My first-ever Castile soaps

[ngian]

Hello everyone

These are my first soaps I made last week. I started thinking of making my own soaps since last November and since then I've read all over the pinterest and forums on how, why and anything else about CP soap making. I then read about CPOP and with some advice from a person I met online I said to myself that this is the way I should first try and make soap (and maybe stay on CPOP for sure).

I had ordered many things from ebay:

• Mini 3000g/0.1g Electronic LCD Digital Weight Scale
  so as to scale with 0.1gr accuracy as in my first small experimental batches less than 1gr results in changing the superfat by 1%
• Thermometers
• PH Paper Test Strips & PH Meter Tester Mini Pocket Auto Pen

and a few other stuff from my local soap stuff supply store.

It's been around a week that I had all the stuff that was needed to cook so I had my ever first soap. Using a 33% Lye concentration with 50% Lye Solution and a superfat of 4% I had cooked two batches at the same time in the same wooden mold with only olive oil and dregs of olive oil and the recipe can be found inside the pictures.

At this point my remarks are that the soap bars are very hard and doesn't make a lot of bubbles from the start but you have to scrub for over 10 sec to start making some lather and with the help of water. The one with milk and honey is making a bit more easier lather than the other one.
They are both very hard soap bars and I like the silk sensation it has on body and hair.
Next time I will try oat flour instead of oat bran (that I had passes a bit from a coffee grinder) as the bigger oat pieces although they give a nice scrub/peeling feeling, I don't like that they can be found in my hair after the bath.

My next 2nd project will be to add some Coconut Oil too, and then beer, and then coffee and then try sodium lactate, Bentonite Clay, Yogurt, milk kefir... pinterest is great inspirational place such as this advice on lather on this link.

Happy soaping.

ps
-CPOP makes an ideal technique to experiment with new recipes and test them almost after 1 day of cutting ( my first two soaps had around PH 9 by that time)

-Gel in soap I think is very good to happen as I can see that the bars are not very prone with water in the soap base, compared with other soap that some friends cooked and maybe they had not gelled and maybe had used more water in their recipe.

-I have also ordered these soap bases so as to keep the bars as dry as possible between baths

Friendly Nikos

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

The soaps will still need to cure. Castile will need a long time indeed - some people say at least 6 months if not 12.

Long cure soaps aside, you shouldn't really be judging any recipe by how it is after such a small period, CPOP or cp or hp. You should really judge it after the usual cure that you'll give it, be it 4, 6, 8 weeks or however long.

PH is not I any way an indication of soap readiness or quality - different recipes will have a different pH and it can often be that a higher pH soap is better than another. Plus, testing at home is hard to do with any real accuracy to make it a nonsense.

 

[shunt2011]

I'm with TEG. Castile requires at least a 6 month cure in my opinion. The best test for any soap is the zap test as stated ph testing isn't very accurate with handmade soaps though some disagree. All soap gets better with a good cure.

You can find a lot of awesome information on this forum. Just start reading the posts and you'll be pleasantly surprised with all the information.

Congratulations and welcome to the addiction!

 

[ngian]

Thanx for the feedback TEG and shunt and I have also read that cure must be done (2-6 weeks) so as for the soap to get even better. But I haven't read anywhere what qualities are affected with the curing time. What better means?

Does the soap bar gets harder? Does it get more... lather properties? For sure any water/liquid that is left in the bar will evaporate making it even more harder.
I guess that although I haven't zap tested it, it would have hurt me some way if it had any lye left or if it had a high PH, as I have already used them to clean my face, hair and all my body everywhere.

I forgot to mention that the CPOP method that I've used is having the wooden mold inside the oven at 65º-70ºC (149º-158ºF) in fan cooking program for 3 hours and then turning of the oven leaving it in for 6-8 hours before unmolding and cutting. And my recipe is using water to lye percentage (33%) and not water to oils percentage (which is around 26% in my recipe).

Nikos

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I would say it's 4-8 weeks for a 'normal' soap and then at least 3 months for a castile.

It's harder (as in, it lasts longer in use), milder and the lather is better with a cured soap than with a fresh. So better basically means improved in the main areas of a soap.

 

[shunt2011]

^^^^
This exactly. I cure my regular soap 4-8 weeks and longer is better and my Castile is 6 months to 1 year. I do sell my soap so I want my customers to get the best possible product. I don't want my soaps to just melt away. :-D

Take the soap you just made and test it every week or two to see how it gets as time goes on. Patience is needed with soapmaking for sure. Also, you shouldn't need to cook the soap that long. Have you had any overheating? Most just warm up the oven and put the soap in then turn it off. I've tried it a couple time and it's doesn't like me much. I've had overheated messes so I just insulate well and call it a day.

 

[ngian]

Thank you both for the feedback once again.

shunt what do you mean with "overheating"? Should I have a thermometer inside the soap and watch for its high measures? Or is it about the volcano effect? I hadn't any problems after that long in the oven and after 8 hour I was able to unmold and cut while the bar was a bit hard.

I think CPOP is good to use it when you just start with soapmaking or you want to try new recipes in small batches right away (having in mind that the soap will get better by time) in order to trial and error before finding the "best recipe" and then starting making bigger batches with long curing times so as to sell it or give it to friends.

As far as it concerns curing times, which is the ideal humidity to cure fast and without problems? I'm waiting for this item in order to see how much % humidity is in my basement storeroom so as to have all my soaps cured there.

Nikos

 

[ClaraSuds]

As far as it concerns curing times, which is the ideal humidity to cure fast and without problems? I'm waiting for this item in order to see how much % humidity is in my basement storeroom so as to have all my soaps cured there.

Nikos

To be honest, it seems to make very little difference. I lived in a location where humidity was 60-80% everyday and soaps were nice and hard after 4 weeks. Now living in a location with humidity less than 20% everyday and the soaps seem to be curing in pretty much the same time frame.

My latest batch of castille has just passed 2 weeks old and is beautiful. Lathers very nicely, I'm using a bar in the shower already, such creamy thick lather. Beautiful but the soap is still relatively soft. I still have a few bars of one year old castille and to be honest, they are not much different. The first two weeks seems to be when the magick happens, after that the only real change I notice is the bars get harder and the colour fades.