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[lady lather]

I’m new to making cold process soap and I’m having trouble with my soap setting too quickly. I try to blend it to light trace. Then add my colours then my FO. I can’t even get the soap in the mold before it’s solidified. I thought maybe my lye solution has gone bad?

 

[LynetteO]

Welcome
It would be helpful if you post your recipe because contents do matter. The main cause of soap setting too quickly is over use of the stick blender. Have a light touch. Heat also matters. How hot are your oils & lye when you begin?

 

[AliOop]

Bad lye is definitely not the problem - that would leave your soap too soft, not too hard. @LynetteO is correct - it's usually too much stick blending, or too much heat. Or my nemesis: naughty FOs that speed up trace!

We really do need to know your entire recipe and process, including all additives and the name of the FO. With that info, we can help you troubleshoot and reach soapy bliss in no time.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Also, once it's at light trace, it's virtually ready to go in the mold. If you then spend more time adding colour (and mixing it more), then FO ( and mixing it more) by then you've over mixed it.
Soap batter that reaches light trace will move to medium trace just within a few minutes with my recipe ( if left untouched) so add to that the extra mixing, and you can have very thick trace in no time at all.

 

[AliOop]

... so what @KiwiMoose is saying, is trying blending to emulsion instead of light trace. Then add colors and FO.

 

[Zing]

Welcome to the forum! When I first started, I would turn on my stick blender and just keep it on. Now, I use my stick blender more as a spoon to stir my batter. Every couple of minutes, I turn it on low for a 5 second burst.

As far as emulsion goes, it took me a year to master. There's a real good "I Dream in Soap" video on emulsion and trace. I'm at work now but I'll try to remember to post a link.

I don't know if you watch YouTube soap videos or not (if you don't, don't start or else you'll see the sun come up and realize that you forgot to go to bed ). It's hard to get a sense from videos about the stirring and stick blending process because many speed up through that part of the tape. Or, they are making a huge batch -- bigger than most hobbyists make -- when more aggressive stick blending is necessary. Good luck & keep us posted!

 

[Zany_in_CO]

 

[TheGecko]

I’m new to making cold process soap and I’m having trouble with my soap setting too quickly. I try to blend it to light trace. Then add my colours then my FO. I can’t even get the soap in the mold before it’s solidified. I thought maybe my lye solution has gone bad?

Welcome.

You're probably making the same mistake that many of us made in the beginning...too much stick blending. You're blending to light trace, then you're adding in your colorants and blending, then you're adding in your FO and blending...that's a lot of blending.

For the last few years I have made mainly 20oz and 50oz batches (total batch weight). For the 20oz batches which usually text batches, I toss everything in at once...whiz, whiz...stir, stir, stir...whiz, whiz...final stir, pour. Whiz being equal to about 2 to 3 seconds. 50oz batches are about the same since I'm not into super fancy designs...if it's a single-color soap I'll toss it all in at once and the whiz is about 5 seconds. If it's one of my two-color drop/chopstick swirls, I go ahead and add the FO, do the whiz, whiz, stir, stir, stir then pour off for the second color, add the colorant to the main batch, stir it in, test batch whiz, whiz, final stir and pour. Wash off stick blender with hot water, stir in the colorant, test batch whiz, whiz, final stir...drop into my batter and swirl.