How does this look. Using 1/2 coconut milk and 1/2 frozen pumpkin puree. Adding 2 T pumpkin puree, yogurt and salt after cook.
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Hot process salt bar
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How does this look. Using 1/2 coconut milk and 1/2 frozen pumpkin puree. Adding 2 T pumpkin puree, yogurt and salt after cook.
Although the cleansing number is way too high for my skin, it looks like a nice recipe. Also, even though you added the ACV after the cook, hopefully you adjusted the lye calculation for that. My understanding is that even after saponification is complete, the lye molecules can still be "rearranged" by addition of post-cook oils, acids, and other substances that react to NaOH.
Anyway, how did it turn out? Did you an any FO or EO to create the pumpkin spice scent?
Anyway, how did it turn out? Did you an any FO or EO to create the pumpkin spice scent?
I did get a few into cupcake molds then squished the rest into a mold. I let it cool and it was very crumbly and wet from spraying the sides of the crockpot to avoid hard bits. I ended up putting it back into the crockpot to remelt and back into the loaf mold. Cut it while still very warm and it cut fine. My hands don’t feel dry with it and it has nice creamy bubbles.
Being a hot process(x2
) what would be the drying time?
1T orangex10
1/2 T patchouli
1/2 T clove
The rebatch I added about1/4 cup instant coffe
Being a hot process(x2
) what would be the drying time?I used pumpkin spices in the olive oil and 1T cinnamon
1T orangex10
1/2 T patchouli
1/2 T clove
The rebatch I added about1/4 cup instant coffe
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Yikes, was that ground cloves, or clove EO? If the latter, then double-check the safe usage rate for that EO blend on EOCalc.com. Clove EO is a very "hot" oil that can cause serious skin burns. Even the dry spices in soaps can be super irritating to sensitive skin.
I'm sure these smell fantastic, but for future, it's really important to measure EOs by weight, not volume, and to make sure the blends are skin-safe.
The cure time is the same or longer for hot process, because more water is used. Lots of folks are confused about that because they conflate saponification with curing. Saponification is done at the end of the cook for hot process, and usually within 72 hours for cold process. But curing is about water evaporation and the soap becoming milder over time - and that doesn't change based on how the soap has been made.
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Wait, I've never heard this before. So you're saying after full saponification, there is still active lye?
Not exactly. What I understand from things shared by Kevin Dunn (the soap scientist guy) is that the lye molecule (or more accurately, the component that separated from the lye molecule) that is now attached to a fatty acid, can still separate from that fatty acid and react instead to other substances that are present, including different fatty acids, or other forms of acid such as citric acid and acetic acid. That's why the term "post-cook superfat" is a bit euphemistic. By adding something post-cook, you evidently increase the likelihood of it remaining in its whole state, but you cannot guarantee it.
It's entirely possible I didn't say that correctly, so hopefully @DeeAnna can chime in to clean up after me.
I did check on eo calc and used less then what was in the green. I used spoon measurements because I don’t have a scale for small stuff(next on my shopping list). What little bit I used wouldn’t even have moved the scale.
Thanks very much for your input
Great, that is good to hear. I'm one of those whose skin is very sensitive to hot oils so I can get a little twitchy about it. 
I was never fond of "hot" oils in salt bars.
Not exactly. What I understand from things shared by Kevin Dunn (the soap scientist guy) is that the lye molecule (or more accurately, the component that separated from the lye molecule) that is now attached to a fatty acid, can still separate from that fatty acid and react instead to other substances that are present, including different fatty acids, or other forms of acid such as citric acid and acetic acid. That's why the term "post-cook superfat" is a bit euphemistic. By adding something post-cook, you evidently increase the likelihood of it remaining in its whole state, but you cannot guarantee it.
It's entirely possible I didn't say that correctly, so hopefully @DeeAnna can chime in to clean up after me.
Good job of explaining, Ali.
There are two general types of molecules: ionic and covalent. An ionic molecule is like a stack of child's legos. If you bump a stack of legos, the legos will fall apart. A covalent molecule behaves more like legos that have been glued together. If you bump a stack of glued legos, the legos stay stuck together and won't come apart.
Soap is an ionic molecule. That essentially means the sodium head of any soap molecule is not strongly and permanently attached to the fatty acid tail. The sodium part is able to break away from the fatty acid part and then it is free to bond with more desirable ions.
The acetate ion part of an acetic acid (vinegar) molecule is more desirable than the fatty acid ion of a soap molecule. Ditto for the citrate ion part in a citric acid molecule.
It's not something you can prevent. Any time you put vinegar or citric acid (or other similar acid) in soap, the sodium ions will inevitably bod with these more desirable acidic ions. If there are more sodium ions than acidic ions, the left-over sodium ions will bond with the fatty acids to make soap, but only if there are no more-desirable acidic ions to bond with.
The sodium ions will do this whether you add vinegar or citric acid at the beginning of soap making, when the soap batter is at trace, or after the soap is fully saponified.
Thank you, @DeeAnna - those extra details make all the difference for me to understand the chemical process, and thus be able to craft a better explanation in the future.
Of course, no good deed goes unpunished so hopefully you don't mind one more question. If you were to soak a cured bar of soap in vinegar, my understanding is that the separation of the ionic molecules will take longer than it would if you were to add the vinegar to soap that is still in the neat phase, for instance, HP soap that is still pourable in the crock pot. In other words, the bar soap would have to soak in vinegar for a bit before the separation would start to occur, whereas the neat soap would have a more immediate reaction. Is that correct?
Of course, no good deed goes unpunished
so hopefully you don't mind one more question. If you were to soak a cured bar of soap in vinegar, my understanding is that the separation of the ionic molecules will take longer than it would if you were to add the vinegar to soap that is still in the neat phase, for instance, HP soap that is still pourable in the crock pot. In other words, the bar soap would have to soak in vinegar for a bit before the separation would start to occur, whereas the neat soap would have a more immediate reaction. Is that correct?
Yes, the conversion of the acetic acid (vinegar) into acetate would be slower due to less surface area exposed to the vinegar. For a solid bar, only the outer surface is exposed to the acetic acid, so only the soap molecules on the surface would be affected. My guess is the water and acetic acid will gradually migrate into the soap -- kind of like leaving a bar of soap in a wet soap dish -- and the vinegar will react with the soap as that happens.
The same idea would apply if you poured vinegar on top of soap that's in the "vaseline" gel phase but did not mix the vinegar into the soap. Initially, the only soap that can react with the vinegar is the soap on the outside surface.
IMO it's less about being in the solid phase versus neat phase and more about the degree of mixing -- how much soap is exposed to the acid.
Once you mix the vinegar intimately into soap, the "surface area" of the soap that's exposed to the vinegar becomes much larger and the chemical change from acetic acid to acetate will be faster.
Not sure why a person would want to soak soap in vinegar -- is this a "thing" that people are doing? In any case, there's my opinion on this thought experiment.
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Some years ago, one of my soaps had undissolved lye crystals in it. After conferring with a few other soapmakers, I shredded the entire batch, soaked the shreds in vinegar, and then melted/rebatched the whole thing. The idea was that the vinegar would neutralize the lye crystals, resulting in a skin-safe soap. However, even after the vinegar soaking and rebatching, I wasn't confident that all lye crystals had come in contact with the vinegar, so the entire batch went into the trash.
Just a small clarification - you actually meant 'from acetic acid to acetate', correct? Because this particular case was with vinegar. The other case would have been 'from citric acid to citrate', but the example you gave was with vinegar and not citric acid. Wanted to point that out to avoid possible confusion for people new to the terms and chemistry in general
Thanks @AliOop - I had no idea. I thought once the soap was saponified ... there was no possibility of lye reacting with anything else.Not exactly. What I understand from things shared by Kevin Dunn (the soap scientist guy) is that the lye molecule (or more accurately, the component that separated from the lye molecule) that is now attached to a fatty acid, can still separate from that fatty acid and react instead to other substances that are present, including different fatty acids, or other forms of acid such as citric acid and acetic acid. That's why the term "post-cook superfat" is a bit euphemistic. By adding something post-cook, you evidently increase the likelihood of it remaining in its whole state, but you cannot guarantee it.
It's entirely possible I didn't say that correctly, so hopefully @DeeAnna can chime in to clean up after me.
Thanks @DeeAnna! I'm actually very sad to hear this. I thought once the soap had saponified anything else added was safe from any further lye reactions.
I don't use vinegar or citric acid in any of my soaps, but I do use sodium gluconate.
So, would things like shea butter, yogurt, goats milk, coconut milk etc., cause the "legos" to fall apart or would it be things that are more acid like vinegar or citric acid?
Thank you for the extensive clarification. Corrections duly made.
Some years ago, one of my soaps had undissolved lye crystals in it. After conferring with a few other soapmakers, I shredded the entire batch, soaked the shreds in vinegar, and then melted/rebatched the whole thing. The idea was that the vinegar would neutralize the lye crystals, resulting in a skin-safe soap. However, even after the vinegar soaking and rebatching, I wasn't confident that all lye crystals had come in contact with the vinegar, so the entire batch went into the trash.
Hmm. That's an odd approach. Assuming your soap was based on a safe recipe, I wonder why you didn't do a basic rebatch? Grate the soap, add a bit of extra water or other water-based liquid, heat the mixture, and let the soap (and any free NaOH) thoroughly dissolve in the water. Heat the mixture for awhile -- maybe, oh, 30 minutes or so -- to encourage saponification. The solid lye particles would easily dissolve in the water and be free to would react with the free fats in the mixture. That would have solved your problem without the downside of vinegar breaking down the soap.
Agreed, plain water would have made more sense… but this was pre-SMF for me, so I was still listening to soapy myths and stuff from other sources. 
This was a 6-pound batch that was too big to work well in my crockpot; it was so full, it felt like I couldn’t get it well-stirred. If I had known then about oven rebatch, or had realized that my electric turkey roaster pan was ideal for this, I probably would have tried either of those, with just water. Nor did I think of dividing it into two batches.
Let’s just say, my soapy problem-solving skills were definitely in their infancy.
This was a 6-pound batch that was too big to work well in my crockpot; it was so full, it felt like I couldn’t get it well-stirred. If I had known then about oven rebatch, or had realized that my electric turkey roaster pan was ideal for this, I probably would have tried either of those, with just water. Nor did I think of dividing it into two batches.
Let’s just say, my soapy problem-solving skills were definitely in their infancy.
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