Paste not fully dissolved

[mercury52]

Hey there!

Just tried making my first batch of LS yesterday. It's based on the recipe/instruction from the soaping 101 video, with a few changes.

I used only water, no glycerin, and KOH. 73% OO, 12% CO, 10% castor, and 5% sweet almond.

The whole process went well in all of the main stages. Got a nice looking paste with good translucence, etc.

For dilution, I did 3x paste weight for the water. I checked the soap about 5 hours after dilution started, and it was looking really good and had made a lot of progress.

When I checked this morning after the pot had been sitting covered for about 14 hours, there were still a couple of small blobs of paste still floating in the solution that hadn't yet dissolved. That just seems like quite a long time for the paste to not have completely dissolved yet.

These are my thoughts, maybe someone can verify...

I did a 5% SF, which I realize is a touch high for LS. Since this was the first batch and will be primarily used for shampoo and other on-body applications, I wanted the SF a little higher. For future batches I'll stick to no higher than 3%.

Is it because of the higher SF that these bits haven't dissolved yet?

Should I just continue to let it sit in the pot at room temp and wait longer? Does the dissolving process take longer for the final bits to finish dissolving as the solution nears "critical mass"?

Do I need to heat up the solution again to aid in dissolving the last bit of paste? Should I just remove those chunks of paste, weigh them, and dissolve them on their own?

Aside from this bit of undissolved paste, which is probably just a couple ounces (the whole batch was 1.2kg of paste and then 3.6kg of water) it looks really good to me - quite clear and a nice golden color.

Thanks for any tips/thoughts!

 

[lsg]

This is what I would do, if it were me. I would heat up a small amount of the liquid soap and stir in the blobs until they were melted. Then add that mixture into the original batch and stir well to blend. Just a suggestion.

 

[mercury52]

Thank you! Sounds like a perfectly good option!

 

[Susie]

The superfat does not affect the dilution rate.

And that is perfectly normal. Either do what lsg said or add a bit more water. I usually just pull those off and save them to speed trace on the next batch(but I might be a bit impatient at the end of making liquid soap.)

 

[mercury52]

Thanks Susie!

I figured the most likely thing was that the batch just didn't retain quite enough heat over time to get everything fully melted/dissolved, but wasn't totally sure.

I'm currently in the process of melting the blobs in a bit of the liquid soap and will see how it turns out. May still add a bit more water.

 

[cmzaha]

What oils you have used for making your paste will also determine what percentage of water you use for dilution. For example 16 oz of coconut oil paste can dilute with as little as 9 ox of water whereas OO paste can take as much as 22 oz per lb of paste. Even at room temp when there is a proper amount of water your paste will dissolve albeit a lot slower than heating it. It becomes a test of how much water it will take. To much will make your paste to thin and hinder lather, to little will cause the paste to not completely dissolve or form a skin. An good example is 100% OO paste will easily take a 4:1 ratio of water to paste for dissolving. Go slow adding water until it dissolves. The method Lsg mentioned above is a good suggestion. Keep good notes and you will know next time what it requires if you use the same recipe. Ls Paste made with high soft oils percentages will take considerably more water to dilute

 

[jjacques]

I was about to post a question very similiar but then saw this here already. I did a batch: 50/50 water:glycerin with 90% OO and 10% coconut oil and everything went great to paste. I read in another thread that people were getting away with dilutions as low as 1 part paste to .75 water. I tried diluting 1:1 to be safe and still had a lot of chunks. Ive since added another part water (now 1:2) and its getting a little better however Im about 24 hours into dilution and its still not all liquid. Im guessing my high OO content is going to require more water in the future. I was really hoping to do the bare minimum because I want a thick honey-like consistency.

 

[DeeAnna]

The 1 part paste to 0.75 parts water is for a recipe with 65% olive oil. It's apples-and-oranges to compare a 65% OO recipe to your 90% OO recipe. I agree that you'll need a fair bit more water for your recipe -- just be patient and you'll find that perfect honey consistency. Be sure to keep good notes so you don't have to reinvent the wheel with your next dilution!

 

[mercury52]

Just as a quick follow-up...

I tried the first idea of removing the undissolved paste from the main batch and letting it sit in warmed soap taken from the main batch. After a couple of hours, it really hadn't done anything.

So I just weighed out the paste blob (it was about 10% of the original batch of paste) and then I added 3x the weight of boiling distilled water and let it sit. That did the trick!

For my next LS batch, I'll add water 1x at a time rather than just starting at 3x.

Thanks everyone for the responses!