# Latest soaps and HP fluidity lessons



## Dawni (May 27, 2019)

So.... I said somewhere that I'll be writing this post pretending I'm a very experienced HP soaper lol. Let's see how it goes..

But pleeeease, correct me if I'm wrong anywhere, refute me if your experience was different, and add your tips if you're so inclined. We need as much info on HP as we can get, coz there isn't much out there.

First off, a soap I made for the monthly challenge.





This is a 60% lard recipe, with full water, part added hot after the cook, and a teaspoon of yogurt added to each separate container of colored soap. I should say that I had these containers sitting in a hot water bath the whole time I was pouring.

Interesting, this indigo. In the below pic, the soap on the left was cut about an hour before the pic was taken, and the one on the right about 2mins. Middle one was cut 5mins before the one on the right. Notice the color changes?




Next up, is my rice soap. Third time to restock this as it's a favorite if the family. This soap is vegan, with cocoa butter and shea making up 38% of the oils. Full water again with part reserved for after, no yogurt this time, and no water bath since I didn't plan on complicated swirls.








I poured the lighter part only on one side in layers alternating with the rest of the soap and spoon swirled, hoping for thin wispy curls. I need more practice but not bad I think.

Now we come to the lessons I've learned.

1. I've experimented with less water, to decrease chances of warping during cure. I've gone as low as 2.6:1 water and noticed it works with high lard recipes best, not vegan soaps that are high on butters. For those, 3:1 or 25%. Another reason is I can add yogurt to help with the lack of water in the lard recipes. If not for the challenge I'd have used 2.8:1 water like I did the last time I soaped the same recipe.

2. My slow cooker is now almost always on high. Takes less than 20mins from start to almost done, then it's off for it to cook fully. After, I add part of my reserved water (about 20% of the calculated amount), which I heat to hot, not warm, before adding. Sometimes I don't need to add yogurt, sometimes not even the water if I'm not doing complicated swirls.

3. When I'm soaping on high, with 3:1 water, I stir every 5-7mins. Less chances of uneven cooking (thanks for this tip @msunnerstood!) and burning. When I soap on low, I stir only near the end but depending on your recipe, reserved hot water or yogurt to add after the cook helps only somewhat. This no mixing method I do for lard soaps and single colored or chunky marbled soap, not for high butter soaps or multiple colors or thinner swirls.

4. Adding your (heated up) superfat after the cook helps. If you have an oven, having your containers, spatulas and molds heated up also helps, but since I have no oven I use the microwave to warm my mold, and I soap with my plastic containers sitting in a hot water bath. My challenge soap was done that way. I imagine plastic wrap will help more but we don't use that in this house so water bath and rushing it was.

5. I cannot stress the importance of yogurt in HP soap if you want it pourable. I don't always use it because I like the look of soap without it sometimes, but the batter is somewhere in between gloppy and pourable. Increasing water is enough for fluidity, yes, but I have a soap from September that's gotten badly warped up and my notes say the water was 3.2:1 and no yogurt. I haven't found a vegan alternative yet but @szaza suggests soy milk yogurt (she's also who started me on reserving part my water, so thank you!).

6. Last pointer is time management. You can't afford to lose the heat in HP if you want fluid batter. Unless you have plastic wrap (I think) you really need to get everything ready beforehand, to avoid exposing your soap to cooler air outside the pot as much as you're able. In the challenge soap, my colorants were added to the hot reserved water, and in the case of my rice soap the colorant was added to the hot superfat first, and the titanium dioxide to hot reserved water. Any other dry additives I usually add to a tablespoon of hot water, then to the soap, before turning off the slow cooker, since I mix a lot anyway. Actually, I add liquid additives this way too, like honey, diluted in hot reserved water (thanks to @IrishLass for this tip).

That's it I think? Haha sorry for the long and presumptuous post, but I wanted to consolidate what I've experienced and stuff I learned from the forum in one post I can link to for others. Thanks for your patience


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## msunnerstood (May 27, 2019)

Dawnie your challenge soap came out amazing! I also really like the whispy swirls you attained in the Rice soap, not an easy feat in HP


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## earlene (May 27, 2019)

Dawni said:


> 5. I cannot stress the importance of yogurt in HP soap if you want it pourable. I don't always use it because I like the look of soap without it sometimes, but the batter is somewhere in between gloppy and pourable. Increasing water is enough for fluidity, yes, but I have a soap from September that's gotten badly warped up and my notes say the water was 3.2:1 and no yogurt. I haven't found a vegan alternative yet but @szaza suggests soy milk yogurt (she's also who started me on reserving part my water, so thank you!).



If you want to search a bit about it, there are methods of producing lactic acid with raw cornstarch or beet sugar.  I have not looked into how it could be applied to soap, but it would be vegan.


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## KiwiSoap (May 27, 2019)

Thanks for sharing your experience here, Dawn! Your experimentation is paying dividends, your colours and swirls are so pretty, and your rice soap .. I would buy it for personal use if you weren’t half way around the world!  (I truly do wish I could try it!)

Keep up the great work and thanks again for sharing it with us!


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## Mobjack Bay (May 27, 2019)

Thank you so much for sharing this post and your techniques.  It’s really helpful.  I am so impressed by the swirls and pours you are able to get in HP soap.  Very pretty!


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## Lin19687 (May 27, 2019)

Nice swirls !
What is RICE soap?


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## Dawni (May 27, 2019)

msunnerstood said:


> Dawnie your challenge soap came out amazing! I also really like the whispy swirls you attained in the Rice soap, not an easy feat in HP


Thank you. It means a lot, coming from you  


earlene said:


> If you want to search a bit about it, there are methods of producing lactic acid with raw cornstarch or beet sugar.  I have not looked into how it could be applied to soap, but it would be vegan.


I will definitely do a search on that, thanks earlene  


KiwiSoap said:


> Thanks for sharing your experience here, Dawn! Your experimentation is paying dividends, your colours and swirls are so pretty, and your rice soap .. I would buy it for personal use if you weren’t half way around the world!  (I truly do wish I could try it!)
> 
> Keep up the great work and thanks again for sharing it with us!


Thanks, love! I'll get a couple of bars to ya somehow, one day lol


Mobjack Bay said:


> Thank you so much for sharing this post and your techniques.  It’s really helpful.  I am so impressed by the swirls and pours you are able to get in HP soap.  Very pretty!


Thank you! I can't wait to see what you come up with  


Lin19687 said:


> Nice swirls !
> What is RICE soap?


Thank you... It's my soap where all my additives (other than the usual sugar n salt, and coconut milk powder) are some form of rice. I have the non vegan recipe, and more info, posted here if you're interested


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## Lin19687 (May 27, 2019)

@Dawni AHHH  I thought you were talking about a High Rice Bran Oil soap


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## msunnerstood (May 27, 2019)

Something I discovered recently, Mixing the mica with hot sugar water instead of oil seems to keep the colors vivid and help with fluidity.


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## Dawni (May 27, 2019)

msunnerstood said:


> Something I discovered recently, Mixing the mica with hot sugar water instead of oil seems to keep the colors vivid and help with fluidity.


Yes, sugar water helps. I learned that from a video I once saw on YouTube. Unfortunately, I only remember it sometimes lol thanks for reminding me


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## szaza (May 27, 2019)

Oh sugar water, haven't tried that yet. Thanks for the tip! 
I also use a 1:2,7-3 lye concentration for HP and depending on how fluid I want the batter I adjust how much I add after the cook. I feel the amount I add after cook has more influence on warping than the total amount, though I haven't systematically tested that theory.
I also often use more than a tablespoon of yogurt ppo if I want a really fluid batter because I feel like I can get away with less  additional liquid.
Please remember I'm not the one who came up with the yogurt idea, I think it was Sharon Johnson who invented it..


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## Bladesmith (May 27, 2019)

This is a great post Dawni! It is definitely hard to find information on the subject. Do you use sodium lactate? I use it to harden my bars a bit. But I was also lead to believe that it has a tendency to hold on to water and can help in fluid recipes by helping to prevent evaporation during the cook. Frankly, I have no idea if it's true. I've only made my fluid soap with it and haven't tried without.

One thing I've not done is hold back some water until after the cook. I'm going to have to give that a try next time.

I've been using a lye concentration of 27.5% which I believe is a little less water than you use. I'll have to do more experimentation.


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## earlene (May 27, 2019)

msunnerstood said:


> Something I discovered recently, Mixing the mica with hot sugar water instead of oil seems to keep the colors vivid and help with fluidity.



I knew sugar helps with fluidity, but had not heard that about enhancing colors in HP.


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## msunnerstood (May 27, 2019)

earlene said:


> I knew sugar helps with fluidity, but had not heard that about enhancing colors in HP.



I read it and then I tested it out. My Challenge soap was done that way and the colors were brighter than Ive gotten before. I also used it with my honeysuckle Jasmine soap and its really bright too


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## earlene (May 28, 2019)

msunnerstood said:


> I read it and then I tested it out. My Challenge soap was done that way and the colors were brighter than Ive gotten before. I also used it with my honeysuckle Jasmine soap and its really bright too



Great to know.  I am going to have to give this a try!  So you actually make hot sugar water and mix the micas in while still hot?  What proportion of sugar to water do you use?


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## msunnerstood (May 28, 2019)

Yes very hot water so it wouldnt cool my soap down. I used about 1/2 tsp sugar for each color


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## szaza (May 28, 2019)

msunnerstood said:


> I read it and then I tested it out. My Challenge soap was done that way and the colors were brighter than Ive gotten before. I also used it with my honeysuckle Jasmine soap and its really bright too


Your entry soap is wonderful and I was already wondering how you got such beautiful bright colors!! [emoji106]


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## earlene (May 28, 2019)

msunnerstood said:


> Yes very hot water so it wouldnt cool my soap down. I used about 1/2 tsp sugar for each color



Thank you!  I will try this in my very next soap.


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## David Gregory (Oct 6, 2019)

Book marked and will study up tomorrow a.m.

Thank you for the link from the other thread !!!


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## josianeg (Apr 26, 2020)

Questions:

1) if I’m adding my preheated superfatting oil at the end of the cook, do I add it first (before yogurt and/or water)?

2) when you add yogurt, is Greek yogurt OK?  How much do you add?  I found 1 TBSP ppo in some posts here.

3) do you warm the yogurt before you add it (and if so, how warm do I want it)? I read in one of your posts that the yogurt is at room temperature, but doesn’t that cool the soap too much?

4) when you add yogurt do you ALSO add water?  if you add both...

a- is it important which you add first?
b- do you still use a 3:1 water to lye ratio?
c- let’s say held back 20% of the recipe’s water for after the cook, do you add less water (and if so, how much less) to account for the water in the yogurt?

5) you say that when you cook on low water or yogurt only help “somewhat” and that you don’t use the no stirring method for high butter recipes.  I was planning to cook my high butter recipe on low and stir because I was worried that if I cooked HP soap in the slow cooker on high it would overheat.  I know you stir every 5-7 min, do you do anything else to prevent the soap from volcanoing?

Thank you so much!   I’ve done a couple batches of CP soap but I’m hoping to make my first back of HP soap tomorrow.


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## josianeg (Apr 26, 2020)

I’m not usually this impatient, but I was hoping for a reply/replies this morning because I was planning to cook today...  

If someone other than Dawni knows the answer to even just some of these questions, I would really appreciate it.


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## szaza (Apr 26, 2020)

Hey @josianeg you'll often get more response if start a new thread since people will focus on your question. 

I'll try to answer with what I know. 
1) not sure if it matters, I think I add my oil first, but I'm actually not sure and it could easily be the other way around (I don't often add my sf after cook anymore)

2) any yoghurt is ok, I even use soymilk yoghurt and it works just as well as regular or goatmilk yoghurt or... so I don't see why greek would be different.

3) honestly, that depends on how lazy I am. I oven HP, so if I warm my yoghurt I just put it in the oven next to my soap (+-70°C)

4) yup.. first 1T/ppo of yoghurt (more isn't necessarily better in my experience) and then the rest of the liquid. If you go as high as 3:1 I'd subtract the yoghurt from the total liquid though again, I'm lazy, sometimes I don't (though mainly when there's a bit less water in my recipe, 3:1 is quite a lot)

5) stir/no stir seems to be a personal preference. I also don't stir my low temp oven HP. It just sits there and gently gels (no volcano due to low temp). Since the batter is most fluid in gel phase I wait until it's in full gel, then zap test and mix in whatever I prepared. 

Hope this helps!


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## Bladesmith (Apr 26, 2020)

Nice. I was just writing a response. Glad you got a response

Got an email as apparently this was a watched thread from a while back 

I add my superfat first then follow that with yogurt then any extra water with colorant added last.

Greek yogurt is fine, I prefer regular though. Just mix it really well.

I use 4-5% Yogurt (by weight as a percentage of total oil weight)

I can't help with the low temp stuff as I only do high temp, stirring the whole time to force the soap to cook fast and also force the volcano.


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## josianeg (Apr 26, 2020)

szaza said:


> Since the batter is most fluid in gel phase I wait until it's in full gel, then zap test and mix in whatever I prepared.
> 
> Hope this helps!



Yes thanks!

I find most people zap here test, isn’t it dangerous if there’s still lye left?


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## szaza (Apr 26, 2020)

There's a video in a pin (I think on the top of the lye based or beginner soap forum) on how to safely do a zap test. General consensus is it's the most reliable test method to see if the soap is done saponifying. If you don't feel comfortable zap testing, don't. It's not a must I pretty much never have a zap after a complete gel.


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## josianeg (Apr 26, 2020)

Bladesmith said:


> Nice. I was just writing a response. Glad you got a response
> 
> Got an email as apparently this was a watched thread from a while back
> 
> ...


 
Did I read correctly “force the volcano”?   Why?


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## Bladesmith (Apr 26, 2020)

josianeg said:


> Did I read correctly “force the volcano”?   Why?



Yep. In order to speed up the reaction to the point where the soap is fully cooked in around 10 minutes, you always get the rapid expansion that people call a “volcano”. As long as you are standing there, you can just keep stirring and it will keep it from going over your pot. It is best to have a larger container than you need when doing that so you give yourself a little leeway. Depending on the recipe, it can climb pretty fast.


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## szaza (Apr 26, 2020)

Yup, there are some people on this forum who seem to prefer that method, however it's not something you should do on your first try with HP. 
Also, a lot of people overcook their soaps. It doesn't need to take very long for HP to be finished, even with low temp HP. Often 20-30mins is enough for me.


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## Bladesmith (Apr 26, 2020)

Right. For me, there’s a few reasons I prefer the method. The first is time. I want to be able to pull all my soaping stuff out of the closet, make the soap, and put it all back up and finish cleaning in under an hour.

Even more important than time to me though is making a really smooth hp soap. I use a double broiler as I’ve found the sides of a crockpot get very hot and contribute to crusties forming. By using a double broiler and stirring the soap the whole time, I can completely eliminate lumps, bumps, and crusties.

Other people may not have to do that. It is what works for me and it is a little bit more advanced but hot process is pretty simple and forgiving, in general.

Edit: Like szaza said above though, it’s really probably better to keep it simple the first time. If for no other reason than to observe the different stages and get comfortable with the process.


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## josianeg (Apr 26, 2020)

Thank you guys! Which me luck!


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## josianeg (Apr 26, 2020)

Well, my first batch is done!  Can’t wait to see how it’ll be compared to my CP soaps but it’s definitely soap!  

I was never this happy to see soap suds while doing dishes!  It’s a breeze to clean up afterwards, compared to CP.


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## szaza (Apr 27, 2020)

I'm glad everything went well! Congrats on your first HP


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## Dawni (Sep 19, 2020)

Thought I should show how "fluid" my batter ends up.....


			https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OW9b5NBZc3rb6mMx4gSXcUsdlZXYZl1z/view?usp=drivesdk
		

I hope it works lol

This is a 60% RBO soap, with mango and cocoa butters making up around 25%. It stayed this way for quite a while... Took my sweet time molding 2 loaves and some mini molds, and there weren't many dried bits stuck to the pot. I guess what I'm trying to say is that your recipe also partly determines how fluid your soap can be.


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## earlene (Sep 19, 2020)

Dawni said:


> Thought I should show how "fluid" my batter ends up.....
> 
> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OW9b5NBZc3rb6mMx4gSXcUsdlZXYZl1z/view?usp=drivesdk
> ...


It looks like Cream of Wheat (hot cereal).


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## szaza (Sep 21, 2020)

Thanks for sharing! That's awesome fluidity you got there ;-)


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## Dawni (Sep 21, 2020)

earlene said:


> It looks like Cream of Wheat (hot cereal).


I had to look it up haha.. Yeah it does kinda look like it lol. In real it looked like baby food minus the flavor haha

Edit:
Could not edit my earlier post... But the RBO is 55% not 60% and the butters are 26%. Full recipe here if anyone is interested


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