Do oxides affect traces/setting of CP

[SoapOfTheNorth]

I recently made a batch of cp soap using some oxides I bought. I don’t normally use oxides for colour in soaps but I wanted to make something fun for an effect I was thinking about.

My recipe was:

20oz sunflower oil
6.6 oz water
2.6 oz lye

Super simple - I added 3 grams of oxide to the oil and dispersed before I started mixing. I had a hard time getting the soap to trace at all - I started with lye/oil temps at 110d. I had to heat the batter back up to 120 during mixing and it did trace after about 20m but 12 hours later it has not set. I’ve never had a failed trace before and wondered if the oxides had anything to do with it.

 

[Obsidian]

Oxides should not affect trace. I would guess the trouble is from using all sunflower. Some of the liquide oils just take a long time to trade or set up. I made a 100% avocado once and it took hours to trace and days to set up. I eventually had to freeze them to unmold and the bars stayed cream cheese soft for weeks. It eventually hardened enough for me to grate it and add to another batch.

 

[SoapOfTheNorth]

I was wondering about that too.

I don't normally use sunflower in soaps but I have lots of it at the moment and it's really cheap. I thought it would be suitable to experiment with. It's not hard enough to remove from the mold - maybe I'll let it sit for a a while like you did and see what happens.

Thanks

 

[Obsidian]

It should be fine, just give it time. A lot of people really like sunflower but I think they use it around 25-30%

 

[dixiedragon]

I love sunflower, but I use it at around 15%.

 

[DeeAnna]

Also, your lye concentration is only 28%. A high amount of water with liquid oils like your sunflower will increase the time to trace, the softness of the soap after saponification, and the tendency to separate in the mold. Use less water for this type of recipe -- maybe try a 33% lye concentration instead or even 40%.

I use oxides often without the issues you mention.

 

[artemis]

I have had oxides make my soap stay soft longer. It really only happened when I was first using them-- I think I was using way too much. Only the darkest portions stayed soft.

 

[earlene]

I have not noticed oxides affecting trace, but I don't use oxides very often. However, I have noticed that batter will thicken up much more quickly with TD and some micas that contain TD (for lighter shades).

And yes, the sunflower and full water is the more likely cause for the slow trace. I assume this was regular sunflower and not High Oleic?

For a new soap formula, it's easier to do smaller batches. If you use 12 ounces of oil and 33% Lye Concentration, you will still end up with just over a pound of soap, which will give you 3 or 4 nice sized bars of soap, depending on molds and desired bar size. Plenty for testing purposes.

 

[lmosca]

However, I have noticed that batter will thicken up much more quickly with TD and some micas that contain TD (for lighter shades).

We have noticed that too with TD. We cannot really make up our minds if it is a catalytic effect of TD (acceleration) of it is just a thickening effect.
TD has a really good affinity for carboxylates; in nanotechnology, if you want to attach something to TD (surface, nanoparticle or colloid) you do it by using a carboxylic group.

This is because TD has Ti4+ sites at the surface, which makes it expose a positive-charged surface.

This could be true for many other oxides. We've noticed that green oxides (chromium greens) do not affect viscosity of the batter. However we had some "thickening/acceleration" with black oxide (an iron oxide) and red oxide (another iron oxide).