My liquid soap wont turn out

[Jordo2501]

This is my fourth attempt! Only one of my batches actually turned into soap. But it's not very good.

So I tried to make 100% coconut oil soap. This way I can mix it with other diluted pastes ( if I ever get the hang of this)
I used soapcalc to formulate:
30oz of coconut oil 76 (my last batch I tried fractionated)
38% water to oil ratio
0 fragrance
-1% super fat (my last two I tried 5% then 2% and its the same issue as - 1%)

I went through the following phases: applesauce, rice grain, milky, fluffy, concrete hard, then mashed potatoe, leaving it at kind of an ice cream phase, ( extremely hard to stur but still malleable.)

Took 4 hrs to get to that, and then it never gets to the translucent gel. Instead it just turns darker and darker. I even think there may be some burnt pieces. They look Amber ish. But just in a few places. Each time I have cooked my soap for 12hrs or more and it never gets to gel phase. The sides of my slow cooker have that honey and molasses look, but my chunk of paste just looks like a dark tan blob of ice cream. One of my batches turned into clumps of little amber rocks, I thought maybe that was it, but when I dissolved a piece it had an oily looking skin on top of the liquid and the rest of it looked like 1%milk. And it did not bubble or lather.

I got my lye from Bramble berry and they say to formulate with 90% purity, so that's been checked.

Did too much water evaporate?
Is all the water supposed to evaporate, should I leave the lid off?
I cooked different batches on both high and low and yielded the same.
Is this paste fixable? Or is it just total waste?

UPDATE: it's still a brownish color, but I did dissolve a small piece in boiling distilled water and its still incredibly cloudy but has super bubbles. I imagine there's excess lye because of my - 1%. But shouldn't that make it clear?

 

[Saponomancer]

It should actually be fine! Do a zap test, and if it passes you should be good to dilute it, sometimes the stages don't look exactly like the text book process, as long as the paste doesn't zap its done.

 

[Susie]

Do the zap test. If it is zapless, dilute and use.

There are MUCH easier ways to make liquid soap. Cold process is super simple. I use IrishLass' recipe in post #8 of this thread: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=49852

I have a thread also on CP liquid soap: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=49852

But, remember that cooking soap and neutralizing with borax is never necessary.

 

[shunt2011]

I too use IL recipe and it's so easy. No unnecessary steps. And beautiful soap

 

[Jordo2501]

Thank you everyone! I did go right ahead and started the dilution phase and it appears just fine! I'm so happy! I definitely will check out that CP liquid soap! Again thank you all!

 

[DeeAnna]

It's likely that you didn't use enough water to begin with and also that too much water evaporated during your long cook.

I suggest you switch to using lye concentration or water:lye ratio for your soap making. For liquid soap or hot process soap making, I typically use a 3:1 water:lye ratio or a 25% lye concentration. These two settings mean the exact same thing -- but they do not correlate with "water as % of oils" setting, so you can't use "water as % of oils" interchangeably with the other two. At 38% water as % of oils, the lye concentration for a 100% coconut oil soap was closer to 31% or so. That's just not enough water, especially if you're going to cook the paste that long.

A long cook is simply not necessary even though I know "everyone" says you should. "Everyone" is not always right. Just because you didn't see "translucent gel" doesn't mean the soap needs to be cooked until you do. Stop when the soap batter becomes a thick and stable emulsion regardless of how it looks, turn off the heat (if using), cover the soap pot, walk away, and let it finish saponifying in peace.

I recommend Susie's and Irish Lass' no-cook no-fuss methods.