even if I'm not CPOP'ing, to keep curious critters away from harm.) I know I'm probably saying the obvious, but I'm gonna be a Mother Hen and say it anyways -- please be careful and wear gloves when handling this soap at first!


----------



## hmlove1218

Oh most definitely I'm wearing gloves when handling this one! I ended up with a slight burn on my forearms because my gloves weren't long enough and I didn't think to wear long sleeves. This was probably the most messy soap I've ever made. I wound up with batter in places in my kitchen I can't even explain. This soap is so zappa that I felt it the instant my arm touched the raw batter.

Eta: about how long does it take for this soap to stop zapping? I noticed several people were testing it out at a month.


----------



## DeeAnna

I'd say 4 weeks is on the bare edge of being safe -- 6 to 8 weeks would be a more conservative time to wait. The exterior will become zap free fairly soon, but the center of the bars will remain zappy a bit longer. 

I became a Connoisseur of Zap from weeks of testing this soap. I learned to take a light swipe over the soap with my fingertip and just barely touch my finger to my tongue. That was enough of a taste to figure out zap vs. no zap and the fine nuances in between. :Kitten Love:


----------



## hmlove1218

Thanks DeeAnna! Can't wait to see how this turns out


----------



## cmzaha

The batch I tried last February with just full water did remain zappy which I was afraid would happen. It is obvious it takes the large amount of water to carry out the extra lye. Today I salted it out and am very curious to see how it is after it dries out.


----------



## DeeAnna

Hey, Carolyn, thank you for the update about the "normal water" superlye soap. That's a good point to know. From Kevin Dunn's experiments, I know a slightly lye heavy "normal" soap (-5% lye excess) will become lye neutral with cure. Your experience is showing a superlye but otherwise normal soap remains lye heavy. Our experiments here are showing a very lye heavy, high-water soap will become lye neutral with cure. Interesting......

This is giving me more incentive to do the experiments I spoke of in Post #481. Didn't get that started last year like I had intended. But I haven't forgotten about it either.


----------



## MarlinFlake

This is such an interesting and educational thread.  I've really enjoyed reading it.

Here's my intuition on this soap, and since I'm not a chemist I'm hoping DeeAnna or another chemistry-proficient person can tell me if I'm right or wrong:  If the soap has a 40% lye surplus, and it becomes more neutral over time because the lye forms sodium carbonate, then the final soap will be something like 60% sodium oleate and 40% sodium carbonate.  This is why the soap is described as being hard, non-gooey, etc.--i.e. different from "normal" castile.  This is not essentially different from making a soap with 60% olive oil and 40% coconut oil with 0% superfat, resulting in 60% sodium oleate and 40% sodium cocoate.  (Obviously sodium carbonate and sodium cocoate are different, but my point is that the reason this soap is different from other castiles is the same reason why a 60/40 olive/coconut soap is also different from 100% olive oil castile.)

Is this basically correct?


----------



## DeeAnna

I don't think so. 

Sodium carbonate can only be produced by the lye reacting with CO2 in the air. If there's no CO2 around, the lye can't react to form sodium carbonate. Soap isn't porous like a sponge, so  gases like CO2 are not likely to penetrate into the soap. For that reason, I don't see how CO2 can migrate into the soap structure to react with lye there. IMO, the reaction of lye and CO2 to sodium carbonate is pretty much all on the surface of the soap only. That said, I have no way to test this hypothesis, so this is just my opinion, not fact.

The outside of the soap does show there is a lot of ash (sodium carbonate) that forms. But the total weight of surface ash produced isn't remotely close to the amount that would have to be created to reduce the excess alkalinity in this soap. The amount of excess lye present should make enough ash to make the soaps look as furry as my long-haired rough coat collie.

Normal castiles are very hard soaps -- not sure why you are thinking otherwise on that point. I have to say after some months of using this soap, I honestly don't think the superlye castile is a lot different than regular castile as far as the lather consistency and the gel that forms as the soap hydrates -- the gel is the stuff that people perceive as slimy. I hate to disappoint Anna Marie, but that's pretty much my opinion now.


----------



## MarlinFlake

Thanks for responding!

My description comes from what AnnaMarie wrote in the opening post: "I have an Andalusian recipe for castile soap that is lye heavy, but  makes the BEST castile soap and does not get gooey. The bar is  wonderful, long lasting, and hard. I know it's the amount of lye  responsible because I have made plenty of castile soap since and even  with the long cure times (couple years) they get gooey."  I'm not trying to argue with you about the nature of castile; just answering your question about why I used the words "hard" and "non-gooey."

Now I'm wondering: If the lye isn't being used up in producing sodium carbonate, then where is it all going?  Is that still a mystery?


----------



## AnnaMarie

. I hate to disappoint Anna Marie, but that's pretty much my opinion now.[/QUOTE]


Lol DeeAnna! It's okay if we don't agree. I'm not disappointed! I realize not everyone will have the same results or opinions. After my experiences with Castile I wondered if lye heaviness made a difference, and I thought you'd be a good person to tag in for the mystery. I still stand by my original opinion, but that's all it is- an opinion.

I haven't been on this thread for sometime, but thought I'd check in for fun. It's wild to see how long it's gotten

Best,
Anna Marie
- always up for more soapy experiments


----------



## kumudini

*Need help!*

Hi all, 
Today I'm officially joining the crazy Castile club. Right now I need your help though. I am doing the full recipe, following it exactly. I hit light trace under 1 hr with just hand stirring. Now after 15 min it's definitely a medium trace. Should I stop now or keep stirring for a possible separation and coming back together as many of you seem to have experienced? My wrists want to thank you so badly,lol. I will update my process after moulding it up. Tia!


----------



## FlybyStardancer

For hand-stirring, pour at trace. The separation-and-come-back-together was because of the way the batter reacts to the power of the stick blender.


----------



## kumudini

FlybyStardancer said:


> For hand-stirring, pour at trace. The separation-and-come-back-together was because of the way the batter reacts to the power of the stick blender.



Thank you for replying. I did wait about 20 min, intermittently poking/ stirring but the consistency stayed the same. So I poured and covered it. Will see tomorrow how it turns out.


----------



## krunt

Hi everyone,

I wanted to revisit this thread with my thoughts on this soap, now that its over a year old. I'm hope no one minds 

The first thing I want to say is I love this soap.  I will never again make a 100% olive oil soap with a super fat.

I felt the soap was harsh up until it was 5-6 months old.  After that it started to mellow out, but it wasn't what I would call "nice on the skin" until it reached 10-11 months old.  This soap is probably where the oft quoted "rule" about not using Castile until it's a year old came from!

I love this soap in the shower, and get plenty of lather without the need for a wash cloth or bath puff.  It stays hard and goo-free as long as it's allowed to dry out between uses.  I can't say the same about a super fatted 100% olive oil soap.  I don't love it at the hand basin, it takes too long and too much effort to get a lather going.  So not suitable as a hand soap, as others have also mentioned.

Bottom line for me is this soap is a winner!  And again, a big thank you to AnnaMarie for introducing this method of soap making.  I am going to try it using macadamia nut oil soon, I expect it will turn out much the same.

Vkumudini, did your batch come out ok?


----------



## kumudini

Yes, Krunt. My soap turned out just fine. I cut it the next day, soft like a block of Paneer cheese. It has been a little over three weeks now, lost about 36% weight, shrank some, is rock hard. When tested at the sink, it was non drying. So far so good. Will know it's potential after the recommended cure. Glad you liked yours so much. Initially I set the trial date on my birthday, so it will be 4 months and thats a date I could remember, hehe! But you said it was best after a year, so may be I will wait a year.


----------



## cmzaha

DeeAnna said:


> I don't think so.
> 
> Normal castiles are very hard soaps -- not sure why you are thinking otherwise on that point. I have to say after some months of using this soap, I honestly don't think the superlye castile is a lot different than regular castile as far as the lather consistency and the gel that forms as the soap hydrates -- the gel is the stuff that people perceive as slimy. I hate to disappoint Anna Marie, but that's pretty much my opinion now.


I ended up salting out the lower water, lye heavy castile I made and it still has the gooey factor to it, like any other castile and takes a bit of work to work up a lather. I did just try a castile I made over a year ago at 1% superfat and it lathers amazing


----------



## Misschief

I know it's been months since anyone posted on this thread but I think it's worth reviving. First, I want to say that it's been an absolutely fascinating read. A lot of the science behind this thread is far above my head but still interesting. I've read the entire thread and parts of it, twice or even three times.

I'm wondering how your soaps are now, for some of you, almost two years later? 

I have decided I'm going to jump into this pool, too. I have my oil measured, and I'm about ready to go for it. I like the castile I already have; it's at about 4 months now. The thought of going back to the very roots of castile soapmaking is an exciting one. I have no intention of using a stick blender and I'm following the original recipe, as found on the blog referred to numerous times (http://spanishjourneys.com/olive_me_blog/make-your-own-pure-castile-soap). 

I'll let you know how it turns out.


----------



## Obsidian

Are you going to stir in one direction with a big stick?


----------



## DeeAnna

Keep us posted, Misschief! 

I still have some bars of the soap I made during this thread. At going on 2 years old, they are hard, brittle, and covered with ash. Pretty homely, actually. But no DOS or other weirdness. For me, the promise of this recipe did not came true that this castile would not be slimy. These bars lather pretty much like any other castile. Just tried one today at the sink and in the shower. They produce a stringy soap gel that does not suds well unless I use plenty of water and a pouf or scrubby. I haven't had the heart to throw them away, but I hate to keep them too. 

I did grate one up and dissolve it in distilled water to make a castile soap jelly for use when wet felting. This jelly has the consistency of Jello gelatin -- definitely not pourable -- but is useful for felting. Other than that, I suppose I could use one as a hammer? 

The experiments were fun and interesting, but the resulting soap has been more of a curiosity than a useful product.


----------



## Misschief

Obsidian said:


> Are you going to stir in one direction with a big stick?



I'm certainly stirring slowly. I'm finding that if I go faster with my stirring, it starts to separate a bit. Slowing down, it doesn't.

DeeAnna, good to know about the soap at this point. Even if I only use it for cleaning, I'm good with that. I do like the thought of making it the way it was originally made, without technology.

Thinking on that, incidentally, the original recipe on the blog was 1 quart oil, 1 quart water, 3/4 cup water and 6 oz. lye. When the soap was made, historically, would they have weighed out the lye or measured by volume? After all, 3/4 cup water is 6 oz of water by volume.


----------



## DeeAnna

The lye might easily have been measured by weight, but I can't say that for sure, not having been raised in Andalusia. In the midwestern US, my grandmother bought lye in 12 oz (weight) cans and her recipes were based on using an entire can of lye to minimize the hazard of handling the stuff. So she would have been measuring lye by weight. Her fat and water would have either been measured by volume or she would have used her old fashioned kitchen platform scale. Either way those measurements weren't overly accurate. And that's why she kept Palmolive in the bathroom for people to wash with and her homemade lard soap in the wash room for laundry.

Since lye comes in such different shapes and sizes, I think I'd probably measure it by weight, but obviously the weight doesn't need to be overly accurate for this type of recipe. I remember grandma's lye being small "prills" (pellets) about the size of a small lentil, but nowadays I've used lye that comes as tiny balls and as coarse flakes.


----------



## TheDragonGirl

I've just finished reading through this thread and I think tomorrow I'm actually going to a little one pound batch, just for the experience of doing it, and compare it against my new years castile next January


----------



## Misschief

TheDragonGirl said:


> I've just finished reading through this thread and I think tomorrow I'm actually going to a little one pound batch, just for the experience of doing it, and compare it against my new years castile next January



It's definitely an interesting one. I don't even dare look at mine, to be honest. I think I'll wait until after work.


----------



## TheDragonGirl

I hit light trace at an hour fifteen and stirred in the rest of the water at that point, and it was a heavy trace by the time I finished. I have it set up in front of a fan to prevent gel

( obviously didn't wait for tomorrow oops)


----------



## Misschief

I did peek at mine before I left for work (my coat closet is in the spare room) and there's a lot of liquid under the soap. The soap is still pretty soft. I don't think it will turn into anything usable or anywhere near pretty. Ah well, it was an experiment. They don't always work. Get over it and move on, right?


----------



## amd

DeeAnna said:


> I still have some bars of the soap I made during this thread. At going on 2 years old, they are hard, brittle, and covered with ash. Pretty homely, actually. But no DOS or other weirdness. For me, the promise of this recipe did not came true that this castile would not be slimy. These bars lather pretty much like any other castile. Just tried one today at the sink and in the shower. They produce a stringy soap gel that does not suds well unless I use plenty of water and a pouf or scrubby. I haven't had the heart to throw them away, but I hate to keep them too.


 
This sounds amazingly like a soap I picked up in India. The label wasn't in English so I couldn't read the ingredients, brand name, etc. I tried it a few times but eventually tossed it - just too much work to lather! I had guessed at possibly a mostly olive oil soap because of [lack of] lather, but was confused because it wasn't slimy as I have come to expect. Your description - hard, brittle, and covered in ash - perfectly describes this soap, so now I am suspecting a high olive oil, heavy lye bar is what I was dealing with.


----------



## DeeAnna

If your soap is anything like mine, I'd give it some time, Misschief. Mine also looked pretty messy at first, but the soap firmed up in the mold after several days. While homely, it turned into usable soap.

Amd -- your soap does sound a lot like a castile type soap. I did a blend of safflower and lard to mimic the fatty acids in olive and that batch acts similar to my 100% OO batch -- same stringy or ropy gel that's hard to turn into a lather -- the usual castile thing.


----------



## TheDragonGirl

Soaps cut at thirteen hours of cure time

crumbling corners  are a problem, it cut like and resembles the texture of paneer that's a little too dry

The small little excess I poured into the extra container cannot be unmolded because its too crumbly. When I press on the top with a finger a little liquid seeps out of the soap, going to leave it alone.


----------



## penelopejane

DeeAnna said:


> The experiments were fun and interesting, but the resulting soap has been more of a curiosity than a useful product.



DeeAnna, 
Do you think there is anything at all in the fact that everyone uses different types of olive oil? I know I have asked this before but I feel there is more to the different results shown in this thread. 

The Andalusian grandmother said it was really important to use good olive oil.  She used fresh pressed olive oil and used it once to cook sweet donuts.  If the oil was used a lot then it could only be used to make laundry soap. 

Everyone on this thread has had huge variations in their results.  I know everyone has used different methods and additives so it is difficult to decipher but one thing that is really variable is the olive oil.  Even when you say "kirkland" olive oil it could be EVOO ir VOO or pure OO or extra light OO.

I don't get the slime on my Castille soap.  Others do get slime.  I would like to work out why. Or it could just be different people's inability to identify "slime".  Some people think this is a fantastic recipe others don't.  Is it just because soaping is a hugely variable process and that individuals have different perceptions of what is "good"?

Do you think the idea that the different type of OO used makes a difference has merit?


----------



## DeeAnna

A soap with a high oleic acid content makes a gel over an unusually wide range of water content. That is a fact of a high-oleic soap that is distinctly different than other types of soaps. You can see this gel formation in bar (NaOH) soap and you can see it in liquid (KOH) soap. Regardless of the lye used, the technique of making the soap, the fat from which the oleic acid comes from (EVOO, pomace, or even safflower-lard) or whatever ... the fact remains that a high-oleic soap makes a high-oleic gel over a wide range of water content. This fact is not going away despite the endless debate.

What IS different is how one perceives the gel. A person can create a low, creamy lather from moderate to high agitation and more water or create a ropy slime with low agitation and less water. Either result is a direct consequence of what one DOES to the gel made by a high-oleic soap. The gel is there, regardless. In one person's hands, a high-oleic soap might never make slime or snot, but put the same soap in another person's hands and the result could be markedly different.

Let's take the influence of technique and subjective perception out of the game and put this evaluation on a more level playing field.

Try this experiment -- grate 10 grams of a bar (NaOH) soap made with a blend of fats and grate the 10 grams of a bar (NaOH) soap made with 100% olive oil (aka a castile). Put each sample of soap in its own jar. Add 30-40 grams of distilled water to each jar. Allow the soaps to dissolve and set for a few days. Remove a sample of each soap from the jar and evaluate the texture and appearance of the two soaps. How are they different? How are they the same? Add another 30-40 grams of distilled water to each jar, mix it with the soap, and allow the soap to fully dissolve and sit for another few days. Re-evaluate the soaps with the higher amount of water. Repeat at least once more.


----------



## penelopejane

DeeAnna said:


> Let's take the influence of technique and subjective perception out of the game and put this evaluation on a more level playing field.
> 
> Try this experiment --.



I will try the experiment and get back to you. 

I was just thinking that heating the olives to extract the oil or using chemicals might change the nature of the end product, even if the ratio of various acids remain the same?  Maybe it is all perception. Maybe things were done the way they were in the old days because they didn't have our technology.


----------



## Obsidian

DeeAnna, I always understood that it was the oleic acid that makes slimy soap but if thats so, why does my 100% HO safflower soap not slime at all? It has such different lather the castile, still sparse but really different feeling.


----------



## DeeAnna

I really don't think so, Penelope. Soap makers for at least 100 years have noted this issue --

"..Olive oil and olive oil foots are used most extensively in the manufacture of castile soaps. The peculiarity of an olive oil soap is that it makes a very slimy lather, and ... gives the soap a characteristic odor...." E.G. Thomssen. Soap Making Manual. 1922.

Another issue to consider is the common practice of olive oil adulteration. It's entirely possible that a not-slimy castile isn't slimy because it isn't really an olive oil soap. A recent "60 Minutes" television show on food adulteration reported about 50% of all olive oil sold in Italy is adulterated and about 75% in the US is adulterated. 

An officer in the Italian food quality enforcement arm of the government showed how very easy it is to add a bit of chlorophyll extract to a flavorless oil such as sunflower to make an "olive oil" that only an expert taster can tell is apart from real olive.

A soap made from regular sunflower oil wouldn't be slimy, because it contains mostly linoleic acid, not oleic. "Fake olive oil" could also affect how this particular recipe behaves (or not!) for people.


----------



## DeeAnna

"...why does my 100% HO safflower soap not slime at all?..."

I wish I knew that answer, Obsidian. All I can offer is this --

I created a "faux olive oil" from a blend of 70% HO safflower and 30% lard to make my second "superlye" batch. According to the fatty acid profile in soapcalc, this blend more closely simulates the fatty acid profile of olive oil compared with plain HO safflower. I get the usual castile gel/slime from this blend, just as if it were the real olive in my first batch. 

Safflower is lower in palmitic acid compared to olive (at least using soapcalc's fatty acid profile).

Maybe that's the difference. But I truly don't know -- I'm just guessing here.


----------



## Obsidian

That explanation sounds good to me lol. I actually don't mind the slime and I really like the silky/slice lather castile makes with a bath poof. Unfortunately, castile also dries my skin out quite a lot so I was hoping the saff would be a good replacement but its just lacking something. I'm going to try a batch of your saff/lard and see how that feels.

For anyone who is curious, the HO safflower did make a really nice soap, very gentle and easy on the skin. I could see it being very useful for someone who need extra gentle soap but for some reason can't use castile.


----------



## DeeAnna

Obsidian -- You have me wondering now about how HO sunflower would function if used 100% as an olive oil alternative vs. the HO safflower you tried.

Sunflower has about the same % of palmitic and stearic as safflower (which is to say, not much!) It is much lower in linoleic and much higher in oleic than safflower, at least according to the soapcalc profile. It's as if someone started with HO safflower, took almost all of the linoleic out, and added it back in as oleic ... and got HO sunflower instead.

Hmmmmm.... Would HO sunflower make a typical castile type soap or would it be more "normal"? Looks like a small experiment is on my horizon. I'm getting used to making mini-batches with all the challenge soaps I've been doing lately!


----------



## Obsidian

Keep us updated if you do a sunflower experiment, I can't even find regular sunflower here let alone HO.


----------



## DeeAnna

I saw a couple of brands of HO sunflower oil in Walmart recently. I think that's a new product for them, so you might keep an eye out if you get to a Walmart. Look on the top shelf of the oils in the baking aisle. 

That said, I normally buy mine from my locally-owned "whole foods" store when I get to the big city to shop. I can buy locally produced sunflower there (Wisconsin).


----------



## penelopejane

Obsidian said:


> DeeAnna, I always understood that it was the oleic acid that makes slimy soap but if thats so, why does my 100% HO safflower soap not slime at all? It has such different lather the castile, still sparse but really different feeling.



I can get the slime on young Castille but when it's 1 year plus it goes away. I can also get it much worse on a couple of soft batches of "failed" Ginny's shampoo recipe that I use as soap. So difficult to experiment when it takes a year to get test samples. 

I use Australian OO let's hope we aren't involved in the adulteration scandal. 

There are so many variables in making soap it amazes me we (I) can consistently get a good bar at all even using the same recipe and then the weird need to tweak a recipe raises its ugly head to further cloud the issue! . I often add Manuka honey to my Castille (probably making it not able to be called Castille) and that will effect the result too.


----------



## DeeAnna

I used some of my Wisconsin grown HO sunflower to make a small batch of soap tonight. Water, sunflower, lye, EDTA, fragrance, and colorant. It is also a batch for the January challenge, so it's got activated carbon and titanium dioxide in it. Behaved very nicely while soaping at room temperature (upper 60s F) and 35% lye concentration. We'll see how it goes from here.....


----------



## jules92207

I'm very curious how the ho sunflower works out. I've always really liked my soaps that I've used a percentage of it in, notably different than other recipes actually. I've come to the conclusion it's been the pleasant difference in many of my recipes now so I can't wait to hear your results DeeAnna.


----------



## newbie

What differences do you notice, Jules?


----------



## Earthen_Step

This was an epic read, thanks for all your inputs people!


----------



## DeeAnna

I expect the 100% HO sunflower soap to be low-lathering like a castile. Whether it makes castile slime or not is what I'm really curious about. 

I have used HO safflower in my soaps as an alternative to olive, and I would certainly consider using HO sunflower the same way. I really like recipes with lard, coconut oil, and castor (sometimes with a dab of tallow), so my inclination to use sunflower or safflower is fairly low right now. 

But who knows -- I might get back into them again with time. That's what's fun about soaping -- there are so many good recipes with a wide variety of fats.


----------



## jules92207

newbie said:


> What differences do you notice, Jules?



Keep in mind I am not of the scientific breed here so I can't speak to the reasoning behind it, but I find my recipes with sunflower oil to have a silkiness to the lather. I often do 10-15% of either sunflower, almond, rice bran, or avocado and I find I like the sunflower the best. It feels luxurious but also leaves me feeling very clean. I realize there are probably a dozen other factors going on in my recipes that could be influencing my results but I can't help but feel sunflower seems to be a common theme to a good bar for my skin.


----------



## TheDragonGirl

huh, its only been three days, but my soap isn't zapping, otherwise it seems exactly to spec, hard and white, with the little end slivers being brittle.


----------



## Soapmaker145

I've read bits of this thread on and off, not being able to wrap my head around it.  I'm not doubting the impressions posted but I don't buy the explanation that CO2 is what is neutralizing the excess lye.  A recent experience with using fatty acids instead of regular oils suggested to me an alternative explanation. 

I think the oils in our regular cp soaps are not completely broken down into fatty acid salts.  I suspect there is a significant amount of mono and diglycerides left unreacted because of too little water and too little lye to drive the reaction.  The excess lye in this recipe is neutralized by driving the saponification reaction to near completion.  The resulting soap should in principle be more water soluble.  I think this recipe duplicates the original Aleppo soap better than any other I've seen.

I'm particularly interested in applying the same principle to liquid soap to make it friendlier to washing machines and drainage pipes.  I'm finally going to do some testing.  I suspect I'll end up with 2 recipes for liquid soap, IL's modified glycerin soap for hand washing and a recipe made with excess lye and water for cleaning (to be neutralized with citric acid at dilution).  Maybe Fowler was on to something using excess lye in the ls process after all.

If somebody else mentioned this explanation, my apologies.  I've never read the entire thread in a single viewing.


----------



## Alison9712

So.... what is the point of adding the quart of water to the olive oil?  Why not mix the lye into the quart of water, and then add the lye-water to the OO? Or is it just a matter of logistics and what is easier to handle?  Just seems to me that getting the lye fully incorporated into all the water, and then incorporating it into the OO would be the way to go.  The lye water would be slightly less caustic.  Or maybe it doesn't matter.   
Sorry if this question has been addressed previously.  I've read a lot of this thread, but not 100%.


----------



## Susie

Alison9712 said:


> So.... what is the point of adding the quart of water to the olive oil?  Why not mix the lye into the quart of water, and then add the lye-water to the OO? Or is it just a matter of logistics and what is easier to handle?  Just seems to me that getting the lye fully incorporated into all the water, and then incorporating it into the OO would be the way to go.  The lye water would be slightly less caustic.  Or maybe it doesn't matter.
> Sorry if this question has been addressed previously.  I've read a lot of this thread, but not 100%.




If you could "quote" whatever post you are referring to, then some of us won't have to read the other 600+ posts to figure out how to answer you.  TIA!


----------



## Steve85569

Alison9712 said:


> So.... what is the point of adding the quart of water to the olive oil?  Why not mix the lye into the quart of water, and then add the lye-water to the OO? Or is it just a matter of logistics and what is easier to handle?  Just seems to me that getting the lye fully incorporated into all the water, and then incorporating it into the OO would be the way to go.  The lye water would be slightly less caustic.  Or maybe it doesn't matter.
> Sorry if this question has been addressed previously.  I've read a lot of this thread, but not 100%.



This thread started out with a recipe that is 1 quart olive oil, 1 quart water and enough lye dissolved in more water to be added to the solution.

The purpose of the water is to help carry the excess lye out to be turned into soda ash during the cure process.

What I just did:
I cut the recipe in half and kept the lye discount at MINUS 43% to stay true to the original recipe. I made an emulsion of the pomace oil and water ( 4.8% sodium acetate) and when I made up the lye water I used aloe vera juice and 2 % ppo of sodium citrate.

I slowly - a little at a time - added the lye solution to the emulsion being careful to not lose the emulsion. No problem. I'll just hit this with my trusty mini SB and get trace. I sweated out a pair of glove after 10 or 15 minutes and went for the big stick blender. My thought was to incorporate as much air as possible since it plays a part in the reaction ( read back through some of the Deanna science  for the reasoning) so I was not being careful to not allow air in. SB got warm so I set the mini on high and sucked air in til the second pair of gloves got too swampy. Traded into the third set of gloves ( 30 minutes in) and turned on the computer. I was going to check in and see just how long trace should take. Looked back at the emulsion.
RICING! 
Not just ricing but Sugar Bear RICING! Grabbed up the big stick and beat it into submission. Now it's a nice, thick and creamy trace! Into the mold it goes!

From reading a portion of this thread over the last couple of days I know better than to CPOP this so it's on the table being watched. It *looks like* it is going to stay and not phase out on me like has happened to some that warmed this recipe.

All liquids (not oil) were refridgerated until used. The lye water was hot (140 F) when added to the emulsion. The batter never got over 103 F during SB work and is now down to 95 F

I did not attempt to put a scent into this but I did add just a bit of green mica so if I try it with EVO instead of pomace I'll be able to see the difference. This is going to be watched for a bit just to see if it does phase or if the idea that inducing air helps keep this soap from separating into the water and oil phases after thickening.

I know it didn't happen without pictures so I'll post before and after pics of the cut.

Steve


----------



## Steve85569

Molded, released and cut.


----------



## Soapprentice

Wow! I am so amazed by this thread... it took me an entire thread to complete reading it... may be I will give it a try in the near future.. So, after reading the thread, I came to a conclusion that not everyone felt the same regarding the soap that is better than the regular Castile. So, if we need to cure superlye soap for 1 year for it to be mild, what is the purpose of doing it at all as the normal ones doesn't show slime after 1 yr of curing? This is what I noticed:
Normal Castile : slimy till one year, mild since the soap hardens
Superlye Castile : drying till 1 yr, not slimy since the beginning?
Am I missing something or may be my brain is overloaded with information that I am not able to think straight.


----------



## IrishLass

Soapprentice said:


> So, if we need to cure superlye soap for 1 year for it to be mild, what is the purpose of doing it at all as the normal ones doesn't show slime after 1 yr of curing? This is what I noticed:
> Normal Castile : slimy till one year, mild since the soap hardens


 
My 100% Castiles are still super slimy even after a 5 year cure (soap below is over 5 years old- still slimy after all these years):








IrishLass


----------



## reinbeau

I just can't stand Castile soap.  I can't get past the slime and no, it doesn't get any better really with age.  Once slimy always slimy as far as I'm concerned!


----------



## cherrycoke216

reinbeau said:


> I just can't stand Castile soap.  I can't get past the slime and no, it doesn't get any better really with age.  Once slimy always slimy as far as I'm concerned!




To those of you give away or sell Castile, or just for personal use. Do you find using a sponge or soap puff help with the darn slime goo snotty?

My limited experience in 50-72%olive oil the soap puff helps, at least better than just using hands to make suds, but I wonder if it's 100% olive oil, will it even make a difference?


----------



## Spice

cherrycoke216 said:


> To those of you give away or sell Castile, or just for personal use. Do you find using a sponge or soap puff help with the darn slime goo snotty?
> 
> My limited experience in 50-72%olive oil the soap puff helps, at least better than just using hands to make suds, but I wonder if it's 100% olive oil, will it even make a difference?


I have been wanting to do some felting, would felting help or would that make the slim worse?


----------



## DeeAnna

"...Normal Castile : slimy till one year, mild since the soap hardens. Superlye Castile : drying till 1 yr, not slimy since the beginning?..."

Nope. Superlye castile behaves the same as normal castile. High oleic soap is high oleic soap no matter how it is made nor how old it is. What DOES happen is a well cured soap is somewhat less soluble, so you maybe can have more chance of aerating and diluting the oleic gel to form a decent lather before it makes an obvious slime. As Irish Lass shows (above) you can still get the slime in an older castile. I can do the same with my 3 year old superlye castile.

A puff or sponge helps to break up the oleic gel, add extra water, and aerate the lather -- yes, this is helpful. I have no idea about felting around this kind of soap -- not tried it.

This thread about dual lye (KOH + NaOH) soap also contains some discussion about oleic gel starting about Post 25: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=59747


----------



## earlene

I have felted Castile, but since I don't seem to really notice the slime factor as a drawback, I can't really address if it helps.  I think it's a matter of taste, perhaps.  Or a function of the soap reacting with the hardness or softness of ones water.  Or just one's perception of the specific soap.


----------



## IrishLass

cherrycoke216 said:


> To those of you give away or sell Castile, or just for personal use. Do you find using a sponge or soap puff help with the darn slime goo snotty?
> 
> My limited experience in 50-72%olive oil the soap puff helps, at least better than just using hands to make suds, but I wonder if it's 100% olive oil, will it even make a difference?


 

I use a nylon pouf/soap puff when showering with my 100% Castiles. The friction from one of those things turns the snotty slime into quite a glorious lather to write home about. I've tried them with my normal cotton facial-cloths, too, but compared to a pouf/puff, I might as well be using just my hands, which can only produce a very thin, slimy foam such as what you see in my pic above. So.... I'm stuck with nylon poufs/puffs if I want to get any kind of respectable lather out of them. The only problem is that I hate using nylon poufs/soap puffs. They are too scratchy on my skin- even the poufs/puffs that are graded as being gentle. The only body parts I am able to use them on without any discomfort are the bottoms of my feet. So, I've quit making 100% Castiles, and instead I use Genny's Shampoo bar as my go-to gentle soap formula. It lathers up gloriously with just my hands and does not produce slime.

I've never used felted soap, so I can't comment on those.


IrishLass


----------



## Steve85569

DeeAnna said:


> "...Normal Castile : slimy till one year, mild since the soap hardens. Superlye Castile : drying till 1 yr, not slimy since the beginning?..."
> 
> Nope. Superlye castile behaves the same as normal castile. High oleic soap is high oleic soap no matter how it is made nor how old it is. What DOES happen is a well cured soap is somewhat less soluble, so you maybe can have more chance of aerating and diluting the oleic gel to form a decent lather before it makes an obvious slime. As Irish Lass shows (above) you can still get the slime in an older castile. I can do the same with my 3 year old superlye castile.
> 
> A puff or sponge helps to break up the oleic gel, add extra water, and aerate the lather -- yes, this is helpful. I have no idea about felting around this kind of soap -- not tried it.
> 
> This thread about dual lye (KOH + NaOH) soap also contains some discussion about oleic gel starting about Post 25: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=59747





Which is why a 100% rice bran oil soap act a LOT like a castile. It's the level of oleic in the soap.
Watch the fatty acid profiles!


----------



## Fiut

Hello everyone! Found this thread occasionally and read for about 3 days with increasing curiosity  On the page 6-7 I definitely knew I have to try it! Weird sense of being a witness of a past is great I have to admit. Well, I stumbled upon this right on time to give it a try. I wanted to make pure OO soap with big part of it infused with laurel leaf and Black sea lye used as a liquid (if you want to be informed it's a great thing to use https://www.luga.bg/en/shop/category_stabilized_lye_en/solution-for-body-stabilized-black-sea-lye/#description)
Made a small batch with 500 ml oil, 100 g lye and 600 ml water, 200 ml of it with Black sea salt water (it has Ph of 7,5, so it is like a water). First the lye solution turned a bit weird - white speckles formed from salted liquid, but soon it was just opal and homogeneous. Did not clear though. Put all the liquid at once to the oil and stirred for about 2 hours with spatula. It had a light trace, but I wanted more. So, pissed of, I SB pulsing very shortly a few times, just to help the trace thicken a bit. Worked. Put in a slab carton mold, hoping for better.
After 18 h the batch seemed like ivory with some greenish tint (I guess from laurel infusion). The feeling cutting it was great! It has some oilish lubricant cover and the pieces were like butter. I took pictures, if anyone is interested. 
Now I'll wait. They are the creamiest and lovely soap pieces I've seen so far.
Maybe it is a good idea to make standard 100% OO recipe, 2:1 liquid:lye, 5%SF with the same ingredients to compare afterwards. I have some Black sea lye and laurel infused oil left for experiments. 
Forgot to mention there are no additives - color or aroma. I want it simple.
And thank you all for such a interesting thread and efforts!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/UCFE9mZ17aQS2iyx8







Trying to show my result. The soap feels like butter from fridge. Feel chilly of the evaporating liquid.


----------



## Mobjack Bay

Your soap looks great.  I recently read through this thread and agree that it is like stepping back into history.  The complicated chemistry of soap making is fascinating, but sometimes also frustrating.  I don’t think I have the patience to try this one, but look forward to reading any updates you provide on how your soap changes over time, especially given your additives.


----------



## Fiut

Mobjack Bay said:


> Your soap looks great.  I recently read through this thread and agree that it is like stepping back into history.  The complicated chemistry of soap making is fascinating, but sometimes also frustrating.  I don’t think I have the patience to try this one, but look forward to reading any updates you provide on how your soap changes over time, especially given your additives.



I'm glad to revive this thread  So far the soap smells like olives and is silky pleasant. I'll update for sure!


----------



## Primrose

I hate to be the one to say it but generally speaking the admin team here prefer you to create new threads and link to old ones, rather than reviving or "necroposting" ancient threads like this. 

Best of luck with your soap, and it might be best if you start a new thread for updates, you can include a link to this one for background info


----------



## Fiut

Thank you for pointing Primrose! I'll do this right away, no problems  As you can see I'm new to this forum, so not familiar with all the rules.
So the new thread is https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/castile-superlye-method-experiment.76385/


----------

