soap a bit soft

[Layne]

hey, new to forums but have been making soap a little now an then.
i have come up with a recipe that i like alot, but it is a bit soft.
it works well with a shower scrungie for lather but not a cloth.
does wonders for dry skin though.
so the question is, how to get it to harden more?
its firm and solid but if you squeez it too hard you can squish a bar.
i was thinking of increasing the lye.

i do hp with a crock pot, and this is what i have going on
24oz soybean oil
24oz cottonseed oil
8oz olive oil
8oz canola oil
10oz coconut oil
4oz grapeseed oil
8oz castor oil
4oz cocoa butter
4oz shea butter
8oz palm oil
24oz evaperated goats milk
12oz water
13.8oz of lye
after cook off i add
4table spoons of veg glycern
4table spoons of shea oil
add fragrince, set off in blocks
once solid remove from blocks, cut and stack to air dry at least a weak
wonderful soap, just need to harden it

 

[Saltysteele]

looks like you could stand to use a harder oil, such as palm oil.

at the same time, castile soap is soft, but hardens nicely after time.

what is the longest you've let it cure for?

also, where did you get this recipe from? have you played around with it at all on soapcalc.net?

 

[Saltysteele]

you can make whatever soap you like to make, i'm not trying to harsh your buzz, and Lord knows i'm not an expert.

personally, i've learned that in a perfect world it'd be cool to have all that stuff in there, sometimes it's not feasible to have an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach on the butters and conditioning oils, etc. sometimes you've gotta chose which are the most important and which you can do without.

in addition to having all those soft oils and butters, then to add more to superfat at the end

i'm not an expert, though. maybe someone else can step in here and help you out

 

[Guest]

Hi That is a lot of soft oils as Salty said . You could add sodium lactate to harden it up .I tsp salt PPO helps harden it . You could add more PO or some PKO , or switch the numbers on the cottonseed and OO , or switch the soybean or cottonseed for lard or tallow . I would play around with soapcalc to see what variations of the oils you use will give the soap with the qualities you want it to have .

HTH

Kitn

 

[Deda]

i was thinking of increasing the lye.

Very Bad Idea. Your SF is already at 4.5%. If you were to decrease the liquid from 36oz down to around 30oz you'd have a harder bar. It's true that harder oils will produce an initially harder soap, but in my experience the 'numbers lie' when it comes to Crisco (1/2 soybean 1/2 cottonseed). I think it produces a much harder bar then the calcs figure.

Use a trusted calc, confirm the SAP of the oils with your supplier, measure carefully with a good, properly calibrated, digital scale.

 

[Guest]

Your soap is already about 20% glycerin -- Why add more? It makes soft soap.

I'd toss the glycerin and add stearic acid.
People say you can go as high as 1 oz. stearic acid ppo, but
I like more like .5 oz. stearic acid ppo.

 

[Deda]

Your soap is already about 20% glycerin -- Why add more? It makes soft soap.

I'd toss the glycerin and add stearic acid.
People say you can go as high as 1 oz. stearic acid ppo, but
I like more like .5 oz. stearic acid ppo.

The OP said her soap was HP, when I've made HP I use a little added glycerin at the end to help with the pour, it makes the soap more fluid, not gloppy.

 

[holly99]

I've been wondering about stearic acid. So glad you mentioned it CastorFan.

I make CPHP and I find that it helps to have a good amount of hard oils, add salt, and reduce some of the water.

 

[Gramma Judy]

I ran your numbers thru soapcalc. Results

Hardness 28
Cleansing 7
Conditioning 69
Bubbly 14
Creamy 28
Iodine 92
INS 106

I would play around with the ingredients you want to use and adjust numbers to perhaps increase hardness lower the iodine and increase the INS. I have never done HP, though soon to try. You also need to allow for the fat in the goatsmilk and the SF at end of cook. So I think you will end up with an even softer soap than the calculator states. I am sure someone will be even more helpful to you, I am still kind of new also. Welcome to the board.

 

[carebear]

24oz soybean oil - SOFT
24oz cottonseed oil - SOFT
8oz olive oil - HARDENS IN TIME
8oz canola oil - SOFT
10oz coconut oil - HARD
4oz grapeseed oil - DUNNO, prolly solft
8oz castor oil - SOFT
4oz cocoa butter - HARD
4oz shea butter - HARD
8oz palm oil - HARD


You have only 66% soft oils (if you don't count the olive - since it hardens up eventually - but I'm talking 6+ weeks and does better with a significant water discount) but the soft oils you have are very soft (and DOS prone). Castor at almost 8% is also contributing - it makes soft and sticky. Glycerine, too, contributers to softness.

if you love the soap as is, try using less water - make a 33-35% lye solution instead of your 27.7% one. And be sure to give it a good long cure period - a week isn't enough. Cut it when you can and then give it 4 weeks minimum and 6 is better even.

Other than that, I personally think a reformulation is the way to go. The things you love about your soap are what's making it so soft.

(increasing the lye won't do it - you'll just end up with soap with excess lye that will burn your skin. do you use a lye calculator?)

 

[honor435]

Wow, i would simplify your recipe, my fav. is palm, coc, oo, castor,it makes an awesome bar, hp or cp! even oo and po is good. I discount my water some on hp and cp, it will make harder bar.

 

[Guest]

That sure does seem like alot of soft oils. I would definatly eliminate some of the softer oils.

 

[Layne]

wow so much help
this is good
see if i can answer some of those questions
i started making this soap to help heal my own skin
i was in some bad car wrecks an after was stuffed full of drugs for years
the drugs started destroying my body, so i quit all of them
but the unhealing sores kept popping up
also i have to wear a heavy compression stocking on my legs
so the rugh skin on the my heels and legs has to be kept down
this soap seems to help both veary nicely
thats why i came up with this recipe
i have added salt to some of the soap and it does help harden the soap
as well as increase the suds
however, salt is a drier, so i dont want to use it in too much of the soap
it may counter the moisterizing that i need
i use an online lye calc, which i may have found through this site a long time ago
i have been using unreduced evaperated goats milk/cream
perhaps i should try reduceing the cream so its more of a milk?
one way or the other i need to try an make it a bit better
friends that have tried it and like the way there skin feels after, think i should start trying to sell it
so yeah i need to make it a bit better

 

[SilverMaple]

I would try adding stearic acid to help harden the soap, and use 1 oz of Sodium Lactate PPO added to your lye/water solution.

 

[tincanac]

Hi there

By no means am I an expert but recently I have been adding a tablespoon of Kaolin Clay and Zinc Oxide (did this mainly to add a whitening factor as I cannot get TD). I am not sure which of these is helping or whether they work like a dream in conjunction but I have been turning out super hard bars. Prior to that I had no problems sort of massaging it out of the moulds I use (hard plastic), I would sort just pull the sides gently away, and kind of massage an air pocket all the way around until it slid out the mould. The last couple of times with the Zinc and Clay - I have literally had to free the unlined sides with a flat blade. The other cool thing that I noticed was that usually if I stick any kind of sharp-ish object down the sides of the mould I would get serious hack-grooves, but since I started adding the ZO and KC - the groove factor is minimal to none at the least, even with the intense coaxing I do with the little cleaver.

Am not 100% sure whether this is a "scientifically legitimate" claim - all I can offer is that my base recipe hasnt changed except for the addtion of those two additives and my opinion is that it is much harder since then.

 

[tincanac]

P.S Forgot to say - I first mix the lyewater and the oils and when it has just blended to even all round consistency I add the ZO and KC.

 

[Layne]

this is the lye calc i use
http://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php

now on this should i put the goats milk in as goat fat?

 

[andreja]

now on this should i put the goats milk in as goat fat?

No, just use it instead of water. And make sure you are using frozen milk and slowly adding lye to it. You can even put the container in ice cold water. THis way you won't get burnt milk.

 

[Bnky]

Layne: I haven't tried this yet, but someone told me on another post to use beeswax to harden a batch; was told it doesn't take much. If you want to stay with the oils and exact recipe you are using, maybe someone could let you know it that would help harden the batch. Also, have you read about the properties for each of the oils. There may be some that are contributing healing benefits to your skin and others that are not (that could be eliminated from your recipe and may help to harden the batch). You may have already done this, but if you haven't, it may help to know more about each oil and then create a recipe geared to your skin concerns. Good Luck!

 

[carebear]

Bnky - yea beeswax does harden, but use more than a touch and you will inhibit lather. It's sometimes a bit of a challenge to soap because of it's high melting temp, but if you melt it in some of your more heat stable oil then it won't be too bad = then add in your other warmed oils.