CP Thickens so quickly!

[DarthSuds]

So I am relatively new to soap making but after watching a trillion tutorials I should be a pro it seems like. I’m having difficulty working with my batches after hitting trace. Here’s my recipe blend:
Cocoa Butter - 12%
Coconut Oil 76 - 27%
Castor Oil - 14%
Olive Oil - 28%
Shea Butter - 19%
Lye + Water = 44% of Oil

I’m letting the lye cool to about 110d before mixing with my oils which are around 100d. I’m getting to trace with a stick blender in about 1 minute. Then I add my FO/EO and add Mica powder directly to the mix. Stick blend again.

Once i get to pouring, the batter becomes more like pudding and I’d like to know how to keep it more liquid for longer. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[amd]

Too much stick blending for the amount of hard oils you have. My recipe is 65% hard oils and I pulse the stickblender - meaning that I run the stick blender for 3 seconds, hand stir with the blender for 15-20 seconds, and alternate between running/not running the stick blender for 2 minutes or less. I add my fragrances (EO or FO) to my oils before adding the lye so that I don't have to run the stick blender after getting to trace (just to combine colors). After some experience you'll be able to recognize emulsion and won't need to bring your recipe to trace. This makes it easier to separate, add colors and stickblend the colors in without getting your batter too thick.

A few things to keep in mind:
There's a great video on the forum showing emulsion. Use the search function to find it.
Some FO/EO will cause your batter to thicken up. (Acceleration) Know what you're adding and how it's going to react.
I haven't soaped with your recipe, but I suspect the shea butter and cocoa butter may be contributing to the thicker batter. If you've made adjustments to how you stick blend and still aren't happy, I would consider adjusting those two ingredients. I use 5% cocoa butter and 15% shea butter.

 

[shunt2011]

You've got 61% hard oils and 14% Castor. Your batter is going to move rather quickly regardless of what you do. Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter and too much castor makes things move fast. I don't recommend more that 5-7% Castor. It' enhances bubbles/lather but doesn't add. I would drop some of the butters and up your olive oil. Also depending on what you're using for EO/FO can play a part as well. Florals, Ocean and spicey scents can move really quickly. You could try adding your EO/FO to your oils before the lye and soap a bit cooler.

So, without some adjustments your soap is going to move.

 

[Zing]

I'll let the pros weigh in more on your recipe and trace. My 2 cents is that a little bit of castor oil goes a long way, and it's a must in my soaps. I use 4-5%, you can use up to 10%, more than that makes soap sticky. Pudding-like trace is fine UNLESS you want to do advanced swirling techniques when it should be thinner. Good luck to you and keep us posted with updates and photos. Congrats on the first!

 

[amd]

You've got 61% hard oils and 14% Castor.

Thanks, Shunt! I overlooked the castor amount - although I only come up with 58% hard oils. I agree: too much castor. I believe that will also speed up trace. I've been doing some experimenting with removing castor from my recipe and it seems to be more fluid (I only use 5%). I would start by dropping the original recipe to 5% castor oil and increase olive oil to 37%, run it through the lye calculator and try it. On a personal note: I don't like olive oil (or any high oleic oil) in my recipe over 30%, but I recommend trying it for yourself.

 

[dixiedragon]

Are you married to this recipe? IMO...it's not a good one.

 

[Hendejm]

Are you married to this recipe? IMO...it's not a good one.

I would agree! I wouldn’t use this recipe although I use most of those ingredients. I would suggest upping your olive oil, reducing your butters ALOT ( your recipe has 31% hard butters), reduce castor oil, add palm oil, reduce your water. Just my opinion.

 

[Chris_S]

So I am relatively new to soap making but after watching a trillion tutorials I should be a pro it seems like. I’m having difficulty working with my batches after hitting trace. Here’s my recipe blend:
Cocoa Butter - 12%
Coconut Oil 76 - 27%
Castor Oil - 14%
Olive Oil - 28%
Shea Butter - 19%
Lye + Water = 44% of Oil

I’m letting the lye cool to about 110d before mixing with my oils which are around 100d. I’m getting to trace with a stick blender in about 1 minute. Then I add my FO/EO and add Mica powder directly to the mix. Stick blend again.

Once i get to pouring, the batter becomes more like pudding and I’d like to know how to keep it more liquid for longer. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

I would agree with too much castor 5% has been plenty for me to get a lovely soap and also i personally choose to use lower coconut oil and only use shea OR cocoa butter in my recipe. but i as someone suggested do use palm in my soaps.
As amd said your doing too much stick blending. I do as amd said and blast stir blast stir till just at trace but i add my fo or eo when iv divided my batter into jugs and added the colours then i mix with a silicone whisk then add fragrance and whisk again then start adding to the mold. If i know im working with a fo thats naughty i will add it at the latest possible time in the process and will if its a really naughty fo in a loaf ill go for single colour because iv had the batter sieze on me before and thats not fun to try work with so need it in asap

 

[IrishLass]

Okay, I'm going to be the odd man (lass) out by going against the current of this being a bad recipe. I say this because the fatty acid profile is very close to one of my main keeper recipes (my hubby's favorite showering bar, for what it's worth). My combination of oils/fats are different than yours, but the actual fatty acid profile is so close that I don't think it would make too much of a difference in performance.

For what it's worth, I use 10.5% castor in mine, although I used as much as 13% in it when I was still in the beginning fiddling stages with it. The cool thing I find with castor is that you can go way over 10% if you have enough hard oils to balance it out. For example, I have another formula that uses 23% castor, which is balanced out nicely by 65% tallow, and it's a great soap for me.

Anyway, I soap on the warm side with mine (between 110F - 120F......both lye and fats at least 110F, although they don't need to be matching), and I use much less water than you seemed to use in yours (if I read you correctly about using 44% water to oils, that is), and I have absolutely no problem with it tracing too fast on me......unless my FO is an ornery one, that is. As long as I'm working with a well-behaved FO, I have plenty of time to swirl just fine.....but I'm very judicious with the stick-blender...... just a few short 2 to 3 second blasts here and there if needed, while hand-stirring the rest of the time.

I agree with Zing in that pudding trace is perfectly fine unless you want to do some of the more advanced swirling techniques that need a thinner trace. I say that as one who always pours at med-thick trace as a given, and I get nicely formed swirls, even if I do say so myself. Example- the soap in my profile pic was poured at med-thick trace and my swirls came out nicely delicate looking nevertheless.

If you want your soap batter with your particular formula to remain thinner, hand-stir more/ stickblend less (or not a all), work with a well-behaved FO and add it up front to your oils.......and I would also normally instruct to increase your water amount, but if you truly used 44% water as per your oil amount, SoapCalc shows me that that makes for a 23% lye concentration (water to lye ratio) for your particular formula, which is a whole heck of a lot of water. I use a 33% lye concentration with mine, which with my particular formula equals 27.9% water as per oils. For what it's worth, I never use the water as % of oils button on SoapCalc. It produces too many inconsistent results in my soaps from formula to formula. I always use the Lye Concentration button instead for best results. Here's a really good thread that explains the difference between the two and why basing your water amount as a % of the lye instead of your oils is the better way to go: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=53642


IrishLass

 

[DarthSuds]

Are you married to this recipe? IMO...it's not a good one.

Not at all. I just experimented with a lye calculator and it seemed to produce a well rounded bar of soap.

 

[DarthSuds]

Thanks everybody for the feedback. I’ll make some adjustments and see how it comes out next chance i get.

 

[KiwiMoose]

I'm pretty new to all this - but my new favourite thing is Rice Bran Oil. It's very cheap and brings a few things to the party. Maybe reduce your cocoa, castor and shea to 10% each, and add 15% rice bran oil?

It looks to me like you are trying to avoid palm/animal fat/soy wax? Or is that just a coincidence that you have not used any of these to supplement your hard oils?

 

[Dawni]

I've used around that much of Cocoa and Shea butters, and Coconut oil, because I don't have any other hardeners to use.

The same went with an all coconut oil soap btw, thickened very quickly.

I would agree about not stick blending too much.

What I won't necessarily agree to is reducing the butters and Castor oil, especially if you're like me and don't have access to lard, tallow or palm. Like I said, I have made similar recipes and the soaps are lovely. I've even added clay to some of them..

Try stick blending in short bursts at the start then finishing by hand for now is what I will suggest. Then you can see if you still need to adjust your butters and/or add animal fats or palm.

Disclaimer: I HP, not CP.. And I'm also a newbie lol

 

[Callie]

Alot of CP soaps I have seen for sale here use Olive, Coconut, Canola, Sunflower as their main oils as they are cheap at the Supermarket. Tallow is $4 for a 500g block (so well priced) if you would like to go that way. Grapeseed Oil and Ricebran oil is also well priced, Avocado and some nut oils are available, although they are more expensive and would be used sparingly (I call anything over about $10L expensive!)
I hope this gives ideas from a different viewpoint. Our kinds standard handmade soaps over here seem to have such a different makeup due to the availability and price of materials.

 

[Callie]

I recently made this redipe, which could be reworked for your oils...
50% Olive oil (could be reduced)
25% Coconut (similar to yours)
10% Sunflower (could increase and use CB instead)
10% Shea butter (could be increased)
5% castor.
This worked great and produced a firm white bar with lovely lather
You would have to see what reducing the oilive oil (maybe) and removing the sunflower for cocoa butter would do to the properties of the bar.

 

[penelopejane]

Here is a good emulsion video.