Soap still soft?

[Yill]

Hi everyone,

6 weeks ago I made a batch of soap with 40% OO, 20% CO, 10% castor oil, 10% cocoa butter, 15% shea butter and 5% jojoba oil. I scented it with lavender EO. After six weeks of curing the soap still feels somewhat like chewy fudge when pressed. Is this the way it's going to stay or will it get harder?

Thanks!

 

[kazmi]

After 6 weeks I wouldn't think it should still be soft. But I'll let more experienced soapers chime in.

 

[npc]

how much water do you use?

 

[Yill]

I used 31% water and super fatted at 5%. Put it through soapcalc and it looked fine. Not the hardest soap in the world, but a nice conditioning soap.

 

[Lindy]

That recipe should have hardened up by now. You may be looking at a rebatch... sorry :-(

 

[Yill]

I sure hope not! :sad: It doesn't zap me and it makes my hands really soft. It looks gorgeous and smell delicious, but it's still somewhat soft. Couldn't it just be the type of soap? I'm a newbie so maybe that's a stupid comment, but I have noticed that they sell pretty soft soaps at Lush as well.

 

[Serenity]

Most of the oils you've listed will add hardness to the soap - olive, coconut, cocoa & shea. Unfortunately you've got that pesky castor oil in there, which may be the problem. The last batch I made with castor oil at 3% was soft and spongy for weeks and I promised myself I'd never use it again. The recipe didn't have a lot of hard oils which did compound the problem. Nevertheless, I also don't like how it makes the soap sticky and I have to wait longer to cut it. Others will probably disagree with my extreme stance but I'm through with castor oil!! :wink:

I think you should wait a bit longer. Mine eventually firmed up. I think it took about 6 weeks but yours has much more than 3% so it may take a while. In future, if you're going to use castor oil I would keep it around 5% and see how you go.

 

[new12soap]

That recipe really should have made a solid soap by now. Are you sure you used the correct amount of lye? Are you sure you used NaOH, not KOH? I have never put jojoba in soap (too pricey for a rinse off for me), but I use castor in nearly every recipe I make and my soaps harden no problem. I would say rebatch, but how? Other than trying to cook off more of the water, I don't know what you could do to fix it. If you are certain you used the correct type and amount of lye then you wouldn't want to add more. All I can say is either continue to wait and see what happens, or you could do a rebatch w half this soap and half newly mixed soap. In general terms, put say a pound of soap shreds in the crockpot, melt them down a bit, then add oils and lye water for a 1 lb batch of soap to the melted shreds and blend them all together, and HP them. I have had to do that once before, I just used a very very basic soap recipe for the new one, and it turned out great. HTH

 

[Lindy]

Even with large amount of Castor Oil it would be hard by now. I truly believe you mis-measured your water or something...

 

[daisy8]

This may be of interest:- "You want to be careful in discounting water for recipes that use milk, honey, clays, oatmeal as these ingredients absorb water and can cause cracking if a high water discount is used." (comes from lovinsoap.com) -

Much later: I seem to have posted this under the wrong thread! - So sorry.

 

[Yill]

Thanks for all your advise! I will wait a little longer and see if it will get rock solid ;-)
The end pieces are hard, but they are thin slices. I keep my soap in a cupboard that isn't ventilated 24/7 so that may be part of the problem as well.

 

[Rachelmf]

Is the cupboard next to the shower or something? Maybe you've got the soap somewhere that's too humid. In my opinion, the fact that the end pieces are hard indicates that there may be hope for the rest of the soap getting hard. I've definitely never had soap that was still soft after six weeks though.

 

[CaliChan]

I would just leave it for another 6 weeks and see if it hardens up. i made soaping 101s "bastile" recipe (last time i try out another soapers recipe im not a fan of the result) its still soft. dont get me wrong it still works but still soft.( its been 8 weeks). if you mis-measured your water it should eventually evaporate out.

 

[Yill]

It's been a while and just wanted to say that my soap finally hardened! It was a ventilation problem as far as I can tell, because when I started ventilating the cupboard more often the soap got notably harder :smile:

 

[Ruthie]

Glad to hear that you "cured" the problem!! (I know, bad pun!)

 

[roseb]

Most of the oils you've listed will add hardness to the soap - olive, coconut, cocoa & shea. Unfortunately you've got that pesky castor oil in there, which may be the problem. The last batch I made with castor oil at 3% was soft and spongy for weeks and I promised myself I'd never use it again. The recipe didn't have a lot of hard oils which did compound the problem. Nevertheless, I also don't like how it makes the soap sticky and I have to wait longer to cut it. Others will probably disagree with my extreme stance but I'm through with castor oil!! :wink:

I think you should wait a bit longer. Mine eventually firmed up. I think it took about 6 weeks but yours has much more than 3% so it may take a while. In future, if you're going to use castor oil I would keep it around 5% and see how you go.

I just made a batch on Sunday with 10% castor oil. I didn't know about keeping it down to 5%. Learn something everyday...anyway the soap is very hard.