Not able to get thin trace

[maitri]

Hello,

I am Maitri from India and I am new to cold process. It's been a month that I am doing cold process soap.
I am getting the final outcome but I am not able to get thin trace.
As soon as I reach the emulsification i try to incorporate colours and till then I get medium trace and reach to thick trace soon.
Is it because the temperature here in Mumbai is around 34-35 degree Celsius ?

I heat my oils to around 65d.c and wait it to cool down till it is around 52--53
My lye Sol is around 48 degree c.

Also cold process soaping is pretty new here so people don't know much as which fragrances go in.

Any advices with regards to thin trace and fragnace oils will be great !

Attached is the recepie I am using.

Thank you so much

 

[lsg]

Are you using a stick blender? If so, maybe just stir by hand after adding the colorants.

 

[Dahila]

I use Celsius too but i soap at the lowest passible temps, you should warm the oils and mix them and leave it so they get room temp. it should give you enough time to do swirls and colors

 

[SaltedFig]

Hello Maitri,

You don't need to heat the oils to that temperature - if the hard fats have melted, they are warm enough (extra heat makes the saponification process go faster). The same with your lye - that can be cooled to your room temperature.

This video (by newbie from the here at the SoapMakingForum) shows the point of emulsion (for reference).

PS. I would suggest that you use a superfat for your soaps (setting it to zero gives you no room for error, especially if you are already taking into account the NaOH concentration; a lye heavy soap will saponify quicker).

 

[steffamarie]

I agree with the temp being too warm. Could possibly be that you're stick blending too long. I struggled with how long I should actually have mine on for and it seems to be only 10-20 seconds at first to mix the oils and lye solution. Blend on the lowest speed for short bursts until it's almost completely emulsified and then either swap out for a whisk or just use the stick blender turned off to mix by hand to emulsion/light trace. Depending on your recipe, you can also just hand-stir to emulsion. It will take longer but of course you can't make it thinner once your trace has started moving along. It might take a few batches to get a feel for it.

On YouTube, Soapish has videos where she stirs only to emulsion and then doesn't stick blend colorants (except TD) or FOs in almost ever. She uses lots of thin thin batters and seems to have a method. I studied her videos to get a better point of reference.

 

[Anne121x]

Hi maitre, I would not even heat the oils or butters in that climate. Just prepare the lye and use the heat from the lye. It's called room temperature method. And definitely super fat to at least 5%. Let us know how it goes.

 

[SaltedFig]

I personally don't recommend the heat transfer method.
Aside from the dangers of working with hot lye, the risk is that the soap batter will thicken (from the extra heat) before the harder butters have finished melting.

maitri, keep everything as cool as you can and the reaction will go a little slower. The oils only need heating if they are solid, and then only just to the point of clarity (not to a particular temperature). Once warmed, the oil/butter blend can be cooled to cloud point (where the oil blend is just starting to turn cloudy) and the lye cooled to room temperature.

The reaction is exothermic, so splitting the batter promptly after emulsion will help keep it cooler (smaller batter volumes hold less heat).

 

[earlene]

Some things that contribute to speeding trace include: heat, some colorants, some fragrances, some additives (you don't mention any, though) and some oils (castor & coconut in your recipe can speed it along). Coconut heats up, so by starting hot already, you have that going in the direction of speeding trace.

Some things to slow down trace include: cooler soaping temperatures, more water (but you are already at 27% lye concentration, so I wouldn't add more liquid), some fragrances. By the way, you didn't specify if your liquid is actually water. If not, please specify.

That is a very small batch size. I hope you have a very accurate scale, otherwise, your measurements might be way off.

Also, please tell us about your scale. Does it measure to 0.001 grams? Or to 0.01 grams at least? Or only to 0.1 grams? The smaller the increment to which it measures the better when using such tiny amounts to make soap. But the average beginning soapmaker doesn't usually have the finer digital scale, so weighing inaccuracies are more likely with tiny batches.

But for a beginner with a digital scale that measures only to say, 0.1 grams, you will be better off making batches of soap that measure about 500 grams total batch weight (that includes the water and NaOH.)

With that much heat and that tiny amount of ingredients, it would be very hard for the batter to move slowly from emulsion to thin trace. So I'd also lower the temperature and slow trace.

So I'd recommend at least tripling your batch size and soaping a lot cooler. Only as warm as keeps your oils looking clear and not cloudy. If it's hot where you make your soap, try and cool things down first.

 

[SoaperForLife]

Once your oils and lye solution have reached the point of emulsion you don't need to worry about reaching a visible trace. I learned that from participating in a couple of Amy Warden's Soap Challenges and it's been a big help when working with more intricate soap designs.