Newbie to board and CP

[olivebranchfarms]

I made my 1st ever batch of CP soap (100% olive oil) and thought initially that everything went well. The recipe I used said I could unmold and cut the soap in 48 hours.

When I checked at 48 hours it seemed too soft to unmold without destroying the loaf, so I waited another 24 hours. Ok so I finally unmolded the loaf this morning and it seemed firm enough, I suppose. When I cut into it, it was really wet inside. Everything held together and looked ok except it looked like it was sweating where I made the cuts.

Is this normal? I apologize if this is a silly question, and I'm sure I made some kind of novice mistake.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

 

[SudsyKat]

Welcome to the addiction (and the board)! If you post your recipe, that will help folks to be able to respond.

 

[olivebranchfarms]

LOL thanks for the welcome. I can see where this could become an addiction!

Ok here is the super basic recipe I used.

3C Olive Oil
3C Cold Water
3/4C Lye Crystals

1/2t Fragrance Oil
1/8t Mica Powder

My lye mixture & oil were mixed at around 96 degrees. I covered the mold with plastic wrap then several towels however my lab where it sat for 3 days is only in the mid 60's as far as temperature.

 

[carebear]

ah - ouch. it's hard to tell because we work by weights. do you have a scale?

unfortunatley, though, without weights I cannot really make any recommendations. but I will tell you that olive oil soaps can actually take a couple of weeks to really be ready to cut.

 

[newbie]

In addition to what carebear said, just by looking, it seems like an awful lot of water- 3 cups is 24 fluid ounces which is about 24 ounces weighed, dependent on how full your cup measure was. Even assuming 24 ounces of olive oil, although you didn't weigh it, soapcalc recommends about 9 ounces of water for that amount of oils. It will take a very long time to dry appropriately. Can't comment on whether it might be lye heavy or not though, with the cup measures.

 

[olivebranchfarms]

Thanks everyone for your input. This is a very friendly forum!

I do have a very good digital food scale that I use for my other bath products.

So I'm guessing my 1st batch may need to be scrapped then. Not a problem since after all it was only a 1st attempt.

I figured it would take many attempts before I came up with a really good batch so I'm not discouraged yet. Can any of you recommend a good 100% olive oil recipe by weights for a novice?

Thanks again for your help!

 

[danny p]

heres a neat kitchen converter
http://www.ghostcalc.com/cooking-measur ... erter.html
so youve got 22.82 ounces of oil so its deffinatly water heavy but i dont have lye around to weigh for you but 6-9 ounces of water is all you need.
2.8 ounces lye is all you need to 9-10% superfat i think. if you have more lye go weigh a cup

 

[newbie]

To get a good recipe, go to

http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

you can choose your oils from the list (or oil, in your case since you want 100% OO recipe) and then put in how big a batch you want, per oils (eg, you want to use 24 ounces of OO). THen you hit- calculate recipe- to see what sort of characteristics you might get with your soap (this is not always accurate as for OO soap it says it will be really soft but in fact OO soap will be really hard) and you can hit view or print recipe to see how much water and lye are required. It's a good tool to use and to play around with. There are other lye calculators out there as well. I think snowdrift farms has one as well. It will tell you how much of everything you need, by weight.

 

[Microdot]

Hi and welcome! As long as it's not lye heavy I would let it cure for a few weeks before I tossed it, if it's just water heavy that can evaporate. Olive oil bars are like wine, they tend get better with age. You can zap test to check on lye heaviness (put your tongue on a dampened piece, if it zaps like a battery you're lye heavy), but I wait a few days before I do this with cp. Good luck on your soaping!

 

[soapbuddy]

That soap will take a loooooooooooong time to get hard. You have way too much water in it. As far as the lye, that looks too much to me also. Give it a couple of days, then test for zap.

 

[olivebranchfarms]

Thanks everyone for the input and the links for the calculators!

Ok, so I'm going to try the zap test. If I get zapped then I need to scrap everything right? If I don't get zapped then I can let this dry for say......6 years........ or something like that and it will be ok? lol

I'm going to check out those calculators & throw away the recipe I originally used!

I'll have to let all of you know how the 2nd batch goes now that I've got all of these tools I can use to properly calculate a recipe.

Thanks again everyone for your help!

 

[danny p]

Just be sure to weigh all your ingredients. With the soapcalc site you just imput oil weight itll tell you water and lye by weight. Have fun.