I got my first 'false trace', but why?

[Healinya]

When I poured the lye into the oil, it immediately turned chunky and thick. When all the lye mixture was incorporated but all I had done so far was hand stir for about 20 seconds or so, it looked like it was ready to be poured. I kept blending for what I would normally blend, and it actually seemed to lighten up a little bit at around the time I would normally pour. The soap seemed to come out fine, I abandoned my plan for swirling tho. It was a new recipe tho, so I'm wondering if it was my bad attempt at making my own recipe, or just one of the ingredients added. Here's what I made:

Coconut - 25%
Safflower - 20%
Lard - 20%
Olive - 15%
Avocado - 10%
Castor - 5%
Steric Acid - 5%
Total oil wight 32 oz.

12.16 water
4.51 lye

I've never soaped with stearic acid before, wondering if that could be it? Althought I rarely used safflower or lard either. I'm just trying to find a less expensive recipe for myself. Any ideas?

(I did also add 1T + 1t coconut milk powder, with 1/4t mica and 1.4oz fragrance... but I only added that before pouring in mold so I know it wasn't what did it.)

TY

 

[carebear]

I've not worked with stearic acid so don't know if that contributed.

but I've had issues with certain recipes and found that temps have a lot to do with it. what temps were your oils and your lye solution when you combined them (about... were they both room temp, one hot one cold...?)?

also, if lard is a big component of my recipes I'm more likely to have a false trace. I've found recently that I CAN SB in my silvermoon log molds LOL (don't recommend it, but it can be done).

BTW: why the stearic? between the coconut and the lard you should be OK, tho I prefer more hard oils than soft myself (I'm a bubbles ho)

 

[Healinya]

I added the stearic because if I used that 5% toward coconut, It would have had a higher cleansing than I wanted, and I used it instead of lard because it had a higher lather that way.. and I actually don't know what it is. The candle stuff I have that I'm not doing much with right now, the stearic acid was part of it.

The temp was a little lower than I usually do. I forgot to weight my fragrance so I took 20 seconds to do it. I should have taken it out, but I had the lye in ice water. They were mixed with the lye at 98 degrees and the oil was at 100. Usually I do mix when they are both the same temp between 100-105

 

[IrishLass]

I'm placing my bets on the stearic acid.

I've not ever used it myself, but back when I was considering buying some to try out in my soap I did heaps of reading about it first on all the different forums. I came away from all that reading with the firm conviction that stearic acid as an additive just wasn't for me. :shock: I heard lots of testimonies from those who did use it, and their stories are just like yours. It sounded like too much of a headache to me, and so I quickly abandoned that idea.

If you are looking to add some hardness to your bars without having to adjust your oils, and also without having to deal with the lightening fast trace that stearic is prone to cause, you can always use sodium lactate instead. That's what I ended up buying instead of stearic, and I absolutely love it. I use it at 1 tbsp. ppo in my softer formulas and it adds a beautiful firmness to them , as well as giving my lather in those bars a really nice creamy/silky boost that makes it feel like my lather is more dense, or like it has more body to it or something. It's good stuff.

HTH!
IrishLass

 

[Healinya]

Ok, thanks.. It's going on my list for next time I place an order

ETA: oh.. another thing it did, was get a ful gel in about 90 minutes. At that point, it felt hotter than I've ever felt soap get, so the lid came off and the fan came on. that was at around 9 last night. In the morning, it was hard but still warm.

 

[beachgurl]

I agree with Irish .. stearic is tricky sometimes and talk about speeding trace (LOL .. that's how I got my first soap on a stick).