Soft soap

[cascarral]

PLEASE HELP! My brine soaps are not hardening! What am I doing wrong?

I made a brine bar yesterday with salted water (15% of salt as water weight), I was expecting the batter to accelerate but never did and today was still super super soft and with drops of oil on the top (first picture). Because it's a brine bar it should be very hard by now...

Las time I tried to make a brine bar with rosemary eo the same thing happened, after a week it was still soft and when I cut the bar with a knife it crumbled apart, it had the consistency of wet sand (second picture). After a couple of weeks it harden a bit and I did a zap test but felt nothing... I washed my hands with it and now the bar has a white film (third picture) I don't know if it has something to do... As you can see in the pictures, this bar also had A LOT of soda ash and whiter spots.

I'm trying to make a brine bar with a fresh blend of eo's for a customer so I really, really want to make it work but it's getting very disappointing... Do you have any idea of what could be going on?

Last time I thought the problem was that I soaped with very low temperatures but this time I used 39 C (both lye and oils were at 39), also I insulated the mold.

Could it be the salt I'm using? It's just plain sea salt... I've heard of people having trouble with rosemary eo... does this ring a bell?

My EO blend this time was 4% Eo with 2 parts rosemary, 1 clary sage, 1 tea tree. Las time I used 2 parts rosemary 1 part mint.

 

[Arimara]

The recipe is fine except that you used quite a bit more water than needed for a CP soap. We often suggest that people learn to use the lye concentration setting on soap calculators or at the least, use a ratio of 2:1 water to NaOH.

 

[cascarral]

The recipe is fine except that you used quite a bit more water than needed for a CP soap. We often suggest that people learn to use the lye concentration setting on soap calculators or at the least, use a ratio of 2:1 water to NaOH.

Thank you Arimara. I usually use 27% water but since I've never been able to make my brine bars work I'm using 33% to prevent acceleration... Do you think this could be causing all my problems (eg. crumbling)? Or just the softness?

 

[Arimara]

More than likely, the softness. The more water you use, the longer your soap will stay soft. The amount of soft oils will also come to play in this recipe (again it looks fine to me but it is a thing). You could subtract up to 10% of the olive oil amount to add to the cocoa butter. In anycase, just let the soap cure for at least 6 weeks and see how it goes. You didn't use enough water to ruin this batch; you just used a bit more than you would have needed.

 

[Dawni]

I'm no expert but maybe the amount of soft oil (olive plus canola) coupled with less coconut, and more water, is one reason they're not hardening up as fast?

I could be wrong..

But when I make my brine bars, it's usually a higher coconut oil percentage, like 30-35 to make up for the amount of salt (25% or saturated, in my case). I did that coz I read that any regular recipe is fine for brine bars, but it was suggested to up the coconut oil a bit.

So if it were me I'd actually take my 10% from the olive oil n add it to my coconut, and up my superfat to like 12 maybe. But that's me.

I think I mentioned somewhere that I have brine bars with rosemary and mine didn't have any issues. I soaped at my room temperature, both lye n oils were left to "cool down" in the kitchen, but I can't remember now what the temps were.

 

[cascarral]

I'm no expert but maybe the amount of soft oil (olive plus canola) coupled with less coconut, and more water, is one reason they're not hardening up as fast?

I could be wrong..

But when I make my brine bars, it's usually a higher coconut oil percentage, like 30-35 to make up for the amount of salt (25% or saturated, in my case). I did that coz I read that any regular recipe is fine for brine bars, but it was suggested to up the coconut oil a bit.

So if it were me I'd actually take my 10% from the olive oil n add it to my coconut, and up my superfat to like 12 maybe. But that's me.

I think I mentioned somewhere that I have brine bars with rosemary and mine didn't have any issues. I soaped at my room temperature, both lye n oils were left to "cool down" in the kitchen, but I can't remember now what the temps were.

Yes! My recipe definitely takes longer to cure, I've used it for a while now and my bars stay soft for a while, like a week or so.

My concern is that because it's a brine bar it should (in theory) get bery hard very fast, right? Could you tell me from your experience with brine bars if this is the case? They even say to use individual molds because they become so hard.

 

[Arimara]

Yes! My recipe definitely takes longer to cure, I've used it for a while now and my bars stay soft for a while, like a week or so.

My concern is that because it's a brine bar it should (in theory) get bery hard very fast, right? Could you tell me from your experience with brine bars if this is the case? They even say to use individual molds because they become so hard.

Salt bars are like that. Those soaps are usual 80% or more coconut oil.

 

[cascarral]

More than likely, the softness. The more water you use, the longer your soap will stay soft. The amount of soft oils will also come to play in this recipe (again it looks fine to me but it is a thing). You could subtract up to 10% of the olive oil amount to add to the cocoa butter. In anycase, just let the soap cure for at least 6 weeks and see how it goes. You didn't use enough water to ruin this batch; you just used a bit more than you would have needed.

I will wait longer, see what happens.

All the recipes I saw for brine bars use 33% or even 38% and say the bars get hard after even 4 hours :s This is why I'm anticipating something more is going on here but I don't know if I'm over reacting since I've never done brine soap before. Do you have experience with it?

Salt bars are like that. Those soaps are usual 80% or more coconut oil.

Oh I'm sorry I asked you the same thing twice! My mistake! Now I can't delete the second reply...

So the hardness comes from the CO and not the salt then? Can I relax? jaja

 

[Dawni]

My recipe is posted here, if you're interested. There's also a link there to a salt bar/brine bar thread that has a lot of info.

Going through my posts, I know I've tried this recipe with different water amounts, one even as low as 1.7:1, with the first try being 2:1 if I'm not mistaken. I also know that I've tried different salt amounts too - 25%, saturated water (unweighed salt) and 30%.

The individual molds took longer to harden, I even had it crumble and it was oily. You'll see pics of that in the first link. The loaves hardened up very fast (more heat generated), maybe within 4-6hrs. Salt bars on the other hand sometimes take less than 2hrs to harden. You'll have to always check them.

Hardness will come from both salt and coconut oil amounts.

 

[Arimara]

Salt does help harden a soap but it can only do so much. Dawni provided a great link there. You should give it a read when you have the chance.

 

[cascarral]

Thank you so much! Both of you, really! I will definitely read all the thread in the morning! Thanks again for being so supportive.

 

[cmzaha]

I use 35% CO or PKO in with a 25% Brine solution, 11% superfat, 30% Lye Concentration, and pour them in individual molds. I am able to un-mold my next day, although I do put them in the freezer a couple of hrs before un-molding to make sure the corners do not stick since they are squares.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Do you trust the olive oil? After reading so much about olive oil adulteration, I am using less and less of it. I think you could get this kind of result if the OO was adulterated with another soft oil, like soy.

 

[amd]

It looks like this is the same problem you posted here on Oct 7:
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/soap-soft-dry-and-crumbly.76754/#post-794045

Is this a different batch of soap or are you still looking for answers to that problem?

 

[cascarral]

It looks like this is the same problem you posted here on Oct 7:
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/soap-soft-dry-and-crumbly.76754/#post-794045

Is this a different batch of soap or are you still looking for answers to that problem?

It is the same problem! But in a different batch, and this time there's this weeping on top, I don't think it was last time.

 

[cmzaha]

I forgot to mention Soleseif or Brine bars will not harden in 4 hrs. Full salt bars will harden in 45 min-4 hrs depending on the amount of salt used. But a 15-25% salt brine is nowhere enough to harden a bar in 4 hrs.

What I would have done differently in your recipe is up the CO to 35% taking the 10% from the OO raise the Superfat to 9-11% with a lye Concentation at 30% if you are making a charcoal bar or 31-32% if not making a charcoal bar.

 

[cmzaha]

Why are there 2 Soft Soap threads? I left an answer at the other thread, needs to be kept at one place even with a different batch.
Relle need to try to merge these two ...just giving you a bad time

 

[lsg]

Why are there 2 Soft Soap threads? I left an answer at the other thread, needs to be kept at one place even with a different batch.
Relle need to try to merge these two ...just giving you a bad time

I merged the two threads.

 

[cmzaha]

Very, Good LSG

 

[Dawni]

I forgot to mention Soleseif or Brine bars will not harden in 4 hrs. Full salt bars will harden in 45 min-4 hrs depending on the amount of salt used. But a 15-25% salt brine is nowhere enough to harden a bar in 4 hrs.

Hmmm.. I should time mine again next time. I checked my notes and there was 4hrs written lol.. Maybe I meant to cut it in 4hrs or it'll be too hard to cut? Or maybe I used more salt than 15-25% in that one?