Deanna, I have a question...

[MzMolly65]

I have never used a "normal" castile, so I have no idea how these soaps compare to a castile made with a regular CP process as far as slime vs. no slime.

DeeAnna .. if you want some for comparison, I'd be happy to send you some. I made a batch on January 27th that would be a good tester for you.

PM me your address if you want some and no postage required, it's the least I can do for all the knowledge you've shared with me since I've joined.

So for me, hand stir until thick and then give it a few minutes with an SB.

Interesting. I didn't even stir until thick and no SB at all. Like I just said to Lin, I only stirred mine a little bit every 10 minutes or so and after an hour it was tracing nicely so I poured it. It was very runny .. but my bars are NICE! They're dry now, not slick anymore but still very soft and easily dented roblem:

Oh .. and these didn't gel either, which I think you can tell by the photo.

In the photo of the round bars you can see the ash on the face of the bar in front. So far there is only ash on the surfaces exposed to air during the first 24 hours. Will be interesting to see if more ash develops on the rest of the bar.

The colours in the photo are not true .. the bars are a very creamy bone colour.

 

[ilovesoap2]

@MzMolly65
Sounds like yours poured like mine did. My trace was very light though.
From reading another thread I found out that trace took forever because
I was working outside, it was 50+ degrees. I just did not trust myself
inside with the lye. I still don't think mine traced, surprised they're holding
up.

These came out of the mold ok.
Can't wait to do a do-over, I want that nice, plastic trace you all got.

 

[AnnaMarie]

Those look great!

 

[seven]

I took a sliver from my good batch and wash my hands. Better lather than the tofu batch and i didnt get any itch, redness or other funky stuff.

Mzmolly and ilovesoap, looking good guys!

DeeAnna, i so would send you my normal castile had i not live halfway across the globe from ya

 

[krunt]

AnnaMarie, seven and DeeAnna, thanks for your responses to my post :smile:

I checked my soap before I went to bed last night (7 hours after molding), and the temperature had dropped from 29 to 24 degrees Celsius, which was 2 degrees above room temperature. When I got up this morning (15.5 hours after molding), the top surface of the soap varied in temperature from 23 to 28 degrees, and there was some water droplets in the middle (that's where it was the hottest). Room temperature at the time was 19 degrees. A couple of hours later when I checked it again, the water was gone and the temperature was coming down.

Right now (22 hours after molding), the soap is still a few degrees above room temperature -- I take that to mean there is still some saponification going on? I was thinking I would wait until it reaches room temperature before cutting.

It feels hard when I push on the sides of the silicone mold, much harder than I might have expected. And the colour of it is now more of an off white, rather than the yellow it was yesterday.

Thanks for reading, will post again when I cut!

 

[FlybyStardancer]

The olive/soy loaf is still too soft to cut, but sturdy enough that I felt safe unmolding it and carefully peeling away the paper liner for pictures, and to help it evaporate off more water.

The top is very oddly colored. It's like it started to morph back to green and blue, and then got all funky. (For reference, this is what it looked like when I was finished putting it in the mold, and this is what it looked like a couple hours later.)

I was expecting more of the color around the outside towards the top, rather than just that thin layer on top. Sure, I swirled it, but there should still be some evidence of the color...

As far as the colors go, the website says that the green is supposed to morph to lime green in high pH, and that the blue is supposed to morph to light blue in high pH. Clearly that's not what happened here. And they're supposed to not bleed, but it looks like they have shifted around, thanks to those dots on top!

There's also orange blobs/streaks along the sides in the white areas... I"m not sure what the heck those are! Looks kinda like bits of tree sap.

This is the largest batch/loaf I've made, so there is that layer of uncertainty for me.

 

[houseofwool]

I wonder about using turmeric as a ph indicator... I know for me it turns hot pink in high ph environment and as the saponification finishes, it calms down to a yellow color.

 

[krunt]

Well, I unmolded and cut my soap not long ago. It was 1 degree above room temperature, I figured that was good enough. It ended up being 25 hours after pour. It was surprisingly hard, and based on this one experience, I wouldn't want to let it sit too much longer before cutting!

Here's a pic. Please excuse the crappy cutting, I just used a kitchen knife and cut by hand. I really should get a thinner knife/cutting blade and cutting guide.

 

[AnnaMarie]

Those came out a lovely creamy white! I really like that about this recipe. You should be able to clean up your cutting job with a knife and rubbing alcohol. I like using my wavy cutter for castile- it gives it a little extra character in a rustic sort of way
Cheers!
Anna Marie

 

[FlybyStardancer]

Those are much nicer than any cuts I've done with a knife!

 

[MzMolly65]

it didn't weep or drain anything and looks like it will set up.
What do you guys think?

http://s1351.photobucket.com/user/ilovesoap2/media/IMG_0023_zps226d75b3.jpg.html

That's exactly what mine looked like when I poured it. I think you'll be very happy with it when it's set.

 

[krunt]

Thanks AnnaMarie and FlybyStardancer

AnnaMarie, thanks for the tip about cleaning them up. To be honest, it doesn't really bother me too much, they'll just be for personal use and I'm not too fussy about how my soap looks. It's just a bit embarrassing when other soapers see them, and you feel like you should be presenting something better!!

 

[FlybyStardancer]

I really don't know what's going on with this olive/soy loaf. :/ Top continues to change, and when I picked it up to slice today, I discovered a pocket of amber liquid near the bottom. (I hadn't pulled it away from the liner on the bottom yet, which is why it had remained undiscovered.)

What the heck is this amber liquid? And will I end up needing to rebatch?

 

[soap_rat]

Wow, Flyby, that looks like a tiny trap door swiveled to the side to let the liquid out! I'm guessing the color is from the lye-water picking up one of your colorant? That's what mine did. Once you cut your loaf you'll have better info on whether you might need to rebatch, but if that liquid is lye-water, well, others here lost lye water in their soap too and I think the soaps turned out? (it's getting hard to keep track, maybe we need to make a grid)

Here is the picture-story of my first batch, part 1:

Part 2:

 

[AnnaMarie]

Wow! Thank you for the lab report soap rat! Sounds like you had a very adventurous soaping experience . You could market your "concrete" soap to Home Depot as builder's soap I'm going to have to branch out with additives like you guys are doing. So far I've been pretty plain Jane. I'll have to add some color...
Cheers!
Anna Marie

 

[newbie]

I am ready to throttle this recipe. I started once again 70 minutes ago, no stick blending and only stirring with a spatula and there are no signs whatever of it going together and far from trace. What the heck? Am I in a slow-to-no trace vortex? It certainly doesn't apply to other recipes. I swear I'm going to scream.

 

[AnnaMarie]

Oh dear:wtf: :wtf:

 

[soap_rat]

I found that if I sat down to internet, things happened very quickly! try that?

 

[newbie]

That's why I'm here. So I don't lose my f'ing mind. I finally SB'ed it for a few seconds just to get the oil and water blended- it was seriously still yellow oil on top and water on the bottom after about 80 minutes. I'm 8 minutes short of 2 hours now and trying to keep my back turned.

 

[btz]

I am ready to throttle this recipe. I started once again 70 minutes ago, no stick blending and only stirring with a spatula and there are no signs whatever of it going together and far from trace. What the heck? Am I in a slow-to-no trace vortex? It certainly doesn't apply to other recipes. I swear I'm going to scream.

Maybe you can try raising the batch's temperature a little bit to help the saponification.