Goat's milk soap making and no gel.

[Elly]

Your soaps turned out lovely may I ask you why did you decide to rebatch? I found that rebatching always gives out a darker dull looking soap, don't know how some soapers manage to come up with beautiful looking rebatched soaps.

 

[Bean13]

Your soaps turned out lovely may I ask you why did you decide to rebatch? I found that rebatching always gives out a darker dull looking soap, don't know how some soapers manage to come up with beautiful looking rebatched soaps.

I needed to rebatch because I poured at false trace. My Soap was mushy, crumbly and leaking oil. LOL

The rebatch itself went ok except for the mess, and I do like the looks of the inside of the soap but I tried to layer and it breaks at the seam.

 

[krissy]

with ungelled soap, right out of the freezer it can be all of those things. try to be more patient next time because the first batch would have probably been fine.

pouring at false trace means that it looked like it had traced but then once in the mold separated to have a large quantity of oil/liquid kinda floating on top. your soap looked fine, and probably was...

 

[Bean13]

Yeah I'm learning. I kept 4 or 5 bars of the original to see what happens. The original has a lather now and not quit as oily. Got to try some new things though and I'm fine with that. I should know that nothing good is instant. I just get so excited over making soap.

 

[Zhuliya]

Here's my experiment with goat's milk.
I tried to colour the soap purple with food colouring. I mixed the colour powder with the part of the milk I added at trace, and the mixture actually became a nice purple colour... but look what happened after 12 hours and a strong gel phase:

 

[Bean13]

Yes, I've found food colouring fades and or morphs when you use it in soap. I think when I tried food colouring my red turned orange and my green turned brown and the blue turned pink.

 

[Zhuliya]

So do you suggest cosmetic or natural colouring?

 

[Elly]

Bean13 I am glad you kept some of the original soap so you can see that the soap was going to be ok after a while, it is good experimenting isn't it? and soooo addictive. I love the look of your rebatched soap pitty the swirling didn't stick I believe it is a bit difficult doing that type of swirling with cooked soap as the mix dries out pretty quickly. I hate rebatching because my soaps always turn brown and hard to colour

 

[Lindy]

Bean I agree with Krissy - before you decide against a soap, especially one that has been frozen leave it for about a week and then check it. If it zaps then you might want to rebatch.

With rebatching it's easier to at least cut the soap into chunks or even shred it before melting it down and then just let it sit until it is at a "jelly" stage before repouring.

I always make my GM soap from frozen solid GM....

 

[Jerry S]

to gel or not to gel

I’ve made quit a bit of CP and HP soap…but I don’t know what gelled soap or un-gelled soap is. I’ve read all threads here and still don’t quit understand about no gel, partial gel and no gel at all and about sticking the soap in the freezer. Is gelling the soap only done with goats milk soap? Is gelled soap sort of transparent like glycerin soap? Is the aesthetic look the only reason to gel it?
Jerry

 

[Lindy]

Jerry some CP soapers like to prevent gel in their soap and put it in the freezer. A ungelled soap is generally lighter. Partially gelled soap is when you will get a circle inside the log that is darker than the outer edges because it didn't stay hot enough to get a full gel. When you are doing HP you are forcing gel by getting it to that transparent stage before pouring. Other CP soapers will force gel by putting heating pads and blankets around their soap to keep the heat in.....

 

[Jerry S]

Letting soap Gel..

Why does one want soap to gel, if it looks darker than normal? or if it looks darker in the center of the mold than the outside...Do you think that soap that has gelled looks better than the soap that hasn’t? Is that why people do it?
When I make HP in the crock-pot the soap has that dark color (like honey) gel look to it right at the end of the cook just before I give it a final mix before globing it in the mold. All of my soaps that I do CP, have a consistent color throughout the bar after I get ready to cut them.
Jerry S

 

[krissy]

Re: Letting soap Gel..

Why does one want soap to gel, if it looks darker than normal? or if it looks darker in the center of the mold than the outside...Do you think that soap that has gelled looks better than the soap that hasn’t? Is that why people do it?
When I make HP in the crock-pot the soap has that dark color (like honey) gel look to it right at the end of the cook just before I give it a final mix before globing it in the mold. All of my soaps that I do CP, have a consistent color throughout the bar after I get ready to cut them.
Jerry S

i gel because i like the way it looks and i prefer to have more uniform look. i also like the darker color i get and the fact that i can unmold and cut the same day i pour and that i dont have zap. when i have not gelled my soap is softer for longer, i cant cut as fast and it zaps for longer too, but it is mostly just a personal preference.

 

[c.a.p.]

So do you suggest cosmetic or natural colouring?

I think that's just a personal preference. What are you after? I only use natural colorants. I usually don't get vibrant colors like you can with say, micas. Greens are really tough. A lot of herbs go brown although I've had great luck with parsley. If you can get a nice green alfalfa, that works well, too. I love the morphing of alkanet root. Starts bright red, turns grey in the pot, then turns green/blue at the pour and finally turns purple/lavender during the cure. So fun. Reds are tough for me, too. Would love to try cochineal, but can't find a supplier.

Sorry - didn't mean to hijack the thread.

 

[sandyfootfarm]

A quick question about gelling and GM. If you gel, does your soap go darker because the GM scorches? I made a lavender GM, used a milk carton instead of my silicon small molds as I wanted to see what happened with a batch that will be similar in size to the log silicon molds when I get them. I got a half gel because I have the darker circle inside.

If I put it straight into the freezer after pouring can I prevent gel altogether? I'd prefer no gel as I like it to be lighter.

 

[soapbuddy]

A quick question about gelling and GM. If you gel, does your soap go darker because the GM scorches? I made a lavender GM, used a milk carton instead of my silicon small molds as I wanted to see what happened with a batch that will be similar in size to the log silicon molds when I get them. I got a half gel because I have the darker circle inside.

If I put it straight into the freezer after pouring can I prevent gel altogether? I'd prefer no gel as I like it to be lighter.

Since I don't gel, I put my soap either in the fridge or the freezer after I pour; up to overnight.

 

[sandyfootfarm]

I'll do that next time, haven't had gel before because I've been using muffin pan molds and the small size means they cool quicker. Fanks!

 

[soapbuddy]

I'll do that next time, haven't had gel before because I've been using muffin pan molds and the small size means they cool quicker. Fanks!

Small size or individual soaps don't ususally gel. I would leave those out without insulation somewhere with plenty of air. Those don't usually need to go in the fridge or the freezer.

 

[sandyfootfarm]

I want to do loaf size batches so they'll have to go straight in the freezer. I'm making a batch tomorrow using another milk carton so I'll put that straight in and do a comparison. I'm only at the recipe testing stage and giving these soaps away so no harm done, but don't want partial gels at all.