Temperature for CP

[Steph0104]

Hi all, may I know at what temperature do you add in the lye solution to the oil when making CP soap?

I have made 5-6 batches CP soap so far. However, the first few batches have failed as they accelerate too quick / rice up due to the temperature or fragrance oil I used.

My first successful batch was 100% rice bran oil with both oil and lye solution at room temp, with lavender EO. I use Bramble berry non accelerating fragrance oil in my latest batch and it works perfect as well.

Since then, I am afraid to make CP at higher temperature, say 50 - 70 C.
But it also prevents me from using hard oils as well as stearic acid, which give firm bars and creamy lather.

Actually, is the temperature 50-70 C too high for CP soap? How can I keep acceleration under control with such temperature?

 

[cedarstar]

50-70 Celsius is high, especially 70 which is 158 F. I would think it could be the reason your batter accelerates fast. I soap closer to room temp, 70-80 F. I'll go up to about 100 F if I'm doing a simple soap and am not worried about speeding things up.

 

[IrishLass]

Hi Steph! My lye is room temp and my fats are about 54C when I add them together, which brings the temp of the batter down between 43C and 49C, my perfect soaping temp for my formulas with high stearic fats. I consider 70C to be much too high for CP. At that point, you might as well do HP.


IrishLass

 

[cmzaha]

Many times I soap my 40% palm 9% shea recipe with 68º F (20 C) Lye, 99º F (37 C) Oils. 70C would be way to hot.

 

[DeeAnna]

I think you're missing the "elephant in the room" which is your use of stearic acid.

This is one of the reasons (and perhaps the main reason) why you have to soap hot and why your soap batter is accelerating. Stearic acid melts in the neighborhood of 160-170F / 70-75C if I recall correctly. Fatty acids also react almost instantly with lye, and this fast reaction causes the soap batter to thicken very quickly.

If you really feel the need to use stearic acid, you should probably switch to making soap with a hot process method, not cold process.

You should be able to formulate good recipes without the need for stearic acid, unless you have strong restrictions on the types of fats you are willing to use. Lard, palm, the butters (mango, shea, etc.), and soy wax are all high-stearic fats. Using these fats will eliminate the problems that stearic ... or any other fatty acid ... will bring to the party.

 

[penelopejane]

DeeAnna is right about making a recipe that doesn't need hardening additives but...
If you really want to use SA, soy wax or beeswax in CP soap you have to do it a bit differently.
Don't use accelerating FOs.
You need to soap at 110*F and at 31% lye concentration or less). Get everything ready and your lye/water mix to just above 110*F. Melt your SA (mixed with a bit of oil from the recipe), beeswax, or soy wax until they are clear. Then add a bit of warmed oil from the recipe and stir. Then a bit more warmed oil. It will reach a stage that the SA or beewax stays clear in the oil solution but still remain at 110*F (if it doesn't heat up just the part of the oils that you are working with a bit until it does) then you can continue making CP soap as usual but remember that it will accelerate so take it just to emulsion and then only hand stir.

If you want to avoid stearic spots with SA, beeswax and soy wax you will be best off making sure you reach gel. To do this you need to keep the environment around the soap snug and warm for 12 hours. You are not aiming to heat the soap. The easiest way to do this is to use a timber mold and wrap in blankets or CPOP it in the oven (preheat the oven to 110* F and turn the oven off. Wrap the soap in a woolen blanket and put it in the oven and do not open the oven for 12 hours (very important)).

 

[KiwiMoose]

Why stearic acid? Why not opt for butters, and/or soy wax for a bit of hardness/longevity? I use 20% soy wax in all my recipes, and 10% Shea Butter, I soap around 45% celsius. Cocoa butter is harder than shea but will also need to be soaped at around these temps. I stopped using cocoa butter in favour of soy wax due to cost. I make vegan soap. I pretty much always gel mine (unless using cavity molds when I sometimes do, sometimes don't).

 

[atiz]

I use beeswax in almost all my recipes (.5-1% usually, except for the honey-beeswax soap in which I have 3%). Despite @penelopejane's good suggestions, I work with 33% lye concentration, soap around 100--120F (but don't tend to take temp), do not CPOP (but my soaps do gel usually), and have never gotten stearic spots. My batter does tend to move pretty fast, but not unswirable fast once I learnt not to overblend it. I have usually around 70% hard fats in my recipe though, apart from the beeswax.

There are a lot of other things you can do for hardness (add salt, vinegar, etc.) -- they won't be the same kind of soap but they will be hard.

 

[TheGecko]

I generally soap anywhere between 21 - 48C (70-120F) and my recipe is Olive (35%), Coconut (20%), Palm (20%) and Castor Oils (5%). and Cocoa (10%) and Shea Butters (10%); I also use a little Kaolin Clay and Sodium Lactate. Unless I use a badly behaved fragrance, I have no real issues with 'acceleration'. That is not to say that I haven't overblended my batter on occasion or that I haven't had to make allowances for the use of clays and oxides (like TD).

Couple of weeks ago I made a huge (for me) batch of soap in a dish pan. I blended it between emulsion and light trace and then spent a good 30 - 40 minutes weighing out was was needed for my various molds; adding color and scent. The batter for the last mold was just coming on to a medium trace when I ran into problems...a misbehaving fragrance (Country Garden by Wellington Fragrance). I went from Medium to Thick in the time it took for me to turn around and back again after putting my shaft in the sink. But not so thick I wasn't able to plop my batter into the mold and whack it down good.

Unless you have a specific reason for using Stearic Acid, I'd just soap at room temp.