Gel like soap

[Tasha]

Hi,

I have been making soap for about 5 years now. I use hot process method and I feel like I do pretty good with this. I've had problems and ruined batches of soap but I'm having a new issue and I'm not sure how to fix it. I attempted to make a bastille like soap. Figured this should be simple I used:

57% Olive oil pomace
33%Coconut oil
10% castor oil
10% Super fat
40% water as a percent of oil weight

My soap went through the stages and I poured it in the mold and expected it to harden but it never did. It remained this gel like goop that was kinda hard.
Then I decided, must be too much of a superfat since I'm using olive oil that 10% probably wasn't a good idea. So I melted the soap back down and added more lye (mixed with very little water) to get the soap at a 4% superfat. I thought this might help to make it harder. NOPE. It's still soft.

What might be the problem and do you think its something I could save?

 

[lsg]

How old is the lye? When I have had trouble with gooey soap; it was usually caused by bad lye.

 

[shunt2011]

Did you mix the lye with an equal amount of water? It could be bad lye. The first problem was likely the 10% SF and 10% Castor.

 

[DeeAnna]

Just confirming all the percentages -- If you made the first version of your recipe you described in Post 1 using 1000 grams of fat, would you be using around 134 grams of NaOH to saponify the batch?

Rub a little bit of the soap paste on your fingertips. Gently hold your fingers under a light stream of cool water and let the soap rinse off without rubbing. You want to see what's left after the water-soluble stuff is gone.

When the soap is rinsed away, what's left? Is there a greasy or oilly film on your skin? If so, the superfat is way too high. That means there's something wrong with the amount of lye you used (Mismeasured somehow? Scale not working correctly?) or with the NaOH itself (is it actually KOH or sodium carbonate rather than NaOH? Or is the NaOH bad?)

 

[Tasha]

I bought a case of lye maybe about 2 years ago. It came in several bottles. This bottle was just freshly opened and is the last bottle out of the batch. The previous bottle worked the way it was suppose to but I definitely think it's the lye as well.

Kinda seems like a soap paste but I definitely used Sodium Hydroxide.

Just confirming all the percentages -- If you made the first version of your recipe you described in Post 1 using 1000 grams of fat, would you be using around 134 grams of NaOH to saponify the batch?

Rub a little bit of the soap paste on your fingertips. Gently hold your fingers under a light stream of cool water and let the soap rinse off without rubbing. You want to see what's left after the water-soluble stuff is gone.

When the soap is rinsed away, what's left? Is there a greasy or oilly film on your skin? If so, the superfat is way too high. That means there's something wrong with the amount of lye you used (Mismeasured somehow? Scale not working correctly?) or with the NaOH itself (is it actually KOH or sodium carbonate rather than NaOH? Or is the NaOH bad?)

When I rinse it off. It doesn't leave an oily film.
I used 32oz of oil
4.6 oz of lye
12.8 oz of water

 

[earlene]

When I rinse it off. It doesn't leave an oily film.
I used 32oz of oil
4.6 oz of lye
12.8 oz of water

When I enter your numbers into this lye calculator the resulting SF is actually 4% and not 10% by using 4.6 ounces of NaOH. To get a 10% SF you were actually supposed to use 4.3 ounces of lye. But either way if all measurements were correct and the lye was good, it definitely should have set up by now, particularly since it was HP and you've done this several times already.

I would suggest to verify that it wasn't a measuring error (they can happen) caused by your scale, that check and calibrate your scale. If it calibrates correctly, then ask yourself if the amount of batter you poured into the mold was as expected. Did it fill the mold as much as it usually does when you make the same or a similar recipe? If not, I'd suspect human error; perhaps a measuring error with an oil. If it seemed like it was close to the usual amount, it could still be a measuring error with the lye.

Since you just opened the bottle, it seems unlikely to me that it is the lye, but it could be. There are two ways you can rule out the lye.

One is to test the lye purity. Her is a link on how to do that: https://classicbells.com/soap/NaOH_KOH_Purity_Check.pdf

The other way is to make another batch of soap with the lye you have in the bottle you just used, making sure that you double check all mearsurements to confirm there is no human error. If the next (small) batch behaves normally and sets up as it should. If it doesn't then I would blame the lye. If it does behave normally, I would say the above batch failed due to human error.

 

[Tasha]

When I enter your numbers into this lye calculator the resulting SF is actually 4% and not 10% by using 4.6 ounces of NaOH. To get a 10% SF you were actually supposed to use 4.3 ounces of lye. But either way if all measurements were correct and the lye was good, it definitely should have set up by now, particularly since it was HP and you've done this several times already. ....

Thank you! I will try to do another batch first, then I'll check the purity.
Definitely might be human error. I've never had this issue but there's first for everything.
Also, I added more lye to the mixture to get 4% SF because I figured 10% was too high.

 

[Arimara]

To be frank, I'm really leaning on that being liquid soap paste and that there may have been a mix-up with the supplier some how. I've never seen a cold processed soap look like that when completely cooled.

 

[DeeAnna]

I'm mystified and have no good advice to offer. All I know is there's something amiss. Inaccurate scale, human error, wrong alkali, low purity alkali.... Who knows!

 

[Arimara]

@Tasha Maybe, if it is still soft, you can take about 1oz of that soap and dilute it with .5oz water to see if it is a soap paste.

 

[Tasha]

@Tasha Maybe, if it is still soft, you can take about 1oz of that soap and dilute it with .5oz water to see if it is a soap paste.

Yea, I tried that and it diluted pretty good. It might be the wrong label. Seems to work well as a paste. It's not clear but it works well in liquid form.

 

[DeeAnna]

If you actually used KOH but the recipe was based on NaOH, the superfat is probably sky high. You need 1.403 grams KOH to get the same effect as 1 gram of NaOH.