CP Felted Soap Problem

[Vickywms]

I recently made 2 batches of coconut oil soap. One was cold processed and one hot processed. After theyhadcured, I felted some of my raw wool around the bars of soap. That worked great but when I sold or gave away my felted soaps, when they used them, the soap got very soft almost gel like. Is there something I can do to
Prevent this?

 

[newbie]

Coconut oil makes for a very soluble soap that will disappear quickly. Was the recipe 100% Coconut oil? The dampness of the wool would allow it to dissolve even more, as the wetness sits on the soap, and if they kept it in a damp environment, like in a soap dish or tray that doesn't drain well, it would be even worse. Did you cure the soap for at least 6 weeks? If it was younger than that, water would not have evaporated out of the bar as much as it could and that would make for a shorter lived and more soluble soap as well.

I would consider trying a different recipe that is less soluble (assuming this was 100% CO), a full cure before felting and then make sure you instruct people to let the bar dry fully between uses.

 

[kchaystack]

First, if you don't have a clue as to what is going on with this - you probably are not ready to be selling soap.

So you made 100% coconut oil soap? It would help when you post a question you include your recipe by weight, including alkali and liquid in your lye, and all additives you used.

But assuming it is 100% CO - the problem is probably that CO soap is VERY soluble in water. You wrapped a bunch of fibers around it that is going to keep the soap very damp. So it is no surprise it got mushy.

I would say you should use oils that produce less soluble soap for felting - like olive.

You can also make sure the soaps have a very well draining soapdish to rest on between uses, so as much water as possible drains away and the bar is not setting in water when not in use.

 

[cmzaha]

When I make soaps for felting I use my 45/25% tallow/lard or at least 50% palm oil to make a less soluble soap. Mine do not tend to get mushy if the soap is on a draining soap dish

 

[earlene]

I suggest you use your own felted soaps before giving away or selling (un-used ones) to see how the soap recipes perform in felting with repeated use. Some formulas work well while others do not last very well inside wet wool, and as mentioned, break apart and loose their appeal. If you have not used your creations yourself, you cannot know what the customer can expect.

What you want is a hard recipe that doesn't turn to gel or slime when in use. So, not high in Olive Oil or other oil that attracts water.

Also, how thick is your felting? A thinner layer may be in order. Super thick felting doesn't dry out as well as thinner felting, and in combination with a water-absorbing formula like Castile or high CO soap would make your felted soap into a soggy mess.

P.S. I have two of my own felted soaps in use in soap dishes right now. One is great at drying out between uses & I have taken it with me when I travel. I like this one for scrubbing my feet and it's getting pretty small now, but still quite firm and hard. The felting is rather thin; the soap is a hard formula. The other one is a total disappointment; the soap fell apart after a few uses; the felting is really thick, but the soap pieces inside seem to stay wet for days even though I keep it in an environment where all my other soaps dry out without issue. The second one is that combination of a too soft formula and a too thick felting.

 

[Vickywms]

When I make soaps for felting I use my 45/25% tallow/lard or at least 50% palm oil to make a less soluble soap. Mine do not tend to get mushy if the soap is on a draining soap dish

I am sorry I did not give percentages. My coconut oil soap is 20% coconut oil and the rest olive oil. I appreciate your response. I did allow the cold processed batch to cure 6 weeks. I am new to soap making and am using it as a way to use my sheeps wool as I raise sheep.

 

[newbie]

I would strongly advise you not to sell your soap if you are new to soap making. As soon as you sell it, you are open to liability for it and that is risky. Even seasoned soap makers will make mistakes but as a person new to soaping, it is even easier. There are all sorts of other issues such as labeling properly etc... not to mention that you don't want to sell a product that simply doesn't work.

With 80% Olive Oil, the soap needs a much much longer cure than 6 weeks to be at its best and OO soap can be very gooey and stringy.

I agree with Earlene that you should always use your own products to see how they work. Give it away in exchange for honest feedback and constructive criticism but don't sell for at least a year and without a lot of testing and feedback.

 

[Vickywms]

First, if you don't have a clue as to what is going on with this - you probably are not ready to be selling soap.

So you made 100% coconut oil soap? It would help when you post a question you include your recipe by weight, including alkali and liquid in your lye, and all additives you used.

But assuming it is 100% CO - the problem is probably that CO soap is VERY soluble in water. You wrapped a bunch of fibers around it that is going to keep the soap very damp. So it is no surprise it got mushy.

I would say you should use oils that produce less soluble soap for felting - like olive.

You can also make sure the soaps have a very well draining soapdish to rest on between uses, so as much water as possible drains away and the bar is not setting in water when not in use.

I apologize for not being up to the standards to even ask a question on this forum. I made 24 bars of olive oil soap and 24 bars of 20% coconut oil soap. My sister sold them at her church bazaar to her Sunday school members as a trial. I had already given away 20 bars to my coworkers and they had no issues with the soap. They all loved it. I have not sold any bars that were not felted as that is why I was making the soap to use my wool. In the future, please be more kind and patient with people who are new to the site. No one is in competition with you. How did you learn to make soap through trial and error and help from non judgemental people who were willing to give their advice through their own experiences.

 

[newbie]

New soap makers selling their soap is a very hot button issue on this forum and it usually elicits some very strong warnings to not sell. I agree about always being civil in giving those warnings, but it can be very difficult, even at its most civil, for new soap makers to hear.

For a number of reasons, some of which I mentioned above, testing two recipes and feedback from 20 bars of one recipe is not going to give you enough information to make your best quality bar. It really does require at least a year of tweaking, testing, feedback, and putting your soap through all sorts of different environments to know that you are making a soap that can stand up to different storage, humidity, heat, etc without degradation of the bar. It can lose its scent, it can go rancid, it can warp and do all sorts of things that would turn off a person in charge of that bar.

Felting to use your wool is a great idea. I just sent out some beautiful dyed rovings to a couple people to use for felting soap or other projects. it's a great use of your resources. Have you dyed any of your wool?

PS. Don't sell soap to people as a trial! People get very unhappy to pay for a product that is in testing.

 

[kchaystack]

I apologize for not being up to the standards to even ask a question on this forum. I made 24 bars of olive oil soap and 24 bars of 20% coconut oil soap. My sister sold them at her church bazaar to her Sunday school members as a trial. I had already given away 20 bars to my coworkers and they had no issues with the soap. They all loved it. I have not sold any bars that were not felted as that is why I was making the soap to use my wool. In the future, please be more kind and patient with people who are new to the site. No one is in competition with you. How did you learn to make soap through trial and error and help from non judgemental people who were willing to give their advice through their own experiences.

My comments were kind and patient. Trust me, there are far more harsh critics of what you did on this site than me.

Second, I never said you were not up to the standards to ask questions. I would not have answered if that was the case.

I learned by reading the first 10 pages of the beginners section of this forum, posting my recipes for feedback from forum members, and by practice. I have been making soap for 2 years and don't sell my soap, nor would I let anyone else sell my soap.

You need to have a much thicker skin if you are going to survive on the internet, my friend.

 

[Vickywms]

Yes, I have dyed my own wool. I shear, wash, card and dye my own wool. I also needle felt, and Nino felt scarves, purses, cat caves, dryer balls, etc. thanks for your response. I just want to use one type of soap that will work with my wool. Since the wool is a natural fiber, I wanted a natural soap to pair it with. It would be easy to just go buy bars of soap to use.

 

[newbie]

Okay, now I have to go look up Nino felt to see what that is. What are dryer balls? I have a friend who has a sheep farm and she uses the felted wool in all sorts of products that she makes.

It's not a problem to find just one recipe that works with your wool. The issue is all the testing that it takes to find that best recipe, which of course you recently found out by the feedback that your soap was dissolving in the wool. The criticism about selling too soon is directly reflected in that problem; imagine you paid good money for a soap that turned into mush with use. It makes for unhappy people and makes people far less likely to buy from you again in future and perhaps even to again try ANY handmade soap. Keep trying different recipes based on feedback from here and feedback from volunteers until you get what you want in the product.

 

[toxikon]

I think taking a step back from selling would be a good choice. Give yourself time to develop a stellar recipe that performs just how you want it to. Research what different oils bring to your soap and find the perfect recipe to suit your felt. Research and testing is extremely important.

Olive oil soap needs a very long cure to become good soap - after 6 weeks, it will still turn into a gloppy, gooey mess easily. Some people like to cure their olive oil soap for over a year before using it. Using a high lye concentration, low superfat and dual lye helps a lot. If you don't know any of those terms, you really need to do your research!

People are blunt not because we see you as "competition", but because selling poor-quality soap affects us all. If someone buys one bad bar of handmade soap, they may think that all handmade soap is like that, and will never purchase it again. It can be hard to convince a customer that your soap is good after they've tried the bad stuff. Some people spend years and years perfecting their recipes and people will still not believe that it is good soap because of their bad previous experience. It's frustrating for those who do put in the effort.

It's a common problem in a lot of crafty ventures like soapmaking. Newbies come along and begin selling before they're ready. They charge low prices (because it's a "fun hobby", not a job!) and offer low-quality, untested products. This affects the whole market negatively - the low prices make it more difficult for established crafters to charge what they're worth, and the low-quality products can turn off new customers who haven't tried the good stuff. Then when the newbies lose interest, they've already left a poor impact on the market. Now this doesn't apply to EVERYONE - but it does happen often.

 

[Vickywms]

I have taken a step back and am currently doing the chemical research. I last made soap back in February and that is when I discovered they did not hold up well in felt. I was curious if any other felters have had this issue and what recipe worked better for them. I am not interested in making a variety of soaps. I have enough on my plate with processing my wool. Was just looking for another way to put it to use. Thank you for your quick response. I am continuing to work on it.

 

[earlene]

Newbie, dryer balls are felted wool balls like tennis balls, that go into the dryer with wet laundry. It helps prevent wrinkling and are used instead of fabric softener.

Vickyms, your felting skills sound awesome! My SIL taught me to felt a couple of years ago. She took a couple of classes and made gloves, slippers, purses, and a variety of other things, including some nino felted items. I brought the soap; she brought the roving, netting, and some felting needles and we met up at Spring Training (in Arizona), where we dyed the roving, then felted a couple of dozen bars of soap. Later that trip, I taught my granddaughter to felt soap and together we made several bars she gave as gifts to her teachers and counselors at her school. She is quite the artist, so she had loads of fun customizing the designs on the felted soap. Since I had not brought enough soap with me, we actually went out and bought store-bought soap for some of her gift bars.

I have seen some gorgeous felted garments at several shops in the past couple of years, because now I am so interested in the medium. But I doubt I'll ever get as skilled as you are. If you care to share, I'd absolutely love to see some photos of your felting projects. There is a section for posting photos The Photo Gallery, as well as section for Other Crafts & DIY Projects. Either would be appropriate, I think. We Love, Love, Love photos of each other's artistic endeavors!

Here's one of my first felted soaps, just because I loved doing it and love the photo.

I had not taken my own advice about using my own product (felted soap) before gifting to others. At least I do know the soap I used for those first soaps where well cured and remained hard thoughout the life of the felted bar, because they were from the same batch as the one I mentioned before that is still hard/firm after several months of usage (occasional use). So I lucked out on that score. Since then I learned that not all soap will perform so well inside of felting.

My avatar is also a felted soap. I made the mold using silicone, then made the soap, then felted the soap. I've actually never used that soap and it hasn't been wet since I did the felting. But it was so much fun doing everything, including dying the roving!

Here's a better look at my Felted Fish soap.

Welcome to the forum, and please forgive me for hi-jacking your thread. I just love felting soap and would love to see some photos of yours and some of your other projects.

 

[DeeAnna]

"...I just want to use one type of soap that will work with my wool...."

That would be nice, but the fact is that one type of soap will not work well for every purpose.

For use when wet felting, you want a soap that dissolves easily in water but doesn't lather a lot. A high oleic soap fits the bill very well.

All or mostly olive oil is fine, but you can also use high oleic sunflower or HO safflower or any other high oleic oil to make this type of soap. High oleic soaps absorb water quickly, produces a jelly like or syrupy soap that is great for using when wet felting, and makes a low, dense lather.

Your 20% coconut and 80% olive is a mostly olive soap, not a "coconut soap." It will be a little harsher on your hands if you use it for felting. It will produce more lather due to the extra coconut oil than you might prefer. But soap made with this recipe will dissolve quickly in water, so that is good for felting.

For soap suitable for felting over, the ideal soap is different. Since the felt holds water against the soap, you want to formulate a recipe for soap that is more resistant to absorbing water and less soluble in water. An olive-coconut recipe is a poor choice for this purpose. You want a soap higher in stearic and palmitic acid, such as soaps made with mostly lard, tallow, or palm oil. I'd also use a little bit of coconut for added lather, but I'd avoid a recipe high in oleic acid, because high oleic soaps absorb water very quickly.

As Earlene pointed out, you also want a thin layer of felt on the soap. Just enough to cover the bar sufficiently well, but thin enough to dry as fast as possible.

 

[Vickywms]

Thanks for the advice. When wet felting my scarves and such I use my olive oil soap to felt them. It works great. So just need to find a recipe for a bar that will not readily absorb and hold the water.

 

[dixiedragon]

I agree with the other comments about not selling until you know a lot more about the product. Look at it this way - say somebody picked up a bunch of wool from some place, dyed it and felted some stuff and sold it after very minimal research. Then their products fail - the dye runs off and stains things, the item falls apart, etc. I'd imagine you'd be upset that this person was selling their poorly made products and turning customers off of well-made wool products.

That's how we feel.

 

[Vickywms]

It is fine to feel that way. But I came to this forum for help and feel as though I have been crucified. I am unsubscribing. Sorry to have ruffled feathers.

 

[dixiedragon]

You aren't being crucified. That's quite a dramatic statement.