Hot Process Soap with Conditioning Butters and Oils -- Too soft after unmolding

[Dollyk8]

Hi,

I've made at least 5 hot process soap batches this year and 10-15 cold process batches - off and on since 2016.

My recipe has 8.4 ozs of lye and 23 ozs of water. I divided 8.4 by 23 and multiplied by 100. That gives me 36.5% - my lye to water ratio.
I added conditioning butters (e.g., 6 ozs cocoa butter, 4 ozs shea butter) plus a little over a pound of coconut and olive oils and minimal amts of castor and palm oils. I wanted these bars
to ready quickly and so I used the hot process soap. I added 2.5 ounces of essential oils at the end. I left the soap in the mold for 12 hours. Still soft. I put the soap (still in its mold) in the freezer for
a couple of hours. It was a little harder, but technically still to soft to gift, sell, or use. What should I do at this point?

Your feedback is much appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[msuver]

Precise measurements for all of your ingredients would be really helpful for providing feedback! "a little over a pound" and "minimal amounts" aren't precise enough for anyone to know what might have gone wrong with your batch.

 

[cmzaha]

If you have been making soap even off and on for
this long you should know you really need to either run your recipes through a soap calculator or figure out your lye requirements manually. No matter what your change is. You also should know even hot process soap needs to cure, nothing stops cure time and hp usually needs more cure time because it normally takes more liquid than cp soap.

You will need to post your recipe to get proper help.

 

[earlene]

Dolly, Just some thoughts and encouragement to provide more information so we can help. And welcome to the forum, by the way.

I think you need to provide more information, specifically your actual recipe. AND more about your process. When you say you did HP, did you use a crockpot, stove-top, oven, or microwave HP method? Did you cook the soap to gel phase before putting into the mold? Those kinds of details would really help.

So far I see this:

? ounces Olive oil (is it 16 ounces or
? ounces Coconut oil (8 ounces or 16 ounces
6 ounces Cocoa butter
4 ounces Shea butter
? ounces palm oil (or is it PKO, or ?)
? ounces Castor oil
? Total ounces of oils

8.4 ounces lye (NaOH, right?)
23 ounces water

2.5 ounces EO

Where there any other additives? And if so, what were they?

I believe your lye to water ratio is 3.6 : 1 which is a lot of water to lye, but in HP a lot of water is pretty common,
Divide amount of water by amount of lye to get the actual lye to water ratio. That is about a 22% lye concentration, which is really low, so it will take a long time for the water to evaporate off. Usually in the HP method, a lot of the water can evaporate during the cook, so the fact that you still have very soft soap is baffling, of course.

With a lye calculator you don't have to do the math yourself and it can prevent some errors.

Anyway with that much lye, I am coming up with a total of something along the lines of 58 ounces of oils, but it really depends on which ones in which amounts, and on what Super Fat setting you are using, so as mentioned before, an exact recipe would be helpful for troubleshooting purposes.

And for that amount of oil (only guessing) 2.5 ounces of essential oils might be too much. So really, when you include your exact recipe, please also include which essential oils exactly were added in specific amounts. Besides some having pretty restrictive usage limits, some affect the soap's performance as well.

Also, putting soap that doesn't set up correctly into the freezer to make it set up doesn't help. Cooling soap is done to prevent gel, but in HP you are forcing gel.

Where did you get the recipe? Did you use a lye/soap calculator such as SoapmakingFriend or Soapee or SoapCalc?

Here (link) is one reference on determining EO usage rates to demonstrate how some have different safe usage rates.

 

[Dollyk8]

Hello DeeAnna,

Thank you for welcoming me to the soap forum. I'm really excited to be here and to grow on my soap-making journey.

I'm sorry I missed a few earlier posts and hope that this message will serve as a reply-to-all.

This was the original recipe (that I obtained either from SoapQueen or lovelygreens.com - I have it documented, but will have to dig)

This was the original recipe:
10 ozs olive oil - SUBSTITUTE with 10 0zs. Of Apricot Kernel oil or Grapeseed Oil

10 ozs coconut oil – can use Palm Kernel Oil instead, but leave recipe as is, with Coconut oil.

4 ozs palm oil – substitute with babassu oil

3 ozs cocoa butter

2 ozs shea butter

2 ozs castor oil

11.5 ozs water (water needs to be weighed, not measured in volume)

4.2 ozs lye

I multiplied everything by 2 and came up with this recipe:

20 ozs of olive oil –

20 ozs coconut oil (food grade oil, from Essential Depot)

8 ozs palm oil (food grade oil, from Essential Depot)

6 ozs cocoa butter (from MOM's)

4 ozs shea butter (Allaffia Shea butter, bought on Amazon)

4 ozs castor oil

23 ozs water

8.4 ozs lye

I used LyeCalc.com, as I generally do.

My Process

I poured solid oils as I weighed each kind into a crock pot set at "low". Then I poured the liquid oils. After oils had melted and temperature of the oils was at 120 degree fahrenheit and the lye solution was at at a 100 degrees fahrenheit (added 4 tsps of Sodium Lactate 60 to the lye solution at this pt.)
Then, I poured the lye solution into the oils in the crock pot. I used a stick blender and blended until the soap had traced (pudding consistency). Then I covered the crock pot with plastic wrap and then its top. I checked the soap every 30 minutes or so. At that time, I stirred it. I could hear a pop. I covered it with wrap and slow cooker top for another half hour. Then uncovered and stirred. The soap had dark spots in places and light in others. It looked like it was reaching the "gel phase". I cooked it for another half hour. Returned to find mashed potatoes look and consistency. At that point, I figured, I could stop, although in the past, I have stirred and cooked until that "pop sound" went away. At this point, I divided up the soap, and in one batch I added 1.0 ozs of Grapefruit EO; in the other (equal-sized batches), I added 1.5 ozs. of peppermint EO. I added a pinch of mica color to each batch. And that was it.

Where did I go wrong? Thanks in advance for your reply.

Dollyk8

I didn't finish...I plopped the mixture into silicone molds and waited 12 hours and then tried the freezer for a couple of hours. Then unmolded so the water would evaporate. I told a friend, I would ship the soaps to her by tomorrow. Do you see that happening? I could rebatch it, I appreciate any specific guidance you can provide. Most sites, including HSCG, say, that HP can be unmolded for use within 24 hours. And, so I'm surprised that many of you are saying 4-6 weeks to cure HP soap.

By the way, I salute all of you, who have been doing these for years and years. It IS very hard work.

Thank you.
Dollyk8

I meant doing this, not doing these.

 

[earlene]

I've seen LyeCalc.com, but I have not used it.

But I put your more detailed recipe into SoapmakingFriend and come up with

12% SF
and the lye concentration is 26%
which is equivalent to a lye:water ratio of 2.8 : 1

For HP that makes sense for lye & water.
You added an additional 4 tsp of SL, which falls into the recommended amount, so I don't see that as a problem. But it's not speeding up making the soap firm faster, so something else is going on.

By some reports both those EOs can apparently slow trace, but you didn't add them until after you reached gel phase you say, so not sure if they would slow saponification as well.

All I can guess is you somehow made a measuring error and either have less than the 62 ounces of oil your recipe calls for, or more water than you think.

Is there any possibility you had a scale malfunction or made a user error? You are using a scale, right? Maybe you forgot to tare it at some point or it needs new batteries, or needs calibrating.

Other than that, I can't imagine what has gone wrong. With that much CO, palm oil and butters, I would expect this soap to be quite firm by now.

 

[Dollyk8]

Hi Earlene,

Thanks for your detailed reply. I don't like my scale at all and have been meaning to invest in a new one but going to Bed, Bath, and Beyond isn't easy in this COVID-19 times. And so, I'm sticking with the one I bought for $40 just four (4) months ago. After reaching a pound - 16 ozs., it returns to 1 oz. Then, I have to calculate in my head the rest of the measurement. The print is so fine too. Long story short, I think you're right, it may be the scale.

Meanwhile, I'll go to bed tonight, hoping to wake up to a nice, firm, conditioning bar.

Thank you so much for your guidance.

Stay safe!
Dollyk8

 

[bookreader451]

If you need a low cost accurate scale I can recommend this one. I don't make huge batches so it works great for me. I have two of these, one for soaping and one for my kitchen.

https://www.amazon.com/Ozeri-ZK14-S...=1589280423&sprefix=Food+scale,aps,187&sr=8-7

 

[shunt2011]

You need to get an accurate scale that will measure out in ounces and grams. I highly recommend using grams when making soap. Much more accurate. Also, just doubling a recipe isn't how it works. You need to run it through a soap calculator. Also, what is a pop sound when making HP. I've never heard of that nor had it happen. Please enlighten me..... Until you get a scale than can handle your soap weight you want to make I would stick to smaller batches.

 

[Dollyk8]

Hello There!

Excuse the extremely late reply. I keep super busy at my day job, where I have to learn new technologies just to keep up. Tired brain (and body). Anyhow, I do realize now that doubling a recipe was NOT a good idea. Now, I use a trusted lye calculator religiously.

Regarding the pop sound, after watching 100s of videos of hot process, I came across one where the lady (I forget her name), would return to the crock pot and dig in and turn over the soap. If it made a sound of air in the soap (I'm calling it a "pop" sound but maybe there's a better way to put it), you needed to keep cooking. It seems to work for me.

Thanks for your post.
Dollyk8


How do you make such beautiful swirly soaps, pray tell? I'd love to do the same. I realize HP is not the way to go for swirly soaps. I've had a few blunders where my plans to attain light trace were jeopardized by various factors. Once I do have a recipe that I implement at the right temperatures and attain light trace, what is the best way to make beautiful swirly soaps. I'd love written steps.

Thank you! I must get back to work now. Happy Friday!

 

[Arimara]

1. You recipe showed as full water the way you formulated it. If you're not careful to change setting from "percentage of water", you will always come out with soap that may be problematic due to more water than it needed. I used SoapCalc and the lye calculator you mentioned.

2. You can do some swirls with HP. You just have to be quick about it, your recipe may need the addition of either sodium lactate, and you would want to minimize the amount of evaporation that will occur.

3. Since temperatures play a big part of trace, You would want to soap as cool as you can while minimizing your risk for reaching a false trace. I would imagine soaping at between 70-80 degrees for you but you have to find that out for yourself since I live in a cooler area, generally speaking.

 

[Dollyk8]

Hi Arimara,

thank you for the suggestion to change percentage of water (to weight) in the calculator. That recipe definitely had more water than needed.

FYI, I’ve experienced every single, imaginable (soapmaking) problem since I reinitiated my SM journey las November. That’s a blessing because now I can handle issues that come up. I’ve managed to “rescue” my soap from disaster, multiple times.
Thank you for the tip on swirling HP and temperature guidance. I usually get too impatient and don’t wait for the oils and lye to cook to 70-80 deg. F. I will do that next time though.

Do you know of a good video on swirling (CP or HP soap)?

thanks again!

 

[Arimara]

@Dollyk8 I tend to watch Royalty Soaps but I have also checked out Tree Marie, Missouri River Soap, and a few other that have been posted in recent months. They all do mostly CP though.

It is good that you learned from your mistakes if it made you a better soaper from it. Just be sure to ask further questions when you need to.

 

[lenarenee]

If you're willing to try cold process, with a little practice, and the right recipe (one that doesn't saponify too quickly) you'll learn to recognize the state of emulsion where the batter has reached the "point of no return" and saponification has begun. From that point you can separate some batter into 2 or more containers to color at least one of them and perform in the pot swirl, or drop swirl. They're the easiest for me. Here's two good videos:

There are ways to keep hot process batter more fluid, such as adding yogurt or sodium lactate. YouTube has several videos - maybe someone on SMF can recommend good ones (I rarely do hot process, I don't care for the longer cure time or the feel of the bars). Hot process is the time to use full water - as so much evaporates curing the cook.

Arimara mentioned soapers who often do drop swirls; I'll add Vibrant Soaps to that list because he often explains why he's chosen to layer the colors in his pouring container and how it will affect the finished look.