Hello.
I'm quite new to the hobby, but I'm enjoying it thus far. I'm making cold-process soaps, usually with olive oil/coconut oil bases. I'm happy with the quality of soap I've made these past few attempts, but I'm frustrated b/c I've not yet figured out how to decide when to cut the soap. I've tried too early, when it was still too soft, and made a mess. I've tried too late, when it's too hard, and the result has been some shattered, brittle shrapnel that works fine but doesn't quite look right.
I've been using this calculator to come up with some recipes:
http://www.soapguild.org/industry/lyecalculator.php. I've basically been doing about 2/3 olive oil and 1/3 coconut oil, and adding other nonsense (oatmeal, etc) at trace. I've been using roughly a 7% lye discount and roughly 33% of solution of distilled water (what the calc refers to as "medium"). I pour the stuff into greased 3" pvc pipe. I'm super happy with the pvc pipe as a mold; it gives me the no-frills aesthetic that I'm looking for.
Basically, since I've switched to the pvc pipe, i've had trouble sliding it out of the mold til it's pretty hard. This last time, once i slid it out of the mold, the soap was VERY hard and it shattered when i tried to cut it. I know there is probably a happy medium here, where i can slide it out of the mold without too much trouble, and then cut it without the soap breaking every which way. And, i feel confident that you old hands can probably give me some tips on how to figure out when the soap is "ready" without driving myself crazy.
fwiw, when i poured it into a rubbermaid mold, i had similar problems with the soap shattering. I'm pretty much sold on the pvc mold, and i know it can work because i've seen other ppl's final product based on this type of mold.
Thanks in advance,
-rob
ps-i'm enthused about this forum. I hope to one day be able to contribute some experience and wisdom here, once i gain some experience and wisdom.
