swedish guy tries to make soap.

[dixiedragon]

when I put my soap in the oven, I put a dishtowel on the tray b/c it's aluminum and put the soap mold on that. To my eye, it looks like it got too hot and separated. I think a crockpot will save it. If you don't have a crockpot, put it back in your soaping pot, put the heat on LOW, and stir!

here are some good pics:
http://gracefruit.blogspot.com/2006/01/crock-pot-hot-process-soap-tutorial.html

You don't want to pour the soap in the mold while it is separated. When it is thick and translucent, like vasaline, it's ready.

 

[Tobbelobbe]

I didnt think it could overheat from 77c only.
The main problem i felt was that i had it at a point where all ingrediens were mixed fine, it was a pure mixture so to speak. But it was never near vasaline. Not even after 2 hours. It was still runny.

 

[traderbren]

Man soapmaking is crazy. I looked like a scene from breaking bad yesterday when i tried to avoid getting lye on anything. Now im meant to LICK it? Have i overestimated how bad lye can be?

No, you have not overestimated how bad it can be. Lye should be respected but not necessarily feared. Try the process TEG described with the wet finger, then tongue.

So there is no point in like cutting one of them? To see if they are solid all the way through?

when you push gently on one corner, how much give is there? Has the liquid on top absorbed yet? You can cut into one if you like, but if it feels firm and liquid has absorbed, and it does not zap, you most likely are okay.

To above, i am not vegan. But im trying to make it more accessible for friends who are vegan! Is there any way i can add almond oil or avocado oil instead of palm oil?

Picking up canola oil on my way from work today.

Lard is easy to soap with, although you will want to be sure it is melted (and don't let it get too hot or it might smell piggy). It sets up to a nice hard bar with a 4-6 week cure. Once you get into more more liquid oils, your cure time will be longer and you will have much longer to wait between testing batches to find what you like. Make soap for you first, and then once you are comfortable with the process tweak it more for your friends.

Sorry for not beeing clear about this.
Im not giving away something that is not top notch. What i meant is. I dont mind at all taking 10 tries to make a good product if that what it takes. But my goal is to have it Vegan!

Is there a good database on what each oil / ingrediens does to a soap?

http://www.naturesgardencandles.com/mas_assets/theme/ngc/pdf/soapoils.pdf

BTW about the zap. If it stings on the tounge. Is the soap BAD? and should be redone. The goal is for it to not sting right? Maybe an obvious question but i want to make sure not to do any more simple mistakes!

If it zaps, you will know it. It's not a taste, its a definite zap, like a battery. The goal is no zap.

 

[JPicasso]

I hope it's not too soon

Sweden is so metal, even their soap is black! \m/

Seriously, new to this hobby myself. Learning a lot from your soap adventure.



As for an all vegetable batch, my first was Canolive II at millersoap.com. It's working for me, although with no scents, if it stays wet, it starts to smell like you're rubbing vegetable oil on yourself. It doesn't stay, just when you're actually using it, so keep that in mind. If I make it again, I'll put a scent in it, and let it cure for at least 8 weeks or more.

 

[dixiedragon]

Google "soap making properties of oils" to find out what oils do what. Here's one I like:
http://summerbeemeadow.com/

While not technically vegan, is beeswax an option for you? I love 5% beeswax it makes a VERY hard soap!

Regarding coconut oil - saponified (meaning turned into soap) coconut oil is totally different than coconut oil by itself. Soap is like that - there are some general rules that USUALLY hold true, but there are exceptions for every one. For example, most oils that make a hard bar of soap - like tallow and palm - speed trace. Except lard. (((((lard))))). Most oils that make a soft bar of soap slow trace. Except castor.

I've never soaped with these, but a bar that was 100% soy wax got some good reviews.
http://www.zensoaps.com/singleoil.htm

 

[cmzaha]

Cedarwood like any EO or FO is going to be dependent on the type and supplier. I love cedarwood and have several different ones, some slow trace others do not, but none that I have accelerate trace.

Tobbleobbe, You mentioned steel pans are these stainless steel?

 

[Soapmaker145]

Tons of good tips in this thread. Thanks to everyone for taking time to answer!

I did not know that the coconutoil would make it dry! I use coconut oil for other stuff like body butter and i thought it would be the opposite! Lesson learned!
Is there anything else than lard / Palm oil? I can get a hold of canola oil without a problem but im trying to make it vegan also. Palm oil is hard to get a hold of in sweden. We are very political correct to the extreme. The only Palm Oil you can find here is severly overpriced super ecological organic. It costs like jojoba -.-;

I wont use cedarwood again then.

Main question for now tho.

How do i check if they are fine or not?

If they are not fine, can i just put the soaps on a steel pan on the oven and melt it down, and then add the other oils and the new lye mix? Is it that simple? If the trace never happens. Can heating it up more help?

It is confusing when people dont need a mixer sometimes and its done in 5-10min and i stood for 2 hours and it still didnt trace well enough (I think)

You got a ton of great advice. I'll add my 2 cents. First, don't give up on Cedarwood EO. Just learn to work with it, just like you have to learn how to use any other ingredient.

If you want to keep it vegan, use butters. You can add another 10% shea or mango or cocoa butter. It'll help make the bars harder faster. You'll need to experiment with butters to figure out how much you can add before the soaps start feeling waxy to you.

There is nothing wrong with using all olive or a mix of olive and canola for the extra. You may need a longer cure if you use all liquid oils. Run the recipe through soapcalc and try to keep the linoleic acid at 10% or less.

As far as coconut, keep the percentage between 15% (for a milder soap) and 25% (for a more cleansing soap) for the first few batches. This is true for all oils that have high percentages of lauric and myristic fatty acids. They give you the bubbles and the cleansing. Once you know what they contribute to soap, you can play around with ratios. Jojoba is a wax and doesn't saponify for the most part. Don't use it until you have a basic recipe you like (like coconut, shea, olive/canola/almond). Then you can add Jojoba to it to see if it makes a difference in the quality of the soap. The mix of oils determines how long it takes a soap batter to trace. There is nothing wrong with using a stickblender but I prefer a wisk. Your recipe combined with the low temperature is slow tracing.

I'm assuming you bought the Jojoba premixed with other oils. Try to avoid buying premixed oils because if the percentage they give you is wrong, you end up using the wrong amount of lye.

If you decide to rebatch, you need to cut the soaps up into as small pieces as possible and put them in the oven to start them melting. Some people use double boiler, or a stove top (electric stove on very low setting with frequent stirring), or a bag in boiling water. There is no right or wrong way. I tried various ways and I find the oven easier. I just stir it once in a while. Once it is more fluid, add the additional oils and lye and mix it to thick trace this time. You can even premix the additional lye and oils before adding them to the melted soap. The final soap will look like a rebatch.

When you unmold the soap, post a picture.

Expect to spend some serious time reading the many great threads about everything soap on this forum and have fun .

 

[Seawolfe]

One more thing to remember - if you are using ANY metal other than stainless steel in making or curing your soaps, you risk some nasty reactions. Especially with aluminium.
Thats why you need to be sure you dont drip soap batter in your oven.

And yes, you need a stickblender.

 

[penelopejane]

I don't use palm or lard or tallow.

Olive oil makes a great soap all on its own - Castile soap - but it takes 6 months to cure hard (so it doesn't melt away too quickly in the shower) and is even better after a year it is a very hard bar but very gentle on the skin.

You can add any percent of OO to a soap and it is lovely. Is it available where you are

Regarding this batch - if the oil is seeping out it will not be incorporated in the soap so the recipe will be changed. It might be usable if it goes hard but it will never be good.

If lye gets on your skin or in your eyes it burns. Chemical burns can be severe. I don't know why people here want to torture themselves with zap testing but it is a method to see if the soap has saponified - that is the lye has completed its chemical change and is no longer dangerous or present in the soap.

70*C is way too high. I heat the oven to 40 * C, wrap my soap in a blanket and turn the oven off before putting it in the oven and leave it overnight. This makes it gel all the way through.

Emulsification is when the mix is thin but coats a spoon - doesn't slide off.
Trace is like thin custard where you can dribble part of the mix on top of the batter and it holds its shape even for a second. Thick trace is like thicker but still runny custard.

 

[DeeAnna]

"...I don't know why people here want to torture themselves with zap testing..."

<...chuckle...> If done sensibly, it's no worse than tweezing one's eyebrows. Or getting a static shock in dry winter air. Not nearly as horrendous as it seems to those who have never tried it. :mrgreen:

 

[Tobbelobbe]

I already love this forum! So much activity ;D

Gonna try and answer all questions!

I have actually premixed the oils. I got really good oils from a british company that i already had premixed for my beard oils. Will not use that one again. It was listed on a things you could use for soap list so i just figured it was nice to use it for that too.

Yes my steel pans with high borders, cooking pots? are stainless. Had them for years! But i think im gonna use the double boiler method.

Its been 24hours and i removed them now. They were actually solid. But i was able to break them in half without breaking a sweat ofc. But i can see that something did not go right.
Things like long cure time, i dont mind that to save this batch at all!.

If im gonna remake this, do i just melt it and wait for trace to happen? Or do i need to do the lye mixture again, and if so. How do i calculate how much?

Here is the pictures! It looks like chaos ;D I would say like 1% was leaked in the molds. Some was pure black soggy and the rest was golden pure oil kinda.

 

[Soapmaker145]

From the pictures, I think your coconut and shea did not melt completely when you first added the lye. You only have partial saponification because a lot of your solid oils weren't available to react. If you are sure you did not lose too much of the original mix, go ahead and melt the bars. You should be able to get the mix fairly fluid. Don't be afraid to heat it. You can easily go up to 150F. You may find that the mix will trace properly by itself once all the oils are melted and stirred properly. Be careful because you have a lot of unreacted lye. No zap test.

 

[newbie]

Oh dear. Not to worry, with perseverance, you will make fabulous soap.

The stick blender will help. You don't NEED one to make soap; you could soap hotter and use a whisk but a stick blender is a very convenient tool, so that for some recipes you aren't standing there for 2 hours stirring. I did the same thing with my first soap but I didn't heat it so it held together.

Doing a zap test is not like pouring lye beads onto your tongue so it is by no means torture. It will give you a little zingy sensation which is different from it tasting bad. Once you have a real positive zap test, you will know the difference from ash or FO or just soap taste. It's not nearly as bad as the uninitiated think it to be.

I have gotten quite a kick out of this thread. I like your sense of humor, TBL.

 

[Tobbelobbe]

Im gonna try and melt it tommorow! Gotta work night today ; (
I followed a guide that said i did not need to melt the hard oils first, just pour in the lye and let it melt them. I feel like that was a retarded choice. I got so stressed standing there why the hell isnt this melting, is it hot? Well im wasnt gonna stick down a finger even tho i had super sexy pink gloves which happened to match the soap molds. And my girlfriend calls from me every 20 min between her HOTS games. "Hows it going?"
ITS GOING FINE DONT COME HERE. It felt like it was taking to long. Next time im gonna melt them a bit before that ;O;

But hey, Look at the color! Its KINDA green! So i guess not everything failed ;D

 

[traderbren]

You have a great attitude. You will be fine. Please let us know how the rebatching turns out!

 

[penelopejane]

There are lots of soap making videos but I like soaping101.com this is her rebatching video: some videos say the wrong thing. Soaping 101 videos seem pretty good:
[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_7nl3Y0gacc[/ame]