Desperately need help, immediatelY!

[JuneP]

A.M. Checking in

Oh, don't worry, I will definitely post pictures - good, bad or ugly! LOL

I just realized that SF means Super fat! I'm pretty sure it was 7.

If I can figure out how to set up my tiny video camera (the size of the early iPhones). I might just make a video. It would be good to review a video as part of the learning process. Now I have to see if I can mount this tiny video camera o to a regular tripod.

What would really work s one of those cameras your wear on your head!

Time for my first cup of "wake up" tea. Then I need to wash some of my mixing tools and bowls from yesterday. Cleaning lady comes early this morning so I'll have her do the kitchen first so I can get in there right after breakfast to weigh out that little bit of extra water and lye I need to correct the recipe. I may have to add a tiny bit more of the sodium lactate too.

June

 

[cmzaha]

Do remember to scrape out your bowls with a spatula to get out as much oil as possible. You would be suprised how much oil stays in the measuring container. Granted not enough to bother a larger batch but with small batches maybe

 

[JuneP]

Scraping oil

Thanks Carolyn, fortunately< I instinctively did that. And you're right, there is a lot that stay in the containers. I even went back a second time and found a few more drops.

June

 

[JuneP]

Good bad or ugly! Ok, you can judge if it's good, bad or downright ugly. But I'm thrilled I made it through the process! So from that point of view, it's a success.

My hands were shaking through the beginning of the pouring. I tried to get it to a light trace, before weighing out the soap that I needed for the 3 colors, but after long emulsifying, it didn't seem to be tracing, (everything was at room temperature) but the consistency looked pretty good, so I decided to stop mixing. I had started with the blender on low pulsing, then stopping the blender and just using it to stir. Finally, after what seemed like forever, I just turned it on to high, still only doing short bursts, and then hand mixing. Well, by the time I moved the cups to the weighing area, it seemed the soap was tracing on its own! Who knew!

Anyway all behaved well. I was a bit concerned about the sodium lactate after reading it can accelerate trace. But everything was at room temperature and having a lot of soft oils probably delayed it, which I was grateful for!

In hindsight I should have done the figure 8 design on top which is what I originally planned,; but I had he extra soap, so I decided to do what you see. I wish I had maybe waited a bit more ot mixed more to get it to thicken a bit more.. Strangely one side seemed to be thicker than the other and I was constantly mixing before I set down the colors.

After I took the picture I put a double layer of a bath towel under it and covered it with a box since the soap was above the mold. Then I covered the box with another double layer of bath towels. Since this soap has a much higher percentage of soft oils, even before my goof up yesterday, it will probably need at least two days, maybe more before I attempt un-mold it.

Any and all suggestions and critiques are most welcome. I'm eager to learn, so don't go easy on me!

June

 

[JuneP]

Jim's reaction

PS: Jim said it looks like a dessert (don't know if it was a compliment or a bad review! LOL

June

 

[JustBeachy]

Tell him to take a taste and let us know what he thinks. haha.

I'd say so far so good. Nice job pulling it together.

 

[IrishLass]

That looks pretty darn good! Can hardly wait to see it cut!


IrishLass

 

[JuneP]

Cutting the soap

I'll be eager to see it cut as well - just hope it isn't a messy blur! Watching so many of these hanger swirl videos, I noticed some did simple up and down in one direction and then back again; and some got pretty fancy, so much so, I couldn't follow what they were doing! It made me wonder if they just wing it or is it part of a learned routine. Hmmm???

So I did the basic up and down and back again and then, I think I went up and down only from one side to the other in a looping/wavy kind of motion, pulled out the hanger at the end and then went down in the middle and made a few circles starting small and going bigger wider and deeper with each one.

I don't think I'll be able to un-mold in a day or even two, with this many soft oils; but maybe the sodium silicate will help. I didn't use it in my first CP soap, so I don't know what to expect. I only put 1% in based on the original weight, but didn't bother to add more for the extra 40.4 grams. of castor oil. So much to learn!

June

 

[Jstar]

Ooooo I dont know about anyone else..but that looks good enough to eat!

Can't wait for cut piccies....doesn't matter how many times I have made soap, Im like a kid on Christmas morning when it's time to cut to see what neat prezzies are inside :smile:

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Looks good so far.

One of the things that I love/hate about loaf swirls - you don't know what it's like until you cut it

 

[snappyllama]

It looks like a lovely pudding from the top! I cannot wait to see the yumminess inside when it is cut!

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Couldn't help it -

via Imgflip Meme Maker

 

[DeeAnna]

"...My hands were shaking through the beginning of the pouring...."

Good to hear I'm not the only one who's had this problem! I'm much better now, but ya shoulda seen me shake when I make my first few batches. Scary. :wtf:

 

[JuneP]

Shaking and quaking while pouring

"...My hands were shaking through the beginning of the pouring...."

Good to hear I'm not the only one who's had this problem! I'm much better now, but ya shoulda seen me shake when I make my first few batches. Scary. :wtf:

My biggest fears were being able to recogize when it was emulsified and when I hit light trace. It seemed to take forever, probably because I had the blender on low and was being super careful about turning it on and off, as I have seen in all the videos I've been watching! And I never saw a sign of light trace (a touch of soap sitting o top and quicklym moving into the mix), so when it looked like heavy cream I started weighing out the soap for the 3 colors. By then it seemed to be thickening on it's own, so I worked as fast as I could weighing it out and adding and mixing the colors in. But I was shaking so much when I first poured, I was making a mess! Good thing I had a lot of hand towel paper handy! About midway through I settled dow, since I felt confident that I was going to make it through without the soap batter getting to hard.

Tomorrow or Monday, or whenever I can un-mold yesterdays soap, I want to make a lavender soap.

June

 

[Obsidian]

I would say that heavy cream is what we call light trace, just starting to thicken but not quite enough to see the drizzled soap sitting on the batter. After awhile you will learn what emulsion looks like.
If you really watch at the edges of your bowl when you start to mix, you will be able to see a oil ring. If you stop mixing the ring will get bigger and start to spread across the surface. Once you hit full emulsion, the oil ring will be gone and once you stop mixing, the batter will remain in a creamy light state but still be watery. If any oils start to form on the surface, its not quite there yet.
If you haven't yet, watch soaping101 videos on youtube, she always separates at emulsion. The videos are short and well done.

 

[DeeAnna]

I hear you, June. At first I tended to go too far with my mixing because I was learning about what soap was like when it was properly emulsified and starting to head into an obvious "trace". The other problem was I didn't have any sense of how fast the process moved once saponification really got to rockin' and rollin'. So I glopped rather than poured too many batches of soap in my early days. I thought I was never going to get it figured out. The confidence comes with time -- I'm stirring more, stick blending less, and am more comfortable about stopping at emulsion.

I agree with Obsidian -- your description of "heavy cream" is pretty much what I think of as light trace. A trail of batter doesn't leave a ridge, but it does make a faint visual disturbance on the otherwise smooth surface of the soap batter. Light shining at a bit of an angle onto the batter helps me to see this.

Right before that would be the stage of stable emulsion. The emulsion stage is a bit of a guess, since there is not a strong visual cue at that point to tell me if the emulsion is actually stable or not. If there's any hint of a sign it's that the surface sheen of the soap batter changes a wee bit right at point. This is not something I would have been able to see when I was an anxious, distracted new soaper, so I'm glad no one told me about it at that stage in my soaping misadventures.

 

[reinbeau]

I've said this elsewhere. I look for the paisleys. You can see them dancing on the top of the soap as you move the stick through the batter. That tells me emulsion has been reached.

 

[Susie]

I know exactly what that means!

 

[DeeAnna]

Paisleys ... yeah! Perfect description, Reinbeau.

 

[JuneP]

Well, the sodium lactate worked. 24 hours later I was able to easily unmold my higher soft oils, first swirl soap.

The problem I have was with the cutting in my $1, old, wood, bargain miter box. The blade didn't go all the way to the bottom, so I removed the log of soap, and measured out 1" increments. But my I wound up with some 1" bars and a couple bigger and 2 smaller. Good thing I ordered a cheese cutter earlier, so I won't be making more soap until that arrives!

Looking at the finished soap, I think I over did the hanger swirl. Next time I'll try something simpler. There seems to be a bit of smudging or??? around the bottom and I have no idea how that happened or how to avoid it in the future. Or is that acceptable??? The scent seems strong enough, so I'm glad I didn't add any extra to make up for the 40.4 extra grams of castor oil, ye and water I had to add.

Now I just have to wait for it to cure, so I can test it and see if my recipe is one I want to stay with for a bit.

June