Soft soap

[AdriannaLudi]

Hi! I’ve been making CP soap for about 3 months now. For the first time I experienced very soft, almost a gelatinous unmold of my loaf. I’ve used the same recipe over and over. This has never happened before. I did add a little less of the oils because I use almond oil for my mica mix. There was a neon pigment if that makes a difference. Also NS cucumber melon. I’m so sad. It’s almost the consistency of tres leches cake I tried to fix it like an actual cake and put it back together.
Here’s the recipe
35% OO
20% CO
15% Shea
10% castor
10% avocado
10% sunflower
Water 12.05oz
Lye 4.34oz
2Tbsp Sodium Lactate

 

[Obsidian]

You used quite a lot of water, give it time to dry and harden.

 

[AdriannaLudi]

The thing is I used less this time. That’s why I’m so confused. Do you think neon micas have anything to do with to?

 

[Todd Ziegler]

The thing is I used less this time. That’s why I’m so confused. Do you think neon micas have anything to do with to?

I have experienced problems with neon colors before and I realized after trial and error that neon pigment works better in simple recipes with oils that harden more quickly.

 

[cmzaha]

Hi! I’ve been making CP soap for about 3 months now. For the first time I experienced very soft, almost a gelatinous unmold of my loaf. I’ve used the same recipe over and over. This has never happened before. I did add a little less of the oils because I use almond oil for my mica mix. There was a neon pigment if that makes a difference. Also NS cucumber melon. I’m so sad. It’s almost the consistency of tres leches cake I tried to fix it like an actual cake and put it back together.
Here’s the recipe
35% OO
20% CO
15% Shea
10% castor
10% avocado
10% sunflower
Water 12.05oz
Lye 4.34oz
2Tbsp Sodium Lactate

You used less what? Less water? As Obsidian noted, you are using a lot of water. If you pull oil from your recipe you should always add it all back into your batter. That is why I never pull oil from my recipe for coloring. Many things can affect batter setup time including even a few seconds difference in stick blending including temp difference, so do not depend on time for un-molding instead check my applying some pressure on the top to see if your soaps feels like it is set. Also your recipe is high in liquid oils so can take extra time to set. You can usually tell if a soap is still too soft even in the middle. Sometimes soap can take up to a week to pull from a mold. In the future, I would cut the water to a ratio of 2:1 water: lye or a 33% lye concentration. Do not use the default of 38% Water as % of Oils which results in approx a 27% Lye concentration or a 2.5:1 water: lye ratio.