beginner- need help pleeeasse!

[h~aly]

hi everyone,
this is my first time to post something on a forum, so i am not quite sure how this all works
i have not spent months or years researching soaps , as i wanted to get right to it and learn through trial and error.
i made a batch of 100% olive oil soap just 2 days ago using the cold process method.. i think it was a success for a first time, i am not too sure.
i managed to bring my mix to trace, and it started to set quite nicely in the mold. i waited 24hrs and took it out of the mold to find it had a very thin unnoticeable condensation layer on the surface (a mixture of water and oil i think), i turned the soap over to find that there were pockets of oil on the bottom.
also today i realized that there are some sort of salt crystals or something on the surface.... what did i do wrong??
with difficulty using the lye calculator, my recipe was:
500g olive oil
63g lye
171.5 ml water
1g apple fragrance( i dont know how much fragrance to use)

i would like to try again tomorrow (only make one bar- approx 5.5oz)if i could get some help that would be much appreciated!

 

[dieSpinne]

Hmmm... the first thing I notice is that you, like me, jumped right into the deep end and started with one of the more challenging oils.

Olive oil takes longer to come to true trace and takes much longer (sometimes as much as 96 hours at room temperature) to set enough to unmold. How much water did you use to dissolve the lye?

All that being said, the presence of crystals concerns me because there may be some unsaponified lye in your soap and that is a bad thing.
Best advice, considering the crystals, is to throw all of it into a crockpot or a stainless steel double boiler (NOT ALUMINUM!!!) that can hold it all and has quite a bit of headroom and rebatch the soap, which means to melt the soap down and mix really good at a moderately warm temperature. The texture of the finished soap will not be as nice, but you won't have unfinished soap causing chemical burns either.

Once your soap has melted, take it off the heat and let it set for a few minutes (a candy thermometer can be helpful here) until the melted soap comes down below the flashpoint of your fragrance oil (It is usually on the label of the oil). For a half a kilo of oil, 20 grams of fragrance is usually not too much (though you should always research the use concentration limit to prevent skin reactions). I suspect 1 gram of FO in a 500grams of oil is not going to give you the scent concentration you are looking for.

Once you mix the FO into the soap, get it into a mold quick because it is likely to set up as it cools. Alternatively, you can take it when it is in the plastic stage and roll it into soap-balls to give away as samplers or to people who want to test your soap for you... or you can use them as inserts in other soap.

Happy soaping and welcome to the addiction.

 

[h~aly]

hahaha ok so basically i put no fragrance at all in comparison to the amount of oil i used.(i thought olive oil would be an easy oil, although i did read that it would take a long time to trace, so i used a stick blender and trace seemed to be perfect)
i used 171.5 ml of water... is my calculation correct?
i will definitely try reheating it (is that what they call "rebatching"?), and use it in the next batch
i live in egypt, so i dont have kits or labelled instructions as to how much i should use of anything, as i buy all my oils and fragrances from a natural herb and spice shop(they sell you everything in tiny plastic bottles or plastic bags.. that is all that is available here as far as i know)
is it possible to make one bar of soap at a time until i get it right?

thank you so much for the reply
cant wait for the addiction to hit me!

 

[Fragola]

You can do 1 bar at a time, but there are some difficulties you may need to overcome:

- bigger weighting errors
- more air bubbles
- the blender splashing more

 

[dagmar88]

hahaha ok so basically i put no fragrance at all in comparison to the amount of oil i used.(i thought olive oil would be an easy oil, although i did read that it would take a long time to trace, so i used a stick blender and trace seemed to be perfect)
i used 171.5 ml of water... is my calculation correct?
i will definitely try reheating it (is that what they call "rebatching"?), and use it in the next batch
i live in egypt, so i dont have kits or labelled instructions as to how much i should use of anything, as i buy all my oils and fragrances from a natural herb and spice shop(they sell you everything in tiny plastic bottles or plastic bags.. that is all that is available here as far as i know)
is it possible to make one bar of soap at a time until i get it right?

thank you so much for the reply
cant wait for the addiction to hit me!

Make sure their fragrances are body safe.
And even then; I'd go for fragrance oils (FO's) specially designed for soap or essential oils (EO's).

I wouldn't make batches under 500 grams. The room for error gets too small.

Here's a good calculator:
http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

 

[fiddletree]

I wouldn't go much under the batch size you are doing now. Your amounts look fine.

I think you might have gotten 'false trace', which is when it looks like it has reached trace but it hasn't really, and then it separates when it is the mold. Olive oil, especially if it is virgin or extra virgin, can take a very long time to trace, even with a stick blender. Do you have access to any other oils? That can help a lot.

For scent, I usually use about 35 g per kg, depending on the EO and how strong I want it. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

 

[Fragola]

I think you might have gotten 'false trace', which is when it looks like it has reached trace but it hasn't really

I thought that false trace only happens when the oils get that cold that they begin to solidify.

 

[h~aly]

Hmmm... the first thing I notice is that you, like me, jumped right into the deep end and started with one of the more challenging oils.

Olive oil takes longer to come to true trace and takes much longer (sometimes as much as 96 hours at room temperature) to set enough to unmold. How much water did you use to dissolve the lye?

All that being said, the presence of crystals concerns me because there may be some unsaponified lye in your soap and that is a bad thing.
Best advice, considering the crystals, is to throw all of it into a crockpot or a stainless steel double boiler (NOT ALUMINUM!!!) that can hold it all and has quite a bit of headroom and rebatch the soap, which means to melt the soap down and mix really good at a moderately warm temperature. The texture of the finished soap will not be as nice, but you won't have unfinished soap causing chemical burns either.

Once your soap has melted, take it off the heat and let it set for a few minutes (a candy thermometer can be helpful here) until the melted soap comes down below the flashpoint of your fragrance oil (It is usually on the label of the oil). For a half a kilo of oil, 20 grams of fragrance is usually not too much (though you should always research the use concentration limit to prevent skin reactions). I suspect 1 gram of FO in a 500grams of oil is not going to give you the scent concentration you are looking for.

Once you mix the FO into the soap, get it into a mold quick because it is likely to set up as it cools. Alternatively, you can take it when it is in the plastic stage and roll it into soap-balls to give away as samplers or to people who want to test your soap for you... or you can use them as inserts in other soap.

Happy soaping and welcome to the addiction.

im glad im not the only one thats done that then haha
so basically i used no fragrance in comparison to my oil
i used 171.5ml of water, ive been told thats too much! how do i figure out the right amount if the lye calc gives me a range?
i did a tongue test : it was not zappy or rancid actually tasted exactly like salt( i am wondering if it because i used tap water- i know it was not preferable to do this but i wanted to get right to it)
ill definitely throw it into a crockpot and roll them into balls .. i really like that idea
do you think that i should try making the same batch again with no fragrance or try different oils?
how can i tell the difference between true trace and false trace? sorry if i am asking so many questions and seem totally ignorant when it comes to soap.. im just very eager to learn
thank you so much for your reply

 

[h~aly]

You can do 1 bar at a time, but there are some difficulties you may need to overcome:

- bigger weighting errors
- more air bubbles
- the blender splashing more

yeah that definitely makes sense... ok i shall try making a batch slightly smaller but not that small.
its just that i dont want to waste that much material, when i am just learning the process and not even being creative yet
thanks for the reply

 

[h~aly]

I wouldn't go much under the batch size you are doing now. Your amounts look fine.

I think you might have gotten 'false trace', which is when it looks like it has reached trace but it hasn't really, and then it separates when it is the mold. Olive oil, especially if it is virgin or extra virgin, can take a very long time to trace, even with a stick blender. Do you have access to any other oils? That can help a lot.

For scent, I usually use about 35 g per kg, depending on the EO and how strong I want it. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

i didnt really separate it looked like a very thin unnoticeable condensation layer of water on the surface. i touched the surface after 24hrs the surface seemed oily, but also not a an apparent thick layer of oil

i asked someone to get me some oils trouble is they only got like 30ml bottles of it haha, (almond oil, castor oil, coconut oil and sesame oil... any suggestions)
thanks for the fragrance tip!

 

[Soapy Gurl]

This is a great lye calculator. It took me a little time to learn it, it has a lot of information. It wont give you a range.

http://www.soapcalc.net/

If you are doing small batches be very careful to measure your lye correctly. If you have to round on your scale round down not up.

 

[dagmar88]

This is a great lye calculator. It took me a little time to learn it, it has a lot of information. It wont give you a range.

http://www.soapcalc.net/

If you are doing small batches be very careful to measure your lye correctly. If you have to round on your scale round down not up.

Even then... You'd have to have a very accurate scale (like a jewelry scale 0.1 g) and oils and butters can differ slightly in sap value.

So, if you want to save yourself any money, don't go for those small batches.

 

[Fragola]

You can use less water or more water. I usually go between 2.3 to 2.7 x lye amount. Which for your 63 grams of lye would mean 140-170 ml water.

For a pure olive soap, you can go even lower, around 2x (read few days ago about somebody happily using 1.8x). Lower than that can be tricky and is not recommended for a beginner.

It can be good idea to add to your recipe oils which produce a harder bar, like coconut, palm.

 

[Relle]

As soapy girl said soapcalc.net won't give you a range.

Here's what came up on that one.

500g OO
190g water
64.439g lye

I noticed you have mls for water,its better to keep to grams if thats what you are measuring in.

 

[h~aly]

You can use less water or more water. I usually go between 2.3 to 2.7 x lye amount. Which for your 63 grams of lye would mean 140-170 ml water.

For a pure olive soap, you can go even lower, around 2x (read few days ago about somebody happily using 1.8x). Lower than that can be tricky and is not recommended for a beginner.

It can be good idea to add to your recipe oils which produce a harder bar, like coconut, palm.

ive never seen that water calc before, is it your own? i shall definitely try it.

my second batch had 40%OO 20% sweet almond 20% castor oil and 20% coconut oil in it.. should that do the trick?

 

[h~aly]

As soapy girl said soapcalc.net won't give you a range.

Here's what came up on that one.

500g OO
190g water
64.439g lye

I noticed you have mls for water,its better to keep to grams if thats what you are measuring in.

oh wow! does that mean my recipe was oil heavy? i used less lye and less water
ok i shall stick to grams
how do you know how much water to use on soapcalc.net i cant figure it out, do you calculate it yourself? or does it give you the amount? if you put in a percentage or ratio, wat should it be?

 

[Fragola]

ive never seen that water calc before, is it your own? i shall definitely try it.

It's just a personal choice of mine, after trying few batches with different water amounts.

This is how I see things: after you do few experiments, you will have your own recipe. At that time, you will know if you feel more comfortable with more or less water.

oh wow! does that mean my recipe was oil heavy? i used less lye and less water

"Oil heavy" is too strong of a word. It's just a small difference, between a superfat 5 and 7. Many people like a higher superfat.

More water doesn't make your soap more oily or less oily, the water will evaporate anyway after few weeks.