Soap is too soft

[OneThingIsNeeded]

Thank you for your help.

This forum is well set out. I like it the design.

My soap is too soft. I made it from
6 oz coconut oil
6 oz canola oil
2 oz lye
4 oz water


But after a week the soap is not rock hard. I want it to be rock hard.

Should I put the soap in the sun or bake it in the oven to make it rock hard?

Are there any ingredients I can add to make it harder?

Also - what's the best way to sell my soap wholesale? I was going to solicit a variety of retail stores - is this is easiest way to sell it wholesale?

Thank you.

Andrew
Florida, USA
http://sites.google.com/site/OneThingNeeded7/
"But whom He predestinated, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified." Rom 8:30

 

[Fragola]

Problem is that lye can burn your skin, and the same happens when adding too much lye for soap making.

If you have used high purity lye and unless I am reading your recipe wrong, there is a good chance your soap is lye heavy and unsafe for use. Even if you're using lower purity or older lye, there is still some Russian roulette happening there.

It might be a good idea to look into properly testing your soap's pH before using it or giving it to other people. You wouldn't want skinless people suing your pants off , would you ?

Personally, I've never used canola, but from what I've heard, it tends to make a soft soap that might turn rancid within few months (depending on temperature and humidity).

For a harder soap, you should have some hard oils/butters in your recipe (such as cocoa butter). Other ingredients like sodium lactate, beeswax, stearic acid also contribute to hardness.

If you plan to eventually go into business, it will be worth investing in one or two good soapmaking books. There is a lot of work and trials and errors put into developing a quality product.

 

[Genny]

After only one week, the soap is not going to be rock hard. Even with the hardest butters and stearic acid, I don't believe you'll have a rock hard bar of soap in less than a week. That's one of the reason's CP is supposed to cure for a 4-6 weeks.

Like it was already said, it does look like your lye is a little high. Did you round it up? With soaping, especially in small batches, it is safest to be very exact with your weights. Have you tested it for zap? Since it's been a week, if your soap is not lye heavy, there should not be any active lye. Also, did you run the recipe through a lye calculator?

Canola in high amounts does have a tendency to make the soap rancid, especially in humid environments.

I highly recommend a great book on making CP and selling CP. "The Everything Soapmaking Book" by Alicia Grosso. You may be able to find it in your local library along with other cp soap making books.

As for selling your soap, I recommend not putting the cart before the horse.

 

[dcornett]

Posts like this just leave me speachless, so I have to compliment you both on your replies! Good job.

 

[Hestey]

Honestly, if you can't formulate your own recipes, or research them online, you really really really shouldn't be even thinking about selling!! Improperly made soap can cause lye burns (which can be quite severe) and horrible irritation!

 

[sudbubblez]

different types of oils loose their moisture content more slowly. In the case of coconut, a water reduction goes a long way in producing a harder bar. Coconut is more dense (hardness) and takes more time to loose its moisture. By soaping with a water reduction you can get harder bars right off the bat and cut your curing time. SOME oils that are soaped with a water reduction will be more alkaline after a cure, like palm, however the alkalinity is still in the target range for CP bar soap. My favorite book so far, Scientific soapmaking, details a single oil experiment with coconut to measure moisture and hardness. It took the full water coconut 60 days to get as hard as the 50/50 lye coconut was on day one.. This oil takes much longer to loose its moisture.

Canola also does not contribute anything at all to hardness. I have a batch made with canola at nearly 50% and even after milling twice and drying out the batter in the oven a second time, they are on the softer side even now being over 3 months old.

If you put a high water soap in the oven, it is going to go into neat phase (gel) at a lower temperature than a low water soap. Gel is the soap melting. You can help them dry out faster by storing them on racks somewhere where the air is very dry and having a fan blow over them. The dryer the air, the faster they loose their moisture. It also works the opposite way though, if the soap is drier than the air, the soap bar will absorb the moisture/humidity and increase in water content; this can lead to lots of different things but one of the most dreaded is DOS (spoilage). If you don't have racks, a flat surface will also suffice if you turn them every day so they dry evenly. You can even speed cure with a dehydrator but not just any dehydrator. It would have to be one with an adjustable thermostat that blows air horizontally. The ones without adjustable thermostats that blow vertically will tend to heat the soap enough that it melts. I've also experimented with putting soap in a hot car to speed cure, they melted. Its the dry air that does the work, not excessive heat. Keep them out of the sun too, some additives are phototoxic and UV rays do contribute to oils going rancid.

I got from your post that you are interested in selling. With questions like this, I advise you to have more "learning experiences" ask lots of questions and do lots of research on this topic. Soap is a relatively safe product in itself, but a newbie mistake like too much lye on a soap intended for someones body.. that someone burns themself with is going to ruin everything for you. All the additives are going to complicate the soapmaking process too. People are going to ask questions about your product as well and its important that you can confidently and knowlegeably talk about every aspect of your product and sell something that you can be proud of.

 

[sabon]

I ran your recipe through soapcalc and see that its a bit heavy on lye. You could recalculate the amount of oil needed to neutralise the excess lye. For example addition of about 1.5 ounces of coconut oil and cook in a crockpot.

I once tried a 45 percent castor oil CP soap (small 4 ounce batch) and it was very very soft. I don't remember if it was Irishlass or Hazel or Fragola who suggested this but it was a great idea - adding salt about 25 percent(or more) of the total oil. So I heated the pasty soap in a crockpot, added salt when the soap was cooked (falls off without sticking to the spoon) mixed well and poured into a tray. Had to cut it within an hour. But believe me, made the bar hard. You could try the same too.

For selling, as others already mentioned, you could experiment with different oils, get a few great combinations of oils, make a few good bars of soap and then go ahead!