Confusion regarding lye concentration

Here comes another newbie question, I made 2 batches of soap so far and both the times used the default lye concentration on SoapCalc and both the times, the soap set up kinda fast. Before making soap, I read few blogs regarding the lye concentration and they said, more water, more time to play... so, I went with it for the last month challenge and had a tough time with Ebru technique. While I was reading posts in that challenge thread, a soaper suggested using 40% lye for more play time, I.e less water. So, I decided to go with that for my next batch and planned everything out on SoapCalc and today read a post somewhere on the forum which said higher water gives you more time to do swirls and all... so clearly, I am back to square one.

Kindly share your thoughts and experiences and enlighten my confused and curious mind.

I haven't experimented with those things yet but everybody seems to agree that higher lye concentration makes for faster trace and lower lye concentration makes for slower trace= more play time. So I would go with that.

What was the problem with the ebru challenge? To fast trace? What lye concentration did you use? Also, have you tried with different recipes, some oil combinations or ratios might just not work very well for those kind of things.

I'm quite curious about this too. Most blogs say to increase water for longer fluidity. But I've seen that some people here recommend the opposite.

I think a lot depends on your recipe. If you have a "fluid" recipe (lard, lots of soft oils), it will stay very fluid without the extra water. But if you have a recipe high in hard oils (ones that are high in saturated fatty acids), perhaps those are the ones that benefit the most from more water.

Then of course, there's always the other elements at play. Temperature, mixing style, fragrances, additives...

A lot of other things go into the decision whether to use more water or less to get more "play" time. So ... as always, context, context, context. You need to tell us the whole story -- what is your recipe, your method, and all that?

Newbie and I are big advocates of low water, under certain conditions. We have had soap stay at emulsion for literally over an hour using this method.
Recipe.
Recipe is important. Known accelerants like pomace olive oil, high castor, and high coconut oil will speed trace time.
Adding colorants.
Mixing colorants in water, like TD, speeds trace in that portion, more so when using low water in the main batch. AC can thicken up batter too, making the split portions uneven in thickness. Finally, we both found some brown micas also speed trace.
Stick blending.
People have a tendency to over sb. They go beyond emulsion to a light thin trace and think it is actually at emulsion. Learning to sb only to emulsion is key with low water. I will edit this and insert a link to our smf youtube channel where newbie made a video on blending to emulsion only.

Finally, fragrance!!!
Fragrances that do not A in regular or high water may A super fast in low water. Newbie and I have experimented for at least a year, if I am correct, with fragrances and found several that work beautifully in low water. The fo is key. I listed several fos in my challenge thread that work well in low water.

So low water can slow trace to a crawl, if you keep all these tidbits in mind. I will go find that link to newbies video, and be back to edit!

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39pLHKMtN6o&t=1s[/ame]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PyOPEpwpLU[/ame]

Two great videos on sb to emulsion and trace.

A final edit.
My recipe is typically
15% sweet almond oil
5% castor
Either 18% coconut oil OR 12%pko flakes and 8%co
Lard is the rest
Occasionally I will up the castor to 6%, i recently tried a 5% addition of avovado oil, and sometimes I add shea.

Ok, last edit I promise! Here is the list of fos that work well in low water. I posted this on febs challenge thread, but it would be unfair to make everyone go dig up the list if they were curious. Here is a c and p of it.


Lionprincess quote-*


I like bb neroli Shea blossom, kumquat, lychee red tea I think it is, Summer fling A on me in low water, fresh snow behaves very well (if you like it, newbie can't stand it...love hate thing), BlackBerry sage went well, moonlight pomegranate clumps a little (ricing) and A, but smells good, champagne behaves, tobacco bay leaf though I don't think I used low water on it, i was able to do a butterfly swirl so behaves enough for that. Lavender forest is perfect.


OT fragrances in low water that behave, green Irish tweed, silver mountain water, but not made to measure, it says on the site it's a pale cream, no, it's a D to rich milk chocolate and A. Mysore sandalwood is supurb in low water.*


Fragrance buddy black cedarwood and juniper behaved well in low water, patchouli passion too.

Looking at my notes from previous soaps, here are more suggestions...
Almond from rustic escentuals worked in 40% lye, toffee sugar crunch from daystar, pomegranate black currant (from bb i think, can NOT remember, newbie would probably know) blended with earl grey from mad oils, black amber musk from wsp, oakmoss sandalwood did ok from wsp, be delicious blossom wsp, the perfect man from ng...

Several of those did happened to discolor unfortunately, but they did work in low water.

NEWBIES QUOTE (from the old thread)
I can tell you that Champagne, Blackberry Sage, Lemongrass, and Kumquat work well. Most Sandalwoods and straight Patchoulis work well. I think Espresso works well in low water.


(I *think* these are predominantly bb fos, but I am not certain.)

I find much depends on recipe. My go to recipes give work time but not nearly an hour witha33% lye concentration. I do have one very slow trace recipe that will give at least an hour play time with a 38% lye concentration. While most would not call it a bad soap, I hate it, but if I really want to play I will use it in a small batch and cure it to 4- 6 months before taking to market with a recommended expiration date. My go to vegan soap gives me about 5 min to play with a 33% concentration. I find you have to test until you find what works for you. We do know lard and olive oil are slow tracing. A very nice acting fo to begin with if you want to play is B &B's Energy. It smells nice with no discoloration or acceleration

DeeAnna said:

A lot of other things go into the decision whether to use more water or less to get more "play" time. So ... as always, context, context, context. You need to tell us the whole story -- what is your recipe, your method, and all that?

Click to expand...

I use a lot of soft oils as lard and tallow is not an option here and we get palmolein and not palm. My recipes:
1
Sweet Almond :10
Castor : 5
Coconut oil : 15
Shea butter :15
Olive : 30
Rice bran : 25
Fragrance: rose oil ( essential oil blend)

2
Sweet Almond :6
Castor : 4
Coconut oil :20
Palmolein:30
Olive : 20
Rice bran :10
Shea :10
Fragrance: None

Default SoapCalc lye concentration. I Used oxide colours. My method is SB for 3 sec, stir with spatula for 3 and alternate until thin trace.. separate, mix with colours, into the mould.

lionprincess00 said:

Newbie and I are big advocates of low water, under certain conditions. We have had soap stay at emulsion for literally over an hour using this method.
Recipe.
Recipe is important. Known accelerants like pomace olive oil, high castor, and high coconut oil will speed trace time.
Adding colorants.
Mixing colorants in water, like TD, speeds trace in that portion, more so when using low water in the main batch. AC can thicken up batter too, making the split portions uneven in thickness. Finally, we both found some brown micas also speed trace.
Stick blending.
People have a tendency to over sb. They go beyond emulsion to a light thin trace and think it is actually at emulsion. Learning to sb only to emulsion is key with low water. I will edit this and insert a link to our smf youtube channel where newbie made a video on blending to emulsion only.

Finally, fragrance!!!
Fragrances that do not A in regular or high water may A super fast in low water. Newbie and I have experimented for at least a year, if I am correct, with fragrances and found several that work beautifully in low water. The fo is key. I listed several fos in my challenge thread that work well in low water.

So low water can slow trace to a crawl, if you keep all these tidbits in mind. I will go find that link to newbies video, and be back to edit!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39pLHKMtN6o&t=1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PyOPEpwpLU

Two great videos on sb to emulsion and trace.

A final edit.
My recipe is typically
15% sweet almond oil
5% castor
Either 18% coconut oil OR 12%pko flakes and 8%co
Lard is the rest
Occasionally I will up the castor to 6%, i recently tried a 5% addition of avovado oil, and sometimes I add shea.

Ok, last edit I promise! Here is the list of fos that work well in low water. I posted this on febs challenge thread, but it would be unfair to make everyone go dig up the list if they were curious. Here is a c and p of it.


Lionprincess quote-*


I like bb neroli Shea blossom, kumquat, lychee red tea I think it is, Summer fling A on me in low water, fresh snow behaves very well (if you like it, newbie can't stand it...love hate thing), BlackBerry sage went well, moonlight pomegranate clumps a little (ricing) and A, but smells good, champagne behaves, tobacco bay leaf though I don't think I used low water on it, i was able to do a butterfly swirl so behaves enough for that. Lavender forest is perfect.


OT fragrances in low water that behave, green Irish tweed, silver mountain water, but not made to measure, it says on the site it's a pale cream, no, it's a D to rich milk chocolate and A. Mysore sandalwood is supurb in low water.*


Fragrance buddy black cedarwood and juniper behaved well in low water, patchouli passion too.

Looking at my notes from previous soaps, here are more suggestions...
Almond from rustic escentuals worked in 40% lye, toffee sugar crunch from daystar, pomegranate black currant (from bb i think, can NOT remember, newbie would probably know) blended with earl grey from mad oils, black amber musk from wsp, oakmoss sandalwood did ok from wsp, be delicious blossom wsp, the perfect man from ng...

Several of those did happened to discolor unfortunately, but they did work in low water.

NEWBIES QUOTE (from the old thread)
I can tell you that Champagne, Blackberry Sage, Lemongrass, and Kumquat work well. Most Sandalwoods and straight Patchoulis work well. I think Espresso works well in low water.


(I *think* these are predominantly bb fos, but I am not certain.)

Click to expand...

Thank you so much for taking time to reply, as I am from India, we don't have all those fragrances and suppliers here. So I plan on using simple essential oils, which I did not use in my soaps yet. I will check out the videos for sure.

When I am doing challenges, I will occasionally use essential oils to make sure my soaps do not accelerate with my 40% lye. The dna swirl I did was made with eos, in fact. I have used blends with lavender 42/40 (whatever it is called), fine french Lavender, cedarwood, juniper berry, frankincense, bergamot, patchouli, etc. Not all at once, but these particular ones, in blends, with excellent results in 40% lye.

Soapprentice said:

Here comes another newbie question, I made 2 batches of soap so far and both the times used the default lye concentration on SoapCalc and both the times, the soap set up kinda fast. Before making soap, I read few blogs regarding the lye concentration and they said, more water, more time to play... so, I went with it for the last month challenge and had a tough time with Ebru technique. While I was reading posts in that challenge thread, a soaper suggested using 40% lye for more play time, I.e less water. So, I decided to go with that for my next batch and planned everything out on SoapCalc and today read a post somewhere on the forum which said higher water gives you more time to do swirls and all... so clearly, I am back to square one.

Kindly share your thoughts and experiences and enlighten my confused and curious mind.

Click to expand...

I've been running some tests over the last few weeks and found that using the same recipe each time, changing only the lye concentration, I was able to take the trace time from about 15 minutes to well over an hour (to the point it was annoyingly slow!). I didn't add the essential oils until after trace, so they didn't impact the time it took.

The two concentrations were 33% and 50%. The longer term test with these bars is the residual pH over time (with a side test on scent holding over the two strengths), so these ones are bedding down for the next year - I'll know more then :mrgreen:

I usually use higher water to slow trace - changing the lye concentration from 33% to 28% slows trace nicely (but not by these massive margins).

The first time I had a "what the...?" moment with low water soap not tracing very quickly was when I tried my hand at an Auntie Clara Ghost Swirl. The soaping oils were divided into half, and to one half of the oils I added a 45% lye solution and the other half was a 30% lye solution. There were no colorants added, and my EO blend was 70% Rosemary and 30% Spearmint.

The recipe was:
45% Olive Oil
20% Beef Tallow
15% Coconut Oil, 76 degree
15% Sweet Almond Oil
5% Castor Oil

I started by mixing the high water portion (30% lye) because I figured it would take a while to trace. Well, it didn't. Then I turned to the low water portion (45% lye) and much to my surprise, it took quite some time to get to trace and, of course, meanwhile the high water was thickening by the minute. Since then I have played around with water and find, with my recipes, a lye concentration in the 36-40% range works better for me if I need more time for design elements. I have no idea why. But please note that most of my recipes are higher in soft oils (60%+).

You may find it to be a fun experiment to do a Ghost Swirl soap to see what kind of results you get with a typical recipe you use. For me it was illuminating, and added to the dark shroud of mystery that is soaping.

Thank you guy, I will start experimenting with diff lye concentration for the same recipe and see. I will definitely try auntie ghost swirl in our peak summer when the temperature is around 50C with insulating as I don't have an oven.