First successful batch of soap!

[Fairy]

A few days ago, I decided to make an almond milk and oatmeal soap with 50% olive oil, 25% coconut oil, 20% hemp oil, and 5% castor oil, and I superfatted with approximately an ounce of grapeseed oil, and added some colloidal oatmeal to it as well.

I was a bit worried at first about the amount of oil, because my very first batch was all moisturizing oils and no hardening oils, and while it was very gentle on my skin and didn't aggravate my rosacea, it was VERY soft and had this weird layer of gel on the top which kind of grossed me out. I made my second batch with 95% coconut oil and 5% castor oil, and somehow it had too much lye in it. Which is strange, because I ran he recipe through a lye calculator. Oh well.

When I cut my third batch last night, it was hard enough to unmold and cut. I did a zap test and while there was a zap, it was mild. It's now curing in my garage. I'm hoping tonight it'll be done with saponifying and I'll be ready to use it!! I'll upload some pics when I get home.


I don't really know why I'm posting this, I guess I'm just proud of myself.

 

[Susie]

Congratulations! And welcome to the addiction!

Your first soap is just too new to be good to use just yet. Give it 4-8 weeks or so to cure, and it should be amazing.

How do you know your second batch has too much lye?

Your third batch will lose the zap if you give it a few days.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Never question why you post something about soaps! It's not like we get bored of soaps Love it

Did you use hor process or cold process for the first soap?

As Susie said, a soap can still be saponifying after it is cut. Some people made a VERY lye-heavy soap with lots of water that then ended up fine after a long cure. It was a great thread to read and made me less concerned when there is a bit of a zap early on in the cure.

When making a high CO soap, it is often best to have a very high superfat (about 15-20%) so would be interesting to look at that one in more detail

 

[KatieShephard]

So exciting! Isn't it amazing that we can create something that is useful and good for our skin...and sometimes even yummy smelling and pretty? Can't wait to see your pictures And once you have a soap that you can immediately use, you will be more patient with your first two batches. I bet they'll be lovely in a couple of months

 

[shunt2011]

Hello and welcome, Michigan here too. Congratulations on the addiction to soapmaking. We love soap too! My husband has rosacea too. I keep the CO down so it's not too cleansing though he can tolerate it at 20% but I also superfat at 7-9%. Regardless of what process you use all soap needs a good cure 4-6 weeks and some even longer. You will notice a difference from 1 week to 4 weeks. Also, if you are doing CP you can add all your oils together as there is no way to determine for sure which oils it will use for superfat. The lye monster will take what it wants as it's still active.