Help Please, Rebatch is still playdoughy

[Mariah]

Hello! I am very new to soap making. Yesterday I rebatched my soap because it was very soft. It has been 24hrs and the soap it still a playdough texture. What can i do?? Will it harden?
Also for the future reference how hard should a soap be after sitting in the mold after 24hrs?

I really appreciate any guidance.

 

[Arimara]

You can start by listing your recipe and the steps you took in rebatching. It's very difficult to trouble shoot with details. :O)

 

[Mariah]

7.5 ounces filtered water
5 ounces coconut milk
15 ounces olive oil
9 ounces coconut oil
4 ounces cocoa butter
3 ounces apricot kernel oil
2 ounces sweet almond oil
4.7 ounces lye
.5 ounces lavender essential oil
.3ounces orange essential oil
.2 ounces grapefruit essential oil

Every thing was closely monitored and mixed at the right temperatures

When I rebatched I placed it in a crock pot on low for 2 hrs, added less than 1 ounce of water.

 

[penelopejane]

You used 27% lye concentration and 5% SF.
If you up the lye concentration to 30% you would need 4 oz of water less.
This amount of water really makes a difference to how long it takes a soap to go hard.
It might take 4-5 days to go hard in a mold at 27% lye concentration.
It might stay soft for years.

I would really try much smaller batches and increase the lye concentration to 30% or higher. Also reducing the SF a bit seems to make some soaps harder.
You shouldn't have added extra water to your rebatch and 2 hours is way too long to cook it.
I would have grated it and made a confetti soap. Confetti soap can rescue any soft soap I have made and can produce a really artistic soap.

Also I think you will have to up the EO % to get any scent at all after cure and still it will unfortunately fade quickly.

 

[Mariah]

You used 27% lye concentration and 5% SF.
If you up the lye concentration to 30% you would need 4 oz of water less.
This amount of water really makes a difference to how long it takes a soap to go hard.
It might take 4-5 days to go hard in a mold at 27% lye concentration.
It might stay soft for years.

I would really try much smaller batches and increase the lye concentration to 30% or higher. Also reducing the SF a bit seems to make some soaps harder.
You shouldn't have added extra water to your rebatch and 2 hours is way too long to cook it.
I would have grated it and made a confetti soap. Confetti soap can rescue any soft soap I have made and can produce a really artistic soap.

Also I think you will have to up the EO % to get any scent at all after cure and still it will unfortunately fade quickly.

Thank you for your help!
Should I leave it in the mold for a couple of days? Or is this a batch I need to discard?

 

[penelopejane]

Leave it for a week and see how it goes.
I don't ever throw out soap unless the colour is absolutely awful.
If it is still soft after a week and the colour is ok, grate it and use it 50/50 with a new batch of soap.

 

[Amy78130]

It'll probably harden up after curing for a few weeks. Try adding some sodium lactate to your lye water after it cools, it makes a big difference in my batches!!

 

[penelopejane]

You can add SL if you don't mind using additives but it might be best at this stage of your soap making to perfect a recipe and compare others without additives first.

 

[Amy78130]

You can add SL if you don't mind using additives but it might be best at this stage of your soap making to perfect a recipe and compare others without additives first.

Yes, definitely run your formula through a soap calculator, but as person that has made soap for years now, if you don't mind additives, I really recommend this to help harden your bars. You can also disolve a little salt if you'd prefer.

 

[CatahoulaBubble]

Don't toss it. You just have to let it sit longer. I have a Bastille that I let sit in the mold for almost a week before I take it out because it's so soft and it takes about 3 months to cure. You can add Sodium Lactate to help it harden up so you can unmold it sooner. I never toss soap. Even if it looks bad or doesn't set up it's still good unless I mess up the lye calculation.

 

[IrishLass]

Don't toss your soap, Mariah! Just give it time to cure and it will harden and be perfectly fine. Never underestimate what time can do. Time is truly a soap's best friend.

I am curious, though, how long did you initially let it cure before deciding to rebatch? With a 27% lye concentration, it sounds like that all it needed was simply more time. Soaps with that much water can take several weeks if not a few months to harden up sufficiently, especially if they haven't gone through the gel stage. In any case, softness does not necessarily equate to having a bad soap.

IrishLass

 

[Mariah]

Don't toss your soap, Mariah! Just give it time to cure and it will harden and be perfectly fine. Never underestimate what time can do. Time is truly a soap's best friend.

I am curious, though, how long did you initially let it cure before deciding to rebatch? With a 27% lye concentration, it sounds like that all it needed was simply more time. Soaps with that much water can take several weeks if not a few months to harden up sufficiently, especially if they haven't gone through the gel stage. In any case, softness does not necessarily equate to having a bad soap.

IrishLass

Thank you!! I feel so much better with every ones guidance and help! I have to be patient and like you said just give it time.
To answer your question, I let it sit for 2 days before batching, I hope I didnt mess it up by doing that.

 

[Dawni]

To answer your question, I let it sit for 2 days before batching, I hope I didnt mess it up by doing that.

It could have just needed more time to harden. I rarely CP but I've made some that needed up to 4 days in the mold and several months of curing before it became hard enough for my liking.

Also, if you added even a little bit too much water to already soft fresh soap for rebatch they still might not get hard enough quickly, if at all. If that's an issue confetti is your best bet.

 

[IrishLass]

Thank you!! I feel so much better with every ones guidance and help! I have to be patient and like you said just give it time.
To answer your question, I let it sit for 2 days before batching, I hope I didnt mess it up by doing that.

No worries, Mariah- you didn't mess your soap up.... it will be fine in time. The worst that happened was this: you simply expended a bit of extra (but unnecessary) energy/work that time would have taken care of naturally.

For future reference, once a soap is made and and has been unmolded, it needs to cure at least 4 weeks before making any judgement calls on it, although other folks wait at least 6 to 8 weeks, and some even longer depending on the recipe......but definitely 4 weeks at a minimum.

Lye-based soap is a lot like cheese or wine in the sense that chemical changes are going on inside that increasingly/incrementally make it the best it can be over time.....i.e., changes that affect its hardness (the soap will increasingly become harder), its pH (it will become slightly lower), its lathering abilities (it will increasingly lather better), its mildness (it will gradually become more mellow/mild), and its longevity in the bath (well-cured soaps last longer in the bath/shower than their younger counterparts).

It would be so nice if all those changes were immediate, but like babies growing into adulthood they take time.......not as long as human babies, thankfully lol, but in comparison to humans, soap is definitely still in its infancy stage at 2-days old.....still wet behind the ears, all soft and cuddly, and can't do too much yet. At a week old, I would say it's in toddler stage- able to babble and to stand up a little on some terrains, but falls flat on others; at 2 weeks, it's reached elementary-school age- can walk and talk, exhibiting very promising potential, but when put to the test, shows it still doesn't know the half of things yet; at 3 weeks it's a tween/pre-teen- it develops a strut and a cocky mouth because it can do a lot on its own now, but still isn't able to keep up with its older, star athlete brother; and at 4 weeks it's like an 18 year old teenager- some are actually mature enough at that time to be let loose on the world, while some need to be held back a little longer.


IrishLass