Lard soap too soft

[whitetulips]

After making soap using equal amounts of coconut oil, olive oil and lard (and small amount castor oil), this batch is still soft three days later. I couldn't get the soap out of the molds without changing the shape. My other soaps made the same, except using vegetable ghee instead of lard (has palm oil in it), were nice and firm the day after pouring. Any thoughts?

 

[AlchemyandAshes]

What was your liquid amount? Is there any separation or sweating?

 

[whitetulips]

I don't have the recipe in front of me. It was only a 2lb. batch. The soap looks creamy, but soft. I saw someone else had soft soap which hardened. That person's husband was a butcher and made his own lard. My problem was that I used molds which were difficult to squeeze the soap out of because it was soft. Maybe I should've sprayed the molds with Pam.

 

[whitetulips]

No sweating or seperation. Other than slightly out of shape soaps, they look great. Lard is just easy to find at Walmart. I was hoping to switch to that from the vegetable ghee that I can't figure quite how to use the lye calculator with. It made a firmer soap though...the veg. ghee.

 

[new12soap]

30/30/30 Lard, OO, CO (with a little castor) should have been pretty firm after 3 days in the mold. Did it gel? Did you run it through a lye calculator? Were there any additives?

 

[whitetulips]

I forgot to cover them with towels after pouring. They probably didn't gel. I added 1.4 oz. fragrance oil. The Brambleberry fragrance calc said to use .7-1oz. Fragrance oil per pound of finished soap. I did use their lye calc.

 

[new12soap]

What was your SF? Did you use full water? Non-gelled soaps do stay softer longer before they firm up, maybe that was all it was.

 

[AlchemyandAshes]

Don't use vegetable oil sprays to lube your mold...they can saponify and make your soap stick even more. Try freezer paper.
If it didn't gel, it may still be ok and just need a big longer in the mold.

 

[whitetulips]

5% super fat. I couldn't line the plastic molds because they were yogurt containers and disposable cupcake holders. I'd used the yogurt containers before and had firm soaps the next day. I bet it was due to no gel because it cooled too fast without insulation.

 

[judymoody]

Did you recalculate your recipe when you switched out the palm for the "vegetable ghee" (what is this exactly and what is its SAP value?)

Aside from not gelling, it's possible that your recipe is more or less superfatted if you didn't recalculate and that might change the consistency of your soap.

 

[CaliChan]

I did a non gel soap with no goats milk last week..... it is still really soft. Is your mold oven safe? You could probably stick it in the oven for an hour or 2 so that you can force it to gel and get it out of the mold.

 

[nebetmiw]

With temps still cold outside I just put my mold outside to get cold enough to unmold. I had to do that to my last batch since it was a new mold for me. Most of the time I do not gel but this one did and it was still soft. But the cold helped and I cut it right after I unmolded it. NP at all with it then.