Soda Ash and thick trace

[Fran2]

Hi,

I am new to soap, I have made about 5 batches so far.

Question 1. I decorate my tops with fluffing them up into peak, I have the dreaded SODA ASH. I make my soaps at about 110-115. I put the soap in 5 lb loaf wooden box with a cover wrap it up with towels and blankets. Is there something else I can do. Will wrapping saran wrap before the cover help.

Question 2: I have read a few posts about overheating and gelling soap. I know what gelling means that it starts to cool from the middle first, I think? But how do you achieve gel, by wrapping the soap up with towels and blankets? What is overheating?

Question 3: I have noticed the soap is a bit drying. I am testing soap that is only 4 weeks cured and my hands feels very dry afterward.

I am looking for a recipe that is very conditioning. I have been trying mixtures usually 14 OO, 14 CO, 14 Palm, 5 Shea, and playing with small amounts of Almond and Sunflower to make 53 ozs.

I have in supply:

OO
Palm Oil
Shea Butter
Cocoa Butter
Coconut Oil
Almond Oil
Avocado Oil
Castor
Glycerin
Jojoba (which you all know is very expensive)
Sunflower

 

[IrishLass]

Question 1. Is there something else I can do. Will wrapping saran wrap before the cover help.

Just the cover itself should be fine. Ash normally happens when when soap is exposed to air before it is fully saponified, I find that my soap will get ash when I uncover too soon.

Question 2: I have read a few posts about overheating and gelling soap. I know what gelling means that it starts to cool from the middle first, I think?

Actually, just the opposite. When soap goes through gel, it will get very hot in the center, and then the heat will spread outward to the extremeties.

But how do you achieve gel, by wrapping the soap up with towels and blankets?

That is one way. The way that I do it is to place my soap in a warm, protected place such as my oven preheated to 120 degreesF, and then turned off as soon as I set my soap inside.

What is overheating?

Overheating is when your soap gets too hot as it's going through the gel stage. In it's mildest form, the soap will just slightly expand and cause a little bit of cracking on the surface of the soap. At its worst, the soap can heat up excessively and flow out of the mold like lava out of a volcano. Separation of the oils can also occur. As you practice and become very familiar with your soap formulas, the avoidance of overheating will become like second nature to you.


Question 3: I have noticed the soap is a bit drying. I am testing soap that is only 4 weeks cured and my hands feels very dry afterward. [/quote]

Since the nature of soap is to clean by stripping the oils and dirt from the skin, this is only natural. The beauty of making your own soap, though, is that you can compensate and work your way around excessive cleansing by formulating and superfatting your recipes to your own particular skin-type. It just takes a bit of trial and error experimentation is all.

I am looking for a recipe that is very conditioning. I have been trying mixtures usually 14 OO, 14 CO, 14 Palm, 5 Shea, and playing with small amounts of Almond and Sunflower to make 53 ozs.

Assuming that those given numbers are in ounce amounts, I entered your recipe into SoapCalc (minus the almond and sunflower since no specific amounts were given for those), and from the results it gave me, I can see why you would find it drying. I would find it too drying for my own skin-type, too. Someone with a more oily skin-type might be fine with it, though.


Looking at your oil supply, here is the kind of formula I would be quite happy with (in percents):

Olive oil 42%
Coconut oil 28%
Palm oil 15%
Castor oil 8%
Shea butter 7%

and I would superfat it at 6% or 7%

That's just me, though. My skin tends toward the normal to dry side, by the way.


IrishLass

 

[judymoody]

You can help to prevent ash by spritzing the top of your soap with 91-93% isopropyl alcohol (available at most pharmacies). It doesn't work 100% of the time but it works most of the time.

Irishlass has given you lots of good advice so I won't bother to repeat it. I think that the recipe she recommended looks really good if you want a less drying bar.

 

[Fran2]

]Thank you for so much information.

I will try your recipe

Question: I thought that coconut was drying (sorry I am new) so why more Coconut than Palm?


Question 2: When superfatting I heard some people take the shea butter and put it into the oils and lye after they have been mixed? Or they take a specialty oil and add that at the end.

Question: 3 So you say to prevent ash could it b e that I am peaking after a few hours?

Question: 4: In the soapcalc what is this, and should it be changed? Water as % of Oils I leave it at default which is 38%.


[/img]SoapCalc © Recipe Name: Print Recipe

Total oil weight 54 Sat: Unsat Ratio: 42 : 52
Water as percent of oil weight 38 % Iodine 57
Super Fat/Discount 7 % INS: 154
Lye Concentration 26.681 % Fragrance Ratio:; 0
Water : Lye Ratio 2.748:1 Fragrance Weight: 0 oz.


Ingredient Pounds Ounces Grams
Water 1.283 20.52 581.732
Lye - NaOH 0.467 7.467 211.694


# ? Oil/Fat % Pounds Ounces Grams
1 Olive Oil 42 1.418 22.68 642.967
2 Palm Oil 15 0.506 8.1 229.631
3 Coconut Oil, 76 deg 28 0.945 15.12 428.644
4 Castor Oil 8 0.27 4.32 122.47
5 Shea Butter 7 0.236 3.78 107.161
Totals 100 3.375 54 1530.873


Soap Bar Quality Suggested Range Your Recipe
Hardness 29 - 54 40
Cleansing 12 - 22 19
Conditioning 44 - 69 56
Bubbly 14 - 46 26
Creamy 16 - 48 28
Iodine 41 - 70 57
INS 136 - 165 154

Lauric 13
Myristic 5
Palmitic 15
Stearic 6
Ricinoleic 7
Oleic 41
Linoleic 8
Linolenic 0
Additives Notes


Question: 6 You will notice I have not put in a fragrance amount, I was told not to put that in, I use essential oils, so do I add that to the recipe?

Thank you so much, I really appreciate all the help, I keep making batches, and I am wasting all my oils.

 

[IrishLass]

Question: I thought that coconut was drying (sorry I am new) so why more Coconut than Palm?

No worries- we were all new once. :wink:

While it's true that coconut can be drying in soap because of it's high cleansing qualities, it also adds lots of lovely, fluffy/bubbly lather, while regular palm oil does not (it mostly adds hardness and creamy-type lather). You can work around the drying effects of coconut, though, by balancing out your formula with more conditioning oils/fats and/or also increasing your superfat %. That's the fun part about soaping. There's all kinds of tricks you can do at the recipe level to work around the seeming impossibilities to get the kind of soap you want. It just takes a little know-how and making a few adjustments here and there.

Question 2: When superfatting I heard some people take the shea butter and put it into the oils and lye after they have been mixed? Or they take a specialty oil and add that at the end.

If you are making soap via the CP method, adding a specialty oil at trace or at the end right before you pour your batter into the mold will get you nowhere. The reason some people do that is in the hope that the specialty oil will somehow avoid being saponified by the lye and remain intact as the superfatting oil. It's an oft-repeated theory that has made many rounds in soapdom through the years because it sounds so logical, but it was never actually put to the test until recently by Dr. Kevin Dunn. The results of his experiments showed the theory to be nothing more than wishful thinking at best, and it has since been relegated to the growing list of soaping myths. You can read about his experiments and findings here.

As a result of his findings, instead of worrying about a special superfatting oil, I just set the superfat level for my entire batch to whatever % I want my batch to be superfatted at, and then I just calculate all my oils together up front and add them all together in my pot before adding my lye solution. And then I just let the lye duke it out however it wants to, because it will anayway no matter what you do.

Question: 3 So you say to prevent ash could it b e that I am peaking after a few hours?

I've found that a little peek here and there won't hurt as long as you cover it back up and let it finish doing its thing, but if you fully unmold too soon, that's when ash can happen big time.

Question: 4: In the soapcalc what is this, and should it be changed? Water as % of Oils I leave it at default which is 38%.

I never mess with that box as it is irrelevant to my purposes and can be kinda misleading in a sense anyway. I figure my water amount by messing with the Lye Concentration box instead, which is the box just immediately underneath the 'Water as % of Oils' box.

Question: 6 You will notice I have not put in a fragrance amount, I was told not to put that in, I use essential oils, so do I add that to the recipe?

You can enter in the box how many ounces of EO you want to use per pound of oil and it will calculate it for you so that you will know how many total ounces of EO or FO to use for your size batch. Don't worry- it won't be calculated into your lye amount, if that's what you are concerned about.


IrishLass

 

[Fran2]

I never mess with that box as it is irrelevant to my purposes and can be kinda misleading in a sense anyway. I figure my water amount by messing with the Lye Concentration box instead, which is the box just immediately underneath the 'Water as % of Oils' box.

I am sorry, to ask another question.

You said you don't mess with "Water as % of OIls" but you mess with the lye concentration box. Do you change whatever the default is after calculating When I run the recipe through the soapcalc it said 20.52 ozs of water. Would a soaper want more or less water for some reason? And/or change the amount of lye she uses?

I am so grateful for all your answers and will print all of this off when I am making my batch, and will report back to you how it came out.

Fran