My first attempt at cold process

[nighttrain123]

I made two recipes: A and B.

A was:

Olive oil Pomace 454 g
Coconut oil 284 g
Palm oil 170 g
Water 312 g
Lye 130 g

This is water: lye of 2.4:1 and superfatted at 5% and 29.4% lye.

B was:

Olive oil Pomace 227 g
Coconut oil 227 g
Palm oil 170 g
Castor oil 170 g
Almond oil, sweet 113 g
Water 305 g
Lye 127 g

This is water: lye of 2.4:1 and superfatted at 5% and 29.4% lye.

Both were wrapped in a tea towel and had a cardboard lid. I left them for 24 hrs in a room at about 20 deg C.

I mixed the lye in the fats/oils when both were about 120 deg F. B reached trace quite fast and got quite thick taking me a bit by surprise. It's possible it wasn't perfectly mixed 'cos of this. It was hard to smooth the top of the loaf 'cos it was so thick, and it all got a bit messy on the sides as you can see.

As I understand this both soaps have cracked a bit (A is worst) 'cos they got too hot. I'm thinking that next time I should not use the tea towel and cardboard lid? This should result in a smoother top?

Cross section through the middle of A shows it's fairly homogeneous and I think it tells me that it gelled completely? Apart from getting too hot and cracking/messing up the top this seems fairly successful?

B isn't quite as good. Apart from the heterogeneity here, I can see that the outside of the loaf 'sweated' a bit. This is glycerin I think and tells me I need to cut down on the water? I think the whole loaf has gelled and the heterogeneity I see is the result of poor mixing, but I'm not 100% sure.

So I'm concluding that I need to dispense with insulation and think about reducing the water especially for B.

This leads me to think that it would be easiest to just put the loaf in my fridge and have it not gel as well? Seems easy way to control the temp? Consistent smooth top? My room temp is gonna change with the weather.

Also I think maybe 120 deg F is a bit high to mix so I should reduce this down to 80 deg to 100 deg F next time.

 

[dixiedragon]

Congratulations! You made soap!

120 is IMO a touch high, but totally within the typical "rules".

My personal preference is to not put soap in the fridge, b/c a soap spill in the fridge would be disastrous. Instead, soap a bit cooler - try 110 or so. I personally like 100, but I'm a lard soaper. You can also elevate your mold to allow air to move under it, cooling the soap a bit and preventing heat build up. Put a cup or a soup can at each corner or each end of the mold.

 

[Obsidian]

They look good, congrats. I agree with dixie, soap cooler and no insulation.

As far as the water goes, try 2:1 or 33% lye concentration. Less water will result in a more even, controlled gel or possibly no gel. More water gives a faster, hotter gel.

I use this water amount and never insulate my molds. Most of the time I don't get gel unless I add something that can heat up like sugar or milk.

Whether or not I get gel really is the least important part of soaping to me. As long as it doesn't overheat, I'm happy.

 

[nighttrain123]

Whether or not I get gel really is the least important part of soaping to me. As long as it doesn't overheat, I'm happy.

I'm not too bothered about gel or not, just would like to be consistent and not have a soap which is half gelled. That would be the middle of the soap is gelled and the outside isn't which looks bad?

 

[dixiedragon]

You can google pictures of partial gel. If you get partial gel, there is a slightly dark/translucent circle in the center of the log. Depending on the color scheme, its it can actually be a neat effect.

I myself am a geller. I like the way it makes colors pop and it is ready to unmold sooner.

 

[earlene]

I don't do a lot of high CO soaps, except for 100% CO for laundry soap and 100% CO salt bars (only recently), but what I have learned with high CO, is that it's going to gel because CO heats up the soap. Your recipe A has 31% CO and Recipe B has 25% CO and both have pretty much full water and you soaped on the warm side, so of course they both heated up. That's why you got the cracking on top.

The other issue you had was accelerated trace in recipe B (but didn't mention it for recipe A.) There are a few factors in both that accelerate trace, but the fact that you experienced it in B and not so much in A, suggests to me that it was the Castor (19%) that was the deciding factor. However, pomace OO contributes to accelerated trace so much for me that I use it in my 100% OO Castile soap at 50% pomace and 50% regular OO so I can reach trace in a very short time by using only a whisk. (Not all soapers experience accelerated trace with pomace OO, which I do not understand, but many do, so it's a 'thing' to keep in mind when formulating a recipe.) See this link regarding pomace olive oil and trace.

Now if you decrease water, which I usually do because it makes a harder soap sooner and usually gives me more time for swirls, but don't decrease your soaping temperatures or alter your formulas to use less trace accelerating oils, you will still end up with a faster trace, even more so than you already have. So my suggestion would be to reduce the Castor to 5% in recipe B, soap at warm room temperature, or warm enough to keep your oils clear (not opaque). After pouting, cover the soap to keep out critters or dust, but don't insulate heavily with either of those recipes. If you are married to a high CO soap, go with it, but for me I'd also reduce the CO, however some folks really like high CO soaps, so that's a personal preference.

Here are a couple of links that address ways to control trace and well worth reading:

https://www.modernsoapmaking.com/controlling-trace-in-cold-process-soapmaking/
https://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/tips-and-tricks/trace/

PS. I don't refrigerate my soaps, because I just don't have the room for that in my fridge, but I understand that with high heaters in big molds, they will still gel even in the freezer, and sometimes that can lead to partial gel, where the inside gels and the outer part does not. So you can also decrease the size of your molds with high heaters, by using two smaller molds instead of one bigger mold, or a mold that has several individual soap cavities. With more surface area, the soap cools off faster and won't overheat as much. You are likely to see no cracking at all if you use individual molds with recipe A if that's the only thing you change.

 

[Obsidian]

I'm not too bothered about gel or not, just would like to be consistent and not have a soap which is half gelled. That would be the middle of the soap is gelled and the outside isn't which looks bad?

It doesn't look too bad and often the difference in colors can fade with cure. I've had partial gel fade to the point you couldn't see the dark circle at all.

I suppose if I sold I would want to gel to get the colors to pop and for consistency.

 

[DeeAnna]

I'm not seeing the "bullseye" look of a partial gel. Your soap looks like my soap if I put it into the mold when it's very thick. The batter on the sides of the soap pot might have been a little different than the batter in the middle, so when you scraped the last bits into your mold, those bits were enough different to cause some odd patterns to appear. Or this could be a mild case of I call streaking and mottling and what others call "glycerin rivers" due to gelling and then very slow cooling.

 

[nighttrain123]

I made the same again and this time left them too cool in the room with no extra insulation, plus I added the lye with the oils at about 100 deg F, and used water at 2:1 now.

A came out really good. No cracking on the surface. B still reached trace really quick, in about 1 min, and I probably should poured it into the mold sooner before it became so thick it doesn't really pour, and I had to scoop and press it in with a spoon.

B still showed some heterogeneity on the cross section but it isn't show stopping. The top surface showed a hint of cracking in a couple of places.

Anyway this was more an experiment to see if cold process would work for me. I don't really need to perfect B, but I think if I lowered the castor oil % it might reach trace slower? If I replace the pomace OO with extra virgin would this slow down trace also?

 

[Obsidian]

It looks good. I think part of your trouble with fast trace is the palm, I always have trouble with it speeding things along. If you aren't against lard, try it in place of the palm. It traces slow and will give you more time to blend, possibly more than you want.

what is the percentage of castor in B? I'm too lazy to run it through a calculator. Generally you only need 5%

I think your soap is mixed just fine. That mottling is another common issue with palm or other high steric oils. Even perfectly blended, it can still do that.

Here is a simple recipe if you want to try it. I've been using it for a couple years now, always turns out nice. If I use palm, I let the lye reach 80 F or so and the oils are just warm enough to be clear. If using lard, I use warmer lye so it will trace a bit faster.

lard or palm 50%
olive 25%
coconut 20%
castor 5%

 

[ibct1969]

I know it's been a few days since you posted to this thread, but I just wanted to say that your soaps are really pretty. Also to answer your question above, I would recommend pure olive oil (versus pomace or extra virgin). Pomace can speed up trace, and extra virgin is too green so unless you embrace that color in your soap, it could negatively impact your plans for any colors. Pure olive oil should slow your trace, depending on the percentage you use. I have never used more than 5% castor, only based on what I have read here at this forum- I think I remember hearing that it can make your soap sticky.

If you haven't already, check out the links earlene has provided above. There's very helpful info there. Here's also a few slow to trace recipes that I found:

http://www.bathalchemylab.com/2014/08/slowing-trace-plus-5-slow-moving-soap.html

 

[penelopejane]

Olive oil might be green leaving your soap cream for a few weeks but eventually it cures to pure white.