first soap- it melts to liquid when microwaved

[rics]

hi, i love this forum and finally got around to making my own soap. i faced 3 major challenges:

the first batch-when i made it, it froze on me too quick before i could mold it. so i micriwaved it to melt and re-mold. but its melted to a liquid rather than a creamy texture(i read a soap never becomes liquid again but only like a thick cream).....so will my soap be considered a soap or still a pool of oils. at room temp it does become thicker.
Recipe- 60%olive oil, 20%coconut, 20%palm oil

the second batch- when i made it, it is not becoming solid at all but is gooey. accd to me following cd be reasons:-a)i used 40% water. b)also i reached only very thin trace. c) it was a 90%olive oil bar. d)where i stay is very humid.
Recipe- 90%olive oil, 10% shea butter (sorry i wrote 80% earlier)

Also when i cure the soap i) soap gets small water bubbles on it ii) how to cure in a extremely humid place...



can someone pls suggest steps i can follow to make sure i get a harder, milder soap

 

[daisy8]

Hi Rics - I was wondering if you used 'soapcalc' to check your recipes. It is a pretty good recipe test. On the print page, it has a Sat:Unsat Ratio. If the Sat is higher than, or near to the Unsat, you are going to get a hard bar. Also if the Lauric, Myristic, Palmitic and Stearic have a high count, it will be a hard bar, though I don't know the maximum these figures can go to.

When you say 'froze on you', you may mean it saponified very quickly and hardened - so then, are you making HP soap?

I have no thoughts with regard to the small water bubbles. Sometimes the glycerine comes out on the surface, but it can also be absorbed back into the bar.

Olive Oil soap can get very hard. I'm sure someone else will give u more help.

 

[sistrum]

Soaps do sweat in humid conditions but will be fine when they dry out. As for your other questions if you posted your recipe and method it would be easier for us to help.

 

[Robert]

hi, i love this forum and finally got around to making my own soap. i faced 3 major challenges:

the first batch-when i made it, it froze on me too quick before i could mold it. so i micriwaved it to melt and re-mold. but its melted to a liquid rather than a creamy texture(i read a soap never becomes liquid again but only like a thick cream)

There are perfectly good soaps that will melt in a microwave oven.

However, when your soap 1st solidified, did it have a curdled look to it? If so, it's separated into little regions that won't saponify properly if left on their own.

 

[rics]

Hi Rics - I was wondering if you used 'soapcalc' to check your recipes. It is a pretty good recipe test. On the print page, it has a Sat:Unsat Ratio. If the Sat is higher than, or near to the Unsat, you are going to get a hard bar. Also if the Lauric, Myristic, Palmitic and Stearic have a high count, it will be a hard bar, though I don't know the maximum these figures can go to.

When you say 'froze on you', you may mean it saponified very quickly and hardened - so then, are you making HP soap?

I have no thoughts with regard to the small water bubbles. Sometimes the glycerine comes out on the surface, but it can also be absorbed back into the bar.

Olive Oil soap can get very hard. I'm sure someone else will give u more help.

Hi Daisy-
i did use a soapcalc to check the recipe and used lye and water accordingly.

I am not sure about sat and unsat values and will pay more attention to these .. (thanks for this info.)

'Froze'- the first batch i made very quickly became hard in the mixing bowl itself, before i could pour. it must have hardened within 10min of adding oil to lye water itself :-? . i could'nt even add any eo or fo.. so to get a better shape i microwaved it. it became very liquidy (looked like melted oils in microwave in the silicne mold)..But at room temp its become more solidified, not at all like ools..

i read about glycerine dew- so i think thats what the small droplets are (attracting moisture from air).

Thanks

 

[rics]

Soaps do sweat in humid conditions but will be fine when they dry out. As for your other questions if you posted your recipe and method it would be easier for us to help.

Hi sistrum, Thanks for the reply
i think it is glycerin dew. to avoid it ( i do stay near sea so its reallyyyyyy humid out here. :think: ) i have wrapped the soaps in small towel and using small pouches of silica gel all around in a show box..lets see if it works..

hoping the soaps are hard in 4 weeks time..


I have tried 3, 4 small batches by now (about 100 gm oils, all cold process, i never use hot process...)..everytime they come out soft even after 12 hrs....my second batch came (80% olive oil) out especially gooey :-(

i may try 1 : 1.1 lye to water ratio next time to achieve a hard bar..fingers crossed

Regards

 

[rics]

There are perfectly good soaps that will melt in a microwave oven.

However, when your soap 1st solidified, did it have a curdled look to it? If so, it's separated into little regions that won't saponify properly if left on their own.

Hi Robert, Thanks for the reply.
good to know what i made is soap and not mixed oils. :smile:...i read somewhere soap never melts and got worried cuz mine was almost looking like oils again.

my soap din look curdled, but became thick and difficult to mix, so i had to scoop it out into mold, and put it in microwave after 12 hours to remold after melting.

could you pls tell me what curdling signifies- does it mean lye and oils din saponify roblem::-|:crazy:

Also mostly i make soap at room temp, so i think i barely reach thin trace in 2 hours (i stir by hand and not blender, need to buy one of those). im guessing curdling happens to hot process soapers more. not sure though.

Regards

 

[DeeAnna]

"...the first batch i made very quickly became hard in the mixing bowl itself, before i could pour. it must have hardened within 10min of adding oil to lye water..."

It's hard to know what's "normal" when you do your first batch, but 5-10 minutes from adding lye solution to a heavy pudding, almost solid texture would be fairly typical for most of my recipes. Many of mine come to trace much quicker than that. Most new soapers, including me, don't stop the mixing soon enough to allow time for adding fragrance, etc., cuz new soapers just don't have the experience to know it is safe to stop mixing much sooner than that. It'll come with time.....

 

[dagmar88]

Hi sistrum, Thanks for the reply
i think it is glycerin dew. to avoid it ( i do stay near sea so its reallyyyyyy humid out here. :think: ) i have wrapped the soaps in small towel and using small pouches of silica gel all around in a show box..lets see if it works..

hoping the soaps are hard in 4 weeks time..


I have tried 3, 4 small batches by now (about 100 gm oils, all cold process, i never use hot process...)..everytime they come out soft even after 12 hrs....my second batch came (80% olive oil) out especially gooey :-(

i may try 1 : 1.1 lye to water ratio next time to achieve a hard bar..fingers crossed

Regards

I wouldn't do batches under -+ 500 grams. With weights that small, they can quickly become inaccurate, since sap values are averages and there's very little to no room for error.

I've moved a couple of years ago from the southeast of the country to the sea and haven't noticed any difference in my soaps or the way the batches behave.

12 hours is very short for cp soap with a high amount of olive oil.

 

[rics]

I wouldn't do batches under -+ 500 grams. With weights that small, they can quickly become inaccurate, since sap values are averages and there's very little to no room for error.

I've moved a couple of years ago from the southeast of the country to the sea and haven't noticed any difference in my soaps or the way the batches behave.

12 hours is very short for cp soap with a high amount of olive oil.

Thanks for the reply Dagmar. I am a new soaper so my questions may sound silly. But for big batches I will need to buy oil, lye etc in bulk from manufacturers (its difficult to find good quality oils here from retail shops :sad: even if i do find its expensive, so i use small quantities before i perfect soap making process). And I am not sure how to store them in the best manner. Could u please give me more info on following questions:
1. should i store oil stored in bulk in plastic airtight containers... is there a chance of them spoiling cuz of humid/hot weather. whats the best way to store oils.
2. shd i keep something special in mind while storing butters - like store them in fridge?
3. finding oils is lil difficult- specially good ones like evoo, ev coconut oil etc. is it fine to soap with regular figaro pomace oil, fractionated coconut oil, etc

Appreciate all help and info.
Regards

 

[Candybee]

For your olive oil and shea butter soap 40% water is high water amount. I'd do a water discount of 33%. Soap calc has its default set at 38% if you are using that as your calculator just plug in 33%.

That's why your soap is mushy and will take a week or two to harden up. For high olive oil soaps it really helps to use a water discount instead of full water! Full water is fine-- your soap will still turn out okay but it will take so much longer! It doesn't matter that its humid where you are you would still get the mushy soap with full water.

 

[Robert]

could you pls tell me what curdling signifies- does it mean lye and oils din saponify

What I'm calling "curdling" -- maybe there's a better word for it -- is separation on a small scale: little drops that are different from what's around it. It means some of the mixture has saponified so fast that it locked out those droplets. Melting the whole thing may have been your best option for getting saponification to finish, if it was nonuniform in the way I'm describing.

But if your mixture was not like that but instead uniform, as long as it's uniform again after melting and refreezing, no problem -- and it probably will be uniform. How do you think melt & pour soap works?

If you tried melting a cake of, let's say Tone, it probably wouldn't melt so smoothly because it doesn't have much glycerine and its ingredients are generally high melting. Dove melts easily, but that's because it was prepared by a melt-and-freeze process and has a lot of lower-melting material.

I just thought of another good way to describe the small-scale separation I'm tyring to get you to visualize: the appearance of tapioca pudding. Not necessarily the same consistency, just the look.

 

[savonierre]

if you have room in the fridge to store the oils that would help prolong their life. Butters can be frozen if you have room. I use a dehumidifier and I live in a dry area, but a new house, we empty the dehumidifier every day, it holds 3 gallons of water.

 

[Kansas Farm Girl]

hoping the soaps are hard in 4 weeks time..

If by hoping the soaps are hard in 4 weeks time are you just meaning hard enough to use or just to move to a different storage area? you are using very high %'s of OO and the higher the % of OO the longer you will want to cure it something like 6-12 months. I know you have other oils included, but at very low % so yours is very close to a Castile soap, a Bastile, I don't think you will like the way this soap feels in only 4 weeks.

 

[daisy8]

What is surprising is your high rate of OO and its quick saponification time.

I make small batches - smallest being 380 gr of oils (13 ozs). They come out fine. I always use soapcalc at it's default setting mostly because I'm not confident enough to try anything else and because I know the soaps will come out well doing that.

I buy coconut oil from Asian shops. If you have any nearby, try them.

 

[MKRainville]

the more olive oil in your recipe the longer it takes to cure. I made a 90% OO batch with 10% Coconut and it took almost 4 days before it was hard enough to cut. But once it hardened it was a really nice bar.