Pine tar soap

[Jsacc106]

Hello everyone,
I’m still very new to soap making and have one hurdle I still struggle with and that’s a pine tar soap. I made one successful batch that came to trace fairly slowly and allowed me to pour it nicely. The last two batches I made, both immediately seized up after adding the lye water and I had to wait until gelling before I could properly mix and mold. My question is, what tips and pointers do you guys have for pine tar recipes? I’m not looking for a recipe to be reviewed, but just some points or advice on how a good pine tar soap is made, or if anyone has a great recipe they don’t mind sharing. I also found after the soap dries and I unmold it, there tends to be white chunks in it. Almost as if some of the oils hardened before the rest. Anyone else experience this? Thanks for your time!

 

[DeeAnna]

I make 1-2 batches per year and it's always an interesting experience. I wrote up some thoughts about making it -- see https://classicbells.com/soap/pineTarSoap.html

 

[Saponificarian]

Sorry. DeeAnna posted before I refreshed!

 

[Jsacc106]

Thank you for the links! I’ll be sure to look at them!

 

[GrantLee63]

Pine tar is the only recipe I make exclusively using the hot-process method, as this has completely eliminated any seizure issues for me. Plus I really like the ‘primitive’ look of the bars using this method.

 

[dixiedragon]

First, make sure your pine tar is 100% pine tar. Should say on the jar. There is another pine-tar-like product (whose name escapes me) that resembles pine tar but doesn't work for soaping.

Second, use a recipe full of slow-tracing oils. My standard recipe uses lard so I just use my standard recipe. I think a pine tar soap with palm and tallow might be challenging.

I add lavender essential oil to mine, which some soapers think slows trace. Plus the scent goes well with pine tar.

Soap cool - 90-100 degrees or soap.

Bump up your water a bit.

 

[RacerSpuffy]

I did a 15% pine tar (calculated with soapcalc) and various hard oils and it went to trace very quickly at 90F, but the bars came out pretty decent actually. I got ambitious last weekend and did 20% pine tar with a bit different oils and it traced super fast and I think at least 1/3rd of my bars (2 of 6) are complete fails, 2 are questionable, 2 I think will be ok. I tried to pour in the mold before it got too thick to pour, and the first one I poured was separating oil and water by the time I got to the 5th bar...

However to maybe help you out (I haven't tried this yet), I think I'd do everything hotter (yes hotter, not super hot, but none of this near solidification point of the fats like lard) but hold the pine tar out until I think I've got it close to emulsified or just barely there with a stick blender. THEN add the pine tar. My reasoning with this is I believe the pine tar has a very low saponification value, so adding it at the very end will likely prevent what caused my last batch to fail. I think I can get the pine tar mixed well enough with a whisk that it will still be blended properly. The only downside to this is, I'm going to need another pot to have the pine tar in and dump the emulsified fats and lye water into, or just accept that I'm not going to get the pine tar % correct because I'm not going to know how much I can get out of the original container and get mixed in time. Edit - read DeeAnna's link, split the oils, add pine tar to one and mix them in with emulsified at light trace.. she says not to do it at trace, I was thinking maybe I could hit emulsification before trace and add the pine tar, but now I'm reconsidering...

I kind of think attempting pine tar soap with individual bar molds is adding an unnecessary challenge, I think doing it in a loaf mold and cutting later may be the key. That way, even if the hotter temperatures cause severe problems once the pine tar is added might be able to (with gloved hands), stuff it into a mold.

 

[snappyllama]

Pine tar is the most challenging recipe I make. I've taken to premixing my pine tar with a little olive oil from my recipe to thin it out/make it easier to get out of my measuring container. I bring my soap batter just to emulsion and then frantically stir in my oil/pine tar mix by hand.

I keep my mold right next to me... It's a divided - single bar mold so the first poured bars look a lot nicer than the last poured ones.

Making pine tar reminds me of those multiplication tests in elementary school - so fraught with 'beat the clock'.

 

[dixiedragon]

You can put the whole can of pine tar in a hot water bath to melt it and soften it. Makes it easier to pour and measure.

Or you can just make a recipe that uses a whole can of pine tar. Go big or go home.

 

[DeeAnna]

Gosh, the pine tar I've used -- 3 different brands so far -- pour just fine for me. No warming needed. But I do as much prep in advance as possible before I even think about letting my lye see the PT. Once you mix the two, you need to be ready to rock 'n roll.

 

[RacerSpuffy]

I make 1-2 batches per year and it's always an interesting experience. I wrote up some thoughts about making it -- see https://classicbells.com/soap/pineTarSoap.html

In there you said

I found out the hard way to never mix pure pine tar into soap batter at trace. It is almost impossible to get the PT thoroughly mixed in before the batter becomes unpourable. I have learned instead to mix the pine tar and fats together before I allow the pine tar and lye to see each other.

What do you think about refraining from adding the PT until have stick blended to emulsification but no trace? I think I could stick blend a bit until I'm satisfied it is emulsified or close to, then hand whisk in PT.

I was considering small loaf molding with this recipe:
30% Lard
30% Canola
20% Coconut
5% Castor
15% Pine Tar

at 5% SF (although maybe I should drop that to 3%?) and a lye concentration of 30%

 

[DeeAnna]

If you want to put your PT into soap at obvious trace or just at emulsification, that's your call. It really won't make a lot of difference.

The real point I'm trying to say in my article is to dilute the PT with some of the fat so it blends easier into the soap batter. It's a lot easier to mix diluted PT into soap batter than pure pine tar.

 

[ItsForrest]

After preparing myself for how tricky a batch of pine tar soap is supposed to be, I made a batch today. We will have to wait for it to cure to see how it turns out but the mix went perfectly and it looks great! I'm going to do my best to be good and not take the cover off the mold until morning.

After watching a few youtube vids and reading about several different ways to do it, I decided I would mix all the oils together including the pine tar and fo before mixing in the lye water. I used 10% Auson Akta Tratjara pine tar I bought though Amazon and ~25g of Lavender fo from Bulk Apothecary. This was probably light on the lavender but I just wanted to take a bit of the edge off the pine tar scent, not make the overall scent stronger.

For the oils, I warmed them up in the microwave to melt the coconut oil and to make the pine tar mix easier, not too hot, just about 110 deg f. I spooned pine tar into a dixie cup to make it easier and less messy to pour into the oil mix. One thing worthy of note, I put the lavender fo in the warmed oil before I added the pine tar. When I added the pine tar, the oil bubbled a fair bit when it hit the bottom of the bowl. I'm wondering if the pine tar reacted with the fo. I don't know why it would but since the fo is the most volatile of the lot that's the only reason I could think of for the bubbles. The pine tar poured in smooth and didn't appear to have air in it. I mixed the oils together with just a spatula and let the oils and water both cool to about 85 deg before blending.

Mixing the oil and water was trouble free. I was prepared for a chunky mess but it went totally smooth. I used only a spatula to mix. Pouring in the water slowly while stirring and scraping, it took maybe four or five minutes to see a definite trace and maybe two or three minutes more to make it look like decently thick chocolate pudding. It looked like it mixed evenly and completely. I had plenty of time to pour it into the mold, scrape the bowl well and smoothed out the top just as it really got stiff. I'll post a pic or two in a day or two after I cut it.

The soapcalc recipe pdf is attached. I don't know how that works on this forum. If there's a better way to post them here, let me know.

 

[ItsForrest]

Following up on yesterdays batch,
After letting the soap sit and gel for 6 or 8 hrs I finally had to peak at it. It looked like it may not have fully mixed after all as there were a couple dozen little dots of water on top of the soap.

This morning (20 or so hrs after mix) I couldn't resist and, even though the loaf is still quite soft, I gloved up, carefully removed it from the mold and slowly peeled the parchment paper off.

On the good side of things, the pine tar and lavender combo smells great.

On the not so good, where there was water there is now chalky white stuff. There were also wet spots on the paper. I am assuming this is caustic lye water that didn't mix in properly due to adding pine tar, etc. in before mixing to emulsion.
We will see how it looks after a bit more curing time. If there are white chunks inside it may have to be written off as a learning experience.

Next time I will bring clear oils and water to emulsion and stir in the pine tar and fo after. I'm thinking it's better to risk some unmixed pine tar than unprocessed lye.

 

[dixiedragon]

can you post a pic? If the lye was fully dissolved in the water, you wouldn't have chunks of lye. The little dots of water might just be glycerin sweat.

 

[ItsForrest]

Thanks for the reply.

Well, since I've handled the soap and cut it there's not much to see. What's left now is a bit of chalky white residue on top and much of that has wiped off. As for fully dissolved lye, I wouldn't mix if the lye hadn't dissolved fully. I had thought that if there were trapped pockets of water the lye might recrystallize as the soap cured.
The soap is taking much longer than my other soap to harden up but I understand that's normal for pine tar soap.
I have left dents in the bars as I have handled it a few times, cutting it then turning it on the drying tray. I definitely could have waited a few days longer to un-mold and cut it.
There is no sign of any pockets of liquid or lumps inside after cutting it. The texture inside is very smooth and consistent.

The worst part about cp soaping is the wait. Waiting a couple months for the true final result of your efforts is tough in this society that has us trained to expect instant gratification.

 

[DeeAnna]

Dixie is right. Liquid NaOH does not magically turn back into solid NaOH. It is far, far too reactive chemically to do something like that. It can do many things, but crystallizing back into its original form is not one of them.

Droplets of alkaline liquid can form sometimes on soap. It can happen due to slight overheating or the ingredients in the particular recipe used or soap gremlins.

The droplets are just whatever alkaline liquid -- a mix of water, NaOH, glycerin, fragrance, etc. -- that happens to be in the soap at the time the liquid migrates to the surface of the soap.

Any NaOH present in the liquid, when exposed to air, will react with carbon dioxide to form sodium carbonate (washing soda). Washing soda is a white powder when dried.

 

[ItsForrest]

Delete multi-post.

 

[ItsForrest]

Multi-multi-post.

 

[ItsForrest]

Hmm... How did that happen?
I don't see an option for me to delete my accidental multi-post. Do you have to be a mod to delete posts?