Stickiness in the center of the bar

[aeiou_-]

The first batch I ever made favors olive oil. I followed the "easy soap recipe" on soap making resource, pretty much step for step, except that I put it into soap calc for super exact measurements. This is what I got.

Olive Pomace - 50% /26.50oz
Coconut Oil 76 -31.13% /16.50oz
Palm Oil - 18.87% /10oz
Water - 20.14 oz
Lye - 7.44 oz
I used 2:1 Lavender EO(40/42) to 5x Lemon EO - 2.72 oz

I used a 7% superfat, because it was my first batch and it sounded fun. I seriously had no clue what to expect.

The soap smells great and it is beginning to harden but it still seems less firm on the inside.. I broke one of the scrap pieces in half and found it to be sticky on the inside. Could this be due to there not being enough lye? Is this the olive oil doing it's thing? Or maybe, a beginners mistake to 7% super fat a 50% olive oil batch?

I am on my 12th day curing.

1st picture is the scrap that I broke in half.
2nd is how the cleaner bars look. :mrgreen:

 

[shunt2011]

That would be totally normal. Soap takes 4-6 weeks to cure and harden. High Olive oil soaps can take longer. 12 days is nothing in the curing life of soap. Give it time. Also, your CO is a tad high for most. I'm not one to use low CO but don't normally exceed 25%. I would drop the CO a bit and add it to your Palm personally. Though with 7% SF you may be okay if you're not sensitive to CO.

 

[aeiou_-]

That would be totally normal. Soap takes 4-6 weeks to cure and harden. High Olive oil soaps can take longer. 12 days is nothing in the curing life of soap. Give it time. Also, your CO is a tad high for most. I'm not one to use low CO but don't normally exceed 25%. I would drop the CO a bit and add it to your Palm personally. Though with 7% SF you may be okay if you're not sensitive to CO.

Sounds great! Thank you.
Edit:I'm definitely going to swap out the PO and CO differences like you suggested!


Now that I have you on the subject of CO, I also made a recipe that called for 100% CO, 20%SF, and I substituted the water with Aloe Juice. The only additive is activated charcoal and it is unscented. I thought of it as a face bar, initially, but now I feel that was silly. The bar is very firm, feels very nice. I tried to break one in half and had trouble. Does charcoal work for a body bar as well? I've seen a bunch of face bars. I am hoping that the aloe and high superfat will make this bar moisturizing enough to overcome any dryness from 100% coconut oil. Any thoughts on this?

 

[Susie]

The 20% superfat is going to combat the dryness of the coconut oil. It is not my favorite recipe, but it certainly is not as drying as it sounds.

 

[shunt2011]

I agree with Susie. It's not a favorite for me either. Though I do like Salt Bars a whole lot. That's 80-100% CO with 20% SF and 30-100% Salt added. Though these can be tricky to make as they need to be cut while still warm or there is no cutting them. Same with 100% CO. If you wait too long it will crumble and break.

 

[penelopejane]

Now that I have you on the subject of CO, I also made a recipe that called for 100% CO, 20%SF, and I substituted the water with Aloe Juice. The only additive is activated charcoal and it is unscented. I thought of it as a face bar, initially, but now I feel that was silly. The bar is very firm, feels very nice. I tried to break one in half and had trouble. Does charcoal work for a body bar as well? I've seen a bunch of face bars. I am hoping that the aloe and high superfat will make this bar moisturizing enough to overcome any dryness from 100% coconut oil. Any thoughts on this?

Why are you trying to break your bars?

I use AC in body bars. My sons love it. Not sure if it is the colour or the qualities it brings, though.

 

[Arimara]

Your soap won't be moisturizing at all but it will be much more mild and pleasant after about 6 months and longer with big bubbles to boot. Personally, I absolutely hate 100% CO soap. Even though the superfat is high enough to offset the natural cleansing factor of that soap, I still get hangnails galore when I it. Strangely enough, I have less of that happening with salt bars.

 

[aeiou_-]

Why are you trying to break your bars?

I use AC in body bars. My sons love it. Not sure if it the colour or the qualities it brings, though.

haha. I picked up a bar and realized it was extremely firm at about a week curing. I read that 100% CO was a rock solid bar, so I proceeded to test this. I had to really try to even begin to see the separation in the middle of the bar. Very happy with this. Thank you for your reply.

 

[aeiou_-]

Your soap won't be moisturizing at all but it will be much more mild and pleasant after about 6 months and longer with big bubbles to boot. Personally, I absolutely hate 100% CO soap. Even though the superfat is high enough to offset the natural cleansing factor of that soap, I still get hangnails galore when I it. Strangely enough, I have less of that happening with salt bars.

Do you think it is unlikely/likely that this bar will serve the original hope of being a facial bar?

Does anybody have a recommendation on a simple unscented facial bar? I have Olive Oil Pomace, Coconut Oil 76, Castor Oil, and Palm Oil. I plan on using the activated charcoal.

 

[aeiou_-]

I agree with Susie. It's not a favorite for me either. Though I do like Salt Bars a whole lot. That's 80-100% CO with 20% SF and 30-100% Salt added. Though these can be tricky to make as they need to be cut while still warm or there is no cutting them. Same with 100% CO. If you wait too long it will crumble and break.

I have some Himalayan salt I wanted to try in a recipe, too. I've seen some bars made with coarse salt and others with a fine salt. Will the coarse salt dissolve in the shower? Personally, I think it looks like it will be very scratchy but I've never used one.

 

[Susie]

Do you think it is unlikely/likely that this bar will serve the original hope of being a facial bar?

Does anybody have a recommendation on a simple unscented facial bar? I have Olive Oil Pomace, Coconut Oil 76, Castor Oil, and Palm Oil. I plan on using the activated charcoal.

Try this:

Palm 50%
Olive Oil 30%
Coconut Oil 15%
Castor Oil 5%
Superfat 5%

Salt for salt bars should be FINE crystals. Any larger and they scratch something awful.

 

[earlene]

I have some Himalayan salt I wanted to try in a recipe, too. I've seen some bars made with coarse salt and others with a fine salt. Will the coarse salt dissolve in the shower? Personally, I think it looks like it will be very scratchy but I've never used one.

Personally I wouldn't waste good Himilayan Sea Salt in lye soap. I would use in cooking instead.

I recommend Popcorn salt for your salt bars. It is a very finely granulated salt and not as scratchy. If you can't find popcorn salt, you can order it from Walmart or Amazon. It is not too expensive, IMO.

 

[Arimara]

Do you think it is unlikely/likely that this bar will serve the original hope of being a facial bar?

Does anybody have a recommendation on a simple unscented facial bar? I have Olive Oil Pomace, Coconut Oil 76, Castor Oil, and Palm Oil. I plan on using the activated charcoal.

It depends on your skin. My skin is on the sensitive side and my face is the combo type. I can tolerate a salt bar on my face but I thrive on what is gentle and slightly exfoliating.

Recipe #2 for you (450g which is slightly under a pound):

Palm oil- 180
Olive Pomace- 157g
Coconut oil- 90g
Castor oil- 23g

lye (NaOH)- 62g
water- 125g

Please run this recipe through a lye calculator as a precaution and for the love of your skin, DO NOT USE COARSE SALT OR HIMALYAN PINK SALT IN A SALT BAR. It will yield a scratchy bar to say the least, even if you can use it as a poor sub for a foot pumice stone.

 

[aeiou_-]

Susie, this is result I got using your recipe! The only adjustment I made was adding activated charcoal to the top portion of the batter. I made this unscented.

Edit:I just realized that picture 2 is upside down..

 

[aeiou_-]

Arimara, this is the result I got from your recipe. The only adjustment I made was that I added used coffee grounds for exfoliation and Lavender EO. I now feel that was a mistake because there is a clear layer of soap that developed over certain parts of the bar. I wonder if used vs. fresh coffee grounds make a difference.. the soap also turned brown. haha.

 

[Arimara]

Arimara, this is the result I got from your recipe. The only adjustment I made was that I added used coffee grounds for exfoliation and Lavender EO. I now feel that was a mistake because there is a clear layer of soap that developed over certain parts of the bar. I wonder if used vs. fresh coffee grounds make a difference.. the soap also turned brown. haha.

I like it. It's rustic yet clean. For coffee soap, I used only instant for it. My current coffee would be perfect for soaping but it's pricey coffee that I actually like the taste of. In any case, used coffee would have been fine if you wanted minimal coloring but fresh beans would yield you some color.

Also, wait a few weeks, that soap is likely to lighten up a bit.

 

[aeiou_-]

Thank you.

Good coffee is definitely pricey, but smells wonderful. I don't drink too much coffee, but I am lucky that my girlfriend does. I've been saving the used coffee grounds and drying them out. I don't know if it makes a difference with them being dry or not.

 

[Arimara]

Considering some of the bad germies would be cooked since the temp of freshly mixed lye can reach close to 212 F, I would reuse the coffee grounds, if they are fine enough. Course grounds might be a little uncomfortable for some.

 

[earlene]

aeiou_-, your soaps are very nice looking.

I believe spent coffee grounds are fine. But the finer the grind the better. Because I travel so much, don't drink coffee and my husband won't drink decaf, I take the decaf packets of coffee when we stay in hotels and use that for my coffee soap. But if it is not ground finely enough, it is far too scratchy in soap. So I have been know to re-grind already ground coffee before adding it to soap.

In the beginning I did use spent coffee grounds, after drying them out in the oven of course. You don't want to add wet moldy coffee grounds to your soap! Wet would make your soap softer and moldy is just plain yucky! In any case, I stopped because I find using new grounds to by much easier and a lot less work.

 

[penelopejane]

Test it. Adding coffee to your water component will look different to adding grinds (I use dry used grinds) to the batter. SBing coffee grinds and batter will also change the colour with the same amount of grinds.