Serious Problem With My Olive Oil Soap

[DRWelch]

I'm fairly new to soapmaking......made my first batch in Dec/2019.

I recently created a very small batch (4 bars) of cold process, 100% olive oil (5.68 oz), and I added to it 0.32 oz of bergamot essential oil.
I always super fat at 5%; and with this batch I used 25% water.

Here's my problem:
I created the batch on April 11th......but 5 days later, the soap batter is still in a liquid form, no where near being ready to unmold.
I was very careful (as always) to use the appropriate amount of lye and water, based on the amount of oil I used.

Did I do something wrong with this batch, or is this a natural chemical reaction between these two oils?
My only glimmer of hope is that, after just taking a look at the soap batter, the majority of the oil sitting in the mold is still clear and fluid, but for the first time, I'm able to to see a solid mass forming at the very bottom of the molds.

Thanks in advance for any guidance and advice anyone can provide me.

 

[Primrose]

What were the actual amounts of NaOH and water that you used?

 

[DRWelch]

What were the actual amounts of NaOH and water that you used?

LYE = 0.74 oz
WATER = 1.42 oz

 

[KiwiMoose]

what's the actual lye concentration of that from your soap calculator? Sorry the pounds and oz do my head in completely!

 

[shunt2011]

I'm thinking there may have been some miss measuring somewhere. Did you gel your soap? 100% OO soap can take quite some time to harden if not gelled and in a silicone mold.

 

[penelopejane]

That is a tiny batch with a tiny amount of lye. But you’ve used 33% lye concentration which is good. Did you use a jewellers scale? If not it’s really possible that you didn’t have enough lye especially with 5% SF.
Either that or you didn’t take trace far enough to saponify the oil and lye. What temperature did you soap at? Did you cover your mold after you poured it?

 

[BattleGnome]

Looking at your numbers on a lye calculator, everything looks reasonable.

i have a feeling you mismeasured, got false trace, or just have to wait. I’d lean towards a combination of false trace and waiting.

from my experience I can say it takes me at least 5-7 days to unmold a soap that I have not gelled and then usually another day until I cut. if I gel I can cut within 12 hours.

do you have a picture, it might help us know for sure

 

[DeeAnna]

It's one thing to have soap that's soft because it didn't get hot enough to gel, and it's another to have soap batter that's basically still liquid. A soft soap will harden if you give it enough time.

There's something not right if the soap is still liquid. Either the emulsion has failed so the fat and lye have separated, or you've mis-measured, or you're using KOH when you thought you were using NaOH ... or something.

If it's an emulsion failure, you could dump the soap batter into a suitable container and cook it -- in other words, make the soap with a hot process method.

I will say this is a TINY batch. Unless you have a high precision scale, it will be easy to mis-measure! I never make batches smaller than 16 oz or 500 grams of oils.

Olive oil won't ever create false trace -- it remains liquid at room temperature. False trace happens when the soap batter gets cool enough to solidify the fats in the batter. You'll only see this happen when using a recipe moderate to high in fats such as lard, tallow, palm, palm kernel, and coconut. Not 100% OO.

 

[Kiti Williams]

It's one thing to have soap that's soft because it didn't get hot enough to gel, and it's another to have soap batter that's basically still liquid. A soft soap will harden if you give it enough time.

There's something not right if the soap is still liquid. Either the emulsion has failed so the fat and lye have separated, or you've mis-measured, or you're using KOH when you thought you were using NaOH ... or something.

If it's an emulsion failure, you could dump the soap batter into a suitable container and cook it -- in other words, make the soap with a hot process method.

I will say this is a TINY batch. Unless you have a high precision scale, it will be easy to mis-measure! I never make batches smaller than 16 oz or 500 grams of oils.

Olive oil won't ever create false trace -- it remains liquid at room temperature. False trace happens when the soap batter gets cool enough to solidify the fats in the batter. You'll only see this happen when using a recipe moderate to high in fats such as lard, tallow, palm, palm kernel, and coconut. Not 100% OO.

Have I told you lately how wonderful you are? You are the Soaping encyclopedia!

 

[DRWelch]

what's the actual lye concentration of that from your soap calculator? Sorry the pounds and oz do my head in completely!

Revisiting my soap calculator (SoapCalc.net) the lye concentration for this batch was just shy of 34% (33.984).



www.SOAPMEISTER.blogspot.com

 

[DRWelch]

I'm thinking there may have been some miss measuring somewhere. Did you gel your soap? 100% OO soap can take quite some time to harden if not gelled and in a silicone mold.

I did use a silicone mold. Concerning the gel phase, that may have contributed to my problem. Just came across some notes I some time last year when I was doing some research on cold process soap. It's my understanding that the more water you use in your batch, the quicker the soap will gel. For this batch, I decided to only use 25% water. Worked fine when I used 25% water with a shea butter / cocoa butter batch I recently used........but of course, shea butter and cocoa butter are COMPLETELY different than olive oil (SMILE).

That is a tiny batch with a tiny amount of lye. But you’ve used 33% lye concentration which is good. Did you use a jewellers scale? If not it’s really possible that you didn’t have enough lye especially with 5% SF.
Either that or you didn’t take trace far enough to saponify the oil and lye. What temperature did you soap at? Did you cover your mold after you poured it?

Concerning trace, it's possible I didn't stir the oil and lye solution long enough before adding the bergamot.


Again, may not have fully come to trace before adding bergamot. When I did, I stirred for approx. 7 min, by hand (can't wait for my stick blender to arrive in the mail !)

And yes, once I poured into mold, I always cover it.

Thanks for your reply !

 

[Arimara]

7 minutes is nowhere near long enough to bring a pure castile soap to trace when you use a 25% lye concentration. From those pictures, there's no soap in there. If there is, it's under that liquid. You would have to pour all of that into a container to mix it further and apply some heat to it to see if you can get it emulsified or you can dump that and make a proper sized batch.

 

[DRWelch]

Looking at your numbers on a lye calculator, everything looks reasonable.

i have a feeling you mismeasured, got false trace, or just have to wait. I’d lean towards a combination of false trace and waiting.

from my experience I can say it takes me at least 5-7 days to unmold a soap that I have not gelled and then usually another day until I cut. if I gel I can cut within 12 hours.

do you have a picture, it might help us know for sure

Here's what my "troubling batch" looks like, 7 days in the mold.
At the top of each cavity, it is extremely "liquidy"; but at the bottom,
it looks like its starting to solidify.

I agree with you: think my problem was false trace, and that I'll just have
to be patient and give it some more time.


Darren Welch, "The Soap Meister"

 

[DRWelch]

It's one thing to have soap that's soft because it didn't get hot enough to gel, and it's another to have soap batter that's basically still liquid. A soft soap will harden if you give it enough time.

There's something not right if the soap is still liquid. Either the emulsion has failed so the fat and lye have separated, or you've mis-measured, or you're using KOH when you thought you were using NaOH ... or something.

If it's an emulsion failure, you could dump the soap batter into a suitable container and cook it -- in other words, make the soap with a hot process method.

I will say this is a TINY batch. Unless you have a high precision scale, it will be easy to mis-measure! I never make batches smaller than 16 oz or 500 grams of oils.

Olive oil won't ever create false trace -- it remains liquid at room temperature. False trace happens when the soap batter gets cool enough to solidify the fats in the batter. You'll only see this happen when using a recipe moderate to high in fats such as lard, tallow, palm, palm kernel, and coconut. Not 100% OO.

Thanks for your reply.
Concerning olive oil and "false trace", I guess that makes sense.

 

[DRWelch]

7 minutes is nowhere near long enough to bring a pure castile soap to trace when you use a 25% lye concentration. From those pictures, there's no soap in there. If there is, it's under that liquid. You would have to pour all of that into a container to mix it further and apply some heat to it to see if you can get it emulsified or you can dump that and make a proper sized batch.

Thanks Arimara for your suggestion.
Will give it another day or two; if no change, I'll heat it up some, then stir it up some more.

 

[DeeAnna]

"...For this batch, I decided to only use 25% water...."

I don't really know what you mean by "25% water". Do you mean "water as % of oils" or do you mean lye concentration?

"...It's my understanding that the more water you use in your batch, the quicker the soap will gel. ..."

Hmm. Nope, that's not exactly correct. The soap will go into the gel phase at a lower temperature if the soap contains more water, assuming all other things being equal. The rate of heating is faster with less water in the soap, again if all other things are equal.

Assuming you mean 25% lye concentration, that's too much water for cold process soap, because the soap emulsion becomes unstable much below, oh, about 27% lye concentration. If you want to make hot process, 25% lye concentration is fine since maintaining a stable emulsion isn't an issue with the HP method.

I agree with Arimara that 7 minutes of hand mixing is not long enough to get the soap batter to a stable emulsion and the picture proves this point. Even if you had gotten the batter to a stable emulsion at first, the emulsion might have failed later on as the soap warmed up, because there was so much water.

For a high oleic recipe like this one, you'd be better off using LESS water, because oleic soap saponifies slower and thus stays cooler than many other recipes. Less water will speed things up and the soap will warm up faster. If you want it to gel, cover the soap to insulate it or warm the soap in the oven while it's saponifying (CPOP method).

I'd use a lye concentration somewhere between 33% and 40%. Speaking in general, it turns out that LESS water increases the rate of saponification, so for a high oleic recipe, you're better off with a higher lye concentration than lower.

 

[penelopejane]

DeeAnna

"...For this batch, I decided to only use 25% water...."

I don't really know what you mean by "25% water". Do you mean "water as % of oils" or do you mean lye concentration?

"...It's my understanding that the more water you use in your batch, the quicker the soap will gel. ..."

Hmm. Nope, that's not exactly correct. The soap will go into the gel phase at a lower temperature if the soap contains more water, assuming all other things being equal. The rate of heating is faster with less water in the soap, again if all other things are equal.

Assuming you mean 25% lye concentration, that's too much water for cold process soap, because the soap emulsion becomes unstable much below, oh, about 27% lye concentration. If you want to make hot process, 25% lye concentration is fine since maintaining a stable emulsion isn't an issue with the HP method.

I agree with Arimara that 7 minutes of hand mixing is not long enough to get the soap batter to a stable emulsion and the picture proves this point. Even if you had gotten the batter to a stable emulsion at first, the emulsion might have failed later on as the soap warmed up, because there was so much water.

For a high oleic recipe like this one, you'd be better off using LESS water, because oleic soap saponifies slower and thus stays cooler than many other recipes. Less water will speed things up and the soap will warm up faster. If you want it to gel, cover the soap to insulate it or warm the soap in the oven while it's saponifying (CPOP method).

I'd use a lye concentration somewhere between 33% and 40%. Speaking in general, it turns out that LESS water increases the rate of saponification, so for a high oleic recipe, you're better off with a higher lye concentration than lower.

DeeAnna,
For this recipe DRWelch used 33% Lye concentration (25% water as a % of oil).
I agree that the 7 mins of hand stirring wasn't anywhere near enough for CP Castile soap.

 

[DeeAnna]

Oh! Thanks for setting me straight, Arimara.

So the lye concentration was good. Just not enough mixing.

 

[DRWelch]

7 minutes is nowhere near long enough to bring a pure castile soap to trace when you use a 25% lye concentration. From those pictures, there's no soap in there. If there is, it's under that liquid. You would have to pour all of that into a container to mix it further and apply some heat to it to see if you can get it emulsified or you can dump that and make a proper sized batch.

Hello Arimara.
Several weeks ago, I followed your advice and started all over again with this small batch.

I scooped contents out of the mold, put in a pot on the stove and mixed until everything was liquid again.

Poured the contents in a mixing bowl and this time I mixed for at least 15 minutes (by hand), until I was certain there was actually trace. This time, everything turned out beautifully.
Thanks for your advice.

 

[Arimara]

@DRWelch They look quite nice. Glad I could be of some help.