Michael24
New Member
Hello to everyone: I have been busy reading posts here and digesting websites related to soap making.
I am new to soap making and have made 9 batches of soap so far. I started with 100% Castile in May 2014 and will wait patiently until May 2015 to try it. My subsequent batches were variations on Olive Oil, Lard, Coconut Oil, and Palm Oil with small amounts of Castor Oil added. I even tried a successful rebatch just to see what happens. I have done CP and CPOP. Every batch was successful. I used my 2nd batch of soap in early July and gave a lot of it away to family and friends to try. Feedback has been good so far from everyone.
I made all of my molds and a cutting jig. I don't add scents or colors as of yet. Doing this is baby steps so far. However, my reading inspired me to explore the use of olive oil along with salt to bring the soap to hardness quicker. So for fun, I made the following
Olive Oil 70% - 18.2 oz
Coconut Oil (76 deg) 20% - 5.2 oz
Palm Oil 10% - 2.6 oz
Castor .1 oz
NaOH 3.4 oz
H2O 9.8 oz
At light trace I added 2 oz of plain salt (not iodized) and .5 oz of sugar. Continued to blend until the mixture thickened to a med trace. Poured into a log mold.
Just to see what would happen, I oven processed it at 170 degrees for 1 hour and then since I needed the oven for cooking (darn how eating gets in the way of fun) I put the soap into my warming oven on medium heat for 1 more hour and then shut it off and let it sit for several hours.
Upon removing the soap, I could see that from the top that the log had appeared to be translucent, I assumed it gelled. Fearing that the salt would make the log hard to cut without crumbling, I removed it and the middle to undersides were still warm. Undoing the freezer paper, unlike all my other batches, this one was wet overall. I though it was oil but when I wet my fingers to clean them, the liquid did not make the water bead up. I cut the batch into 8 bars at 1 inch thick. All the bars were wet with this same liquid. It looked like sweat coming out of one's pores.
This evening when I looked at the bars, they were nearly dry. They glisten a bit and I can see salt granules (I think they are) embedded in the bars. I can even brush some salt off as the bars get dryer. I think it is salt because the crystals are clear and they are nearly cube shaped. I did a zap test and I did get a little zap. I know I am probably crazy to have added sugar and then Oven Processed the batch but I wanted to see what would happen. The bars are nice and hard and I noted that when I took a bit of scrap soap that clung to the freezer paper and rubbed it with water, it made a surprising amount of lather for being so raw and not cured.
So is this just an experiment gone bizarrely wrong? Will curing them for 6 to 8 weeks made them usable? What should I have done with this basic recipe using salt to achieve a successful outcome?
Thanks in advance for all your wonderful constructive feedback.
Michael
I am new to soap making and have made 9 batches of soap so far. I started with 100% Castile in May 2014 and will wait patiently until May 2015 to try it. My subsequent batches were variations on Olive Oil, Lard, Coconut Oil, and Palm Oil with small amounts of Castor Oil added. I even tried a successful rebatch just to see what happens. I have done CP and CPOP. Every batch was successful. I used my 2nd batch of soap in early July and gave a lot of it away to family and friends to try. Feedback has been good so far from everyone.
I made all of my molds and a cutting jig. I don't add scents or colors as of yet. Doing this is baby steps so far. However, my reading inspired me to explore the use of olive oil along with salt to bring the soap to hardness quicker. So for fun, I made the following
Olive Oil 70% - 18.2 oz
Coconut Oil (76 deg) 20% - 5.2 oz
Palm Oil 10% - 2.6 oz
Castor .1 oz
NaOH 3.4 oz
H2O 9.8 oz
At light trace I added 2 oz of plain salt (not iodized) and .5 oz of sugar. Continued to blend until the mixture thickened to a med trace. Poured into a log mold.
Just to see what would happen, I oven processed it at 170 degrees for 1 hour and then since I needed the oven for cooking (darn how eating gets in the way of fun) I put the soap into my warming oven on medium heat for 1 more hour and then shut it off and let it sit for several hours.
Upon removing the soap, I could see that from the top that the log had appeared to be translucent, I assumed it gelled. Fearing that the salt would make the log hard to cut without crumbling, I removed it and the middle to undersides were still warm. Undoing the freezer paper, unlike all my other batches, this one was wet overall. I though it was oil but when I wet my fingers to clean them, the liquid did not make the water bead up. I cut the batch into 8 bars at 1 inch thick. All the bars were wet with this same liquid. It looked like sweat coming out of one's pores.
This evening when I looked at the bars, they were nearly dry. They glisten a bit and I can see salt granules (I think they are) embedded in the bars. I can even brush some salt off as the bars get dryer. I think it is salt because the crystals are clear and they are nearly cube shaped. I did a zap test and I did get a little zap. I know I am probably crazy to have added sugar and then Oven Processed the batch but I wanted to see what would happen. The bars are nice and hard and I noted that when I took a bit of scrap soap that clung to the freezer paper and rubbed it with water, it made a surprising amount of lather for being so raw and not cured.
So is this just an experiment gone bizarrely wrong? Will curing them for 6 to 8 weeks made them usable? What should I have done with this basic recipe using salt to achieve a successful outcome?
Thanks in advance for all your wonderful constructive feedback.
Michael
