How do you do this?

[Anthony0327]

I know I keep posting but I just wanna absorb and learn as much as I can. I have a few questions that I think are more on the "what I prefer". What do you think the best temperature is to mix the lye and the oils? After you are all done and your soap is drying how do you clean up? After I made my first batch a few days ago I was washing out everything and I went to go use them today and I was shocked that almost everything I washed still had an oily feeling and slippery feeling. How do you wash your equipment? My last question is about unmolding. I know it depends on the oils you use but what do you think is a good time to wait? A few hours? I was told I should wait at least 24 hours.

Ok... thanks for putting up with my million questions.

- Anthony

 

[Kittish]

"At least 24 hours" is a good starting point for unmolding. Some soaps it'll take 3 or 4 days before they firm up enough to unmold. (Don't panic, this does NOT mean you need to tweak your recipe- it'll harden up as it cures.) I have a batch of soap now that's been sitting in the mold for about three days. I think it may finally be about ready to come out.

I rinse all my gear with hot water right after I'm done making my soap, then sometime in the next day or two give it all a good wash with plenty of dish detergent. Plastic tends to retain a slightly oily coating no matter what. I tend to use stainless steel and silicone as much as I can, it cleans up much more easily.

Temperatures don't matter all that much, so long as you don't have stuff TOO hot. Over about 150*F would be getting into 'too hot'. Beyond that, experiment and decide what sort of temperature range you prefer, all the way down to starting with everything at room temperature. I generally like to soap around 100-110*F.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I'm not saying that you have to constantly check the forum, as we all have other things that need our attention, but try to check the forum even if you have no questions as such but to see what is being discussed that might not have occurred to you. For example, there was fairly recently a great thread about clearing up after soaping.

If learning is your goal, that is really the best way. Even if a thread seems to be something that you don't need, read it anyway as there might be something to learn even if it is for later down the road

 

[Susie]

Temperature is not that important. As long as it is not too hot. Heat speeds trace, and you are eventually going to want to swirl, so soaping cooler is a good habit to get into.

I unmold and cut anywhere between 12-24 hours. If you can press gently on the corner of the soap without denting it, it is time. If it is less than 18 hours old in a gelled soap, wear gloves and be prepared to stop trying to unmold in case it is too soft underneath. If it is an ungelled soap, you may need to leave it in the mold a couple of days.

If you are not soaping every day, and you have room, just stack your soaping dishes up and wash them the next day. It is much easier then. I stick my soaping dishes into a 5 gallon bucket, put the lid on, and let them saponify. Then, the next day I pour in hot water, and let them sit for another day. Then simply take out and rinse. After all, you had them covered with soap.

If you do not have the luxury of waiting a couple of days, then after using the spatula to get every usable soap into the mold, wipe with paper towels before washing. It works better than just washing.

 

[IrishLass]

I find soaping temperatures to be very recipe dependent. They are very crucial to some of my formulas, but not so much to others. For example, if I'm making my formula that contains a goodly amount of stearic in the form of hydrogenated PKO flakes and butters, I need to be more mindful of the temps of my lye solution and fats in order that the temp of my batter does not go below 110F, in order that I don't end up with pseudo-trace and the inevitably resultant stearic spots in my finished soap..... And if I am discounting my water by using a 33% lye concentration or above, (instead of a 'full water' amount), I also need to keep my temps up around 110F if I expect my soap to go through full gel (instead of partial gel).

RE: cleaning up. First, I make sure that as much of my batter as possible makes it into my molds by using a good silicone spatula. Any miniscule, residual batter left on my utensils or in my bowls gets wiped off with paper towels that get thrown away. I then wash everything up in hot, soapy water. The 'soap' that I use for this purpose is a mixture of Dawn Ultra and vinegar. It leaves no oily residue behind.

RE: how long I wait to unmold. Again , it is recipe-dependent. My fully-gelled 100% coconut oil formula and my salt bars can be unmolded in as little as 6 hours after pour. Actually, they need to be unmolded that soon or else they will be too hard to cut into bars. The rest of my formulas are ready to unmold and cut between 18 - 24 hours after pour just as long as they went through full gel. If un-gelled, it can take up to 36 hours or more, especially if a full-water amount was used.


IrishLass

 

[Seawolfe]

For temps I really go by feeling the outside of the container & I aim for "warm". Unless of course there is stearic or even shea for me - then I aim for "almost hot" to avoid false trace. I only soap cool (room temp) if I want a super long trace for something fiddly.

For me the best way to clean up is to scrape everything out and put everything used in a plastic bag outside on the porch for a day or two - then wash off the soap. But if I'm in a hurry its paper towels and hot soapy water or dishwasher.

Unmolding a loaf of soap for cutting? Whenever it's ready - which is between 6 or 8 hours for salt soaps up to 5 days for soaps that have full water / all soft oils / did not gel / soaped cool in cool weather or whatevs. Hitting the sweet spot for unmolding and cutting is a learning curve for every recipe. For a "normal" recipe I usually figure 24 hours, but you can't assume it always will be.

 

[dixiedragon]

I think the best temp to mix lye and oils is when the lye is room temp and the oils are 100 degrees (not more than 110). That is hot enough to prevent false trace, but allows plenty of time for swirls, etc. There are, of course, exceptions - I like to soap my beeswax soap hot.

Cleaning - it's best to wash your soap dishes the next day. That way the soap batter will be mostly soap, vs being oil and lye water. So it washes MUCH more easily. This is why I like to have separate soaping equipment from cooking equipment - so if my soaping pot didn't get thoroughly cleaned, it's still fine for soap but not fine for food. I wipe down my equipment with paper towels, then let it sit overnight. Then I wash in hot water. Then I'll run the pieces through the dishwasher if they fit.

 

[SaltedFig]

If your recipe is slow to harden in the mold, it will also feel oily for longer on your wash pots.

 

[SoapEh]

Hi! I'm also a new soaper

I have found the absolute best learning tools are reading obsessively and YouTube.

When I say read I mean books, forums, ebooks, blogs, soap & shampoo labels, the product information on sites where you can buy soaping stuff... read it all. Learn about what colorants work, what micas work, what oils do what, which things work together, recipes -- go on recipe makers like soapcalc and play, see what works and doesn't; experiment! It's all learning, and it's free.

Then, watch all sorts of videos -- the professional ones, but also the amateurish ones, the hippies making soap in their backyard campers, How It's Made episodes about soap and detergent, videos with no voiceover that are just beautiful shots of people creating amazing soap swirls to music, long boring videos on lye safety and cleanup... watch men, watch women, watch labeling and packaging videos, tutorials on making recipes, find videos of people making mistakes. I have learned loads watching videos of soap seizing, mold lining how-tos, reviews of different products and recipes, and hour upon hour of just soaking in watching people make soap. The more I observe people creating different swirls, using certain colorants, fragrance types, making mica lines, using different types of tools, the more I learn.

I find when I'm practicing later that I'll remember back to a video or a blog/forum post -- 'oh yeah, that person did/said such and such -- don't forget that if you do x, you have to account for that with y'

I sometimes take notes if someone says something I don't want to forget that is really specific, or if I see a technique that's something I want to try, or want to tweak a bit with a different recipe, or whatever.

It takes time and practice to learn a new hobby -- every hobby has a learning curve, and soaping isn't an easy hobby. It's chemistry, it's art, there's some luck thrown in (things like weather can affect things)... but the more you learn, I'm finding, the more fun it gets. It's going to be YEARS before I'm any type of expert, but I've only been reading for a few months and I made my first soap in August less than 10 weeks ago and I know a lot more than I did at the start

 

[Susie]

Be careful of blogs, though. Some people are not as grounded in good soaping facts as one would wish. Some are down right dangerous, and some are barely disguised rants.

If in doubt, come ask here. We do not dress up what we answer, and some of us down right lack tact (me), but we will tell you the absolute truth, and we are all trying to help you. And best of all, you get lots of different slants on the issue, so you can filter through all the info and get what you need out of it.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Some friends of mine are starting soaping and seem too drawn to the Facebook groups rather than here, which means I spend a lot of time fielding their questions based on bad information! Blogs and many Facebook groups are out and out dangerous at times

 

[MissLunaB]

Some friends of mine are starting soaping and seem too drawn to the Facebook groups rather than here, which means I spend a lot of time fielding their questions based on bad information! Blogs and many Facebook groups are out and out dangerous at times

I've noticed that a lot recently. People are so hyped up about the fad of soap making and are jumping in feet first because there favorite socialite is doing it instead of reading, learning and asking questions on how to do soap making the proper way. Also socialites are not even taking the responsibility to say hay go here and to learn the proper techniques on how to do this dangerous thing like they use to do some 5 odd years ago

 

[Kamahido]

I'm not saying that you have to constantly check the forum, as we all have other things that need our attention, but try to check the forum even if you have no questions as such but to see what is being discussed that might not have occurred to you. For example, there was fairly recently a great thread about clearing up after soaping.

If learning is your goal, that is really the best way. Even if a thread seems to be something that you don't need, read it anyway as there might be something to learn even if it is for later down the road

I must disagree! I check the forums every hour or so. But then again, I admit I really have nothing better to do right now.

 

[artemis]

I must disagree! I check the forums every hour or so. But then again, I admit I really have nothing better to do right now.

I sort of do, too. But, I have the app, so it's a pretty quick thing to just pop on and see if there's anything new and leave again.

 

[SoapEh]

You guys make good points about FB and blogs -- I definitely try to make sure I'm reading things written by people who know what they're talking about. With videos I'm more cavalier, for a reason: it's actually educational to watch people do things wrong. Once I learned the very basics, so I could *recognize* when things were wrong, I started watching less 'professional' looking videos on YT. I could see when people were doing things that were either overly difficult (i.e. there's a simpler, easier, or safer way) or downright wrong, I could watch them mess up, and learn from it. There are videos people put out of things going wrong that are actually very beneficial, so we can see what 'soap on a stick' or seizing looks like.

It's interesting to see a Brambleberry video where she measures temperature so carefully, and everything's laid out, and then watch a more scattered YouTuber where they're sort of just tossing things in a bowl using the 'heat transfer' method and saying 'oh gee, where's that mica, oh, darn, I forgot the fragrance...' and you get to see the batter starting to thicken up on them because they're disorganized. Watching someone do a perfect mica line is great, but it's also neat to see what happens when it doesn't go as planned, or when they forget and screw up the design.

After literally hundreds of videos, I'm starting to sort out what it looks like when you do certain types of hangar swirl, chopstick swirl, spoon swirl, mica lines, how to so Taiwan swirls, what effects different oils have, I've seen people soap at different temperatures, using all different methods, so, so many types of molds, and good or bad video quality it's all education.

I would put a caveat here for anyone who, like me, is brand new: if EVER you're not sure of something you see/read, come here and ask about it! You can't get a response from a book, or an old video from 2012. There are actual people here who know what they're doing, who soap every day and are happy to answer our questions

 

[Kamahido]

I sort of do, too. But, I have the app, so it's a pretty quick thing to just pop on and see if there's anything new and leave again.

Wait a moment... THERE'S AN APP?!

 

[artemis]

Wait a moment... THERE'S AN APP?!

Oh, yes. And it's so much easier to see just the new stuff and to tell how old a post is before reading it or which part of the forum it's in. You just can't "like" any posts from the app. Also, really easy to add photos.

 

[Dahila]

most people make soap not knowing what lye discount is or not being able to use software (soapmaker3) or any lye calculator. I observe it on FB every day, I stop linking them to right info. it is hopeless.
I tend to check forum at least 5 times a day, and I am really busy, it is like obsession with this forum. You should see me when I see DeeAnna post, my heart starts to beat faster

 

[SoapAddict415]

For me, a little bleach in the dish water or using a little Dawn dish liquid helps eliminate the greasy feel on my soap dishes. As for when I like to unmold, the type of mold I use usually determines how soon I can unmold. Today I used a paper lined wooden loaf mold & I was able to unmold after about 6 hours. If I'd used a silicone mold, I wouldn't be able to unmold for 24-48 hours without denting my loaf.