The Soap Gods are mad at me today!

[Noodge]

I wanted to have a go at a 'banana bread soap' like this one I found on my internet travels:

http://bullesetmolecules.blogspot.com/2012/04/banana-bread-soap.html

Used my basic high-olive recipe as I know cinnamon leaf oil can accelerate like hell, added about an ounce of banana puree blended with my oils before the lye, but oh lordy lordy lord.

THE thickest batter I've ever had. Although funnily enough, looks and smells almost exactly like banana bread batter

Trying to tell myself that the inevitable air pockets will make it look even more like banana bread, but blimey. Didn't expect it to misbehave so much!

Wasn't planning on gelling it either, but it looks like it gelled itself in the bowl - there goes that plan!

I'm not even sure it'll make 'soap' it moved so fast - will deffo put up some pics when I cut in a few days!

Trying to stay positive haha, at least I only made a 1 pound batch!

 

[bookreader451]

I had that happen last weekend and the soap turned out great. I had to move it outside (in a NY winter) to keep it from overheating but I was happy with the soap.

Nothing worse than a FO going from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds.

 

[szaza]

The soap will be fine it sounds like it smells awesome!
Don't wait too long to cut if it's gelled otherwise it'll get harder to cut through. Sugar and an accelerating fragrance (like cinnamon leaf and clove EO) together definitely make a good combo to get that sort of acceleration. It even sounds like you accidentally did a tabletop HP soap. Next time just try to soap a bit cooler (maybe even use frozen banana puree added at emulsion) and add the fragrace to the oils before mixing the lye water (in case you didn't do that this time) so you can control trace more easily.
Happy soaping!

 

[cmzaha]

The soap will be fine it sounds like it smells awesome!
Don't wait too long to cut if it's gelled otherwise it'll get harder to cut through. Sugar and an accelerating fragrance (like cinnamon leaf and clove EO) together definitely make a good combo to get that sort of acceleration. It even sounds like you accidentally did a tabletop HP soap. Next time just try to soap a bit cooler (maybe even use frozen banana puree added at emulsion) and add the fragrace to the oils before mixing the lye water (in case you didn't do that this time) so you can control trace more easily.
Happy soaping!

I personally would not add the puree at trace, since it is part of the water replacement and you are dealing with accelerating fo's. I personally would use a slow trace recipe, soap cool, add the puree to the oils and bring the batter to emulsion. I would then split the batter add in the EO's stir quickly and pour. Since you are layering I would pour the EO's all in the main layer which will accelerate and hold the top layer. Just watch for overheating since bananas contain a lot of sugar and the EO blend can be a heater upper. In the past, I have used bananas a lot in soap just to get rid of overripe bananas and like the little speckled look, it gives.

It sound really yummy. You could also use a nice spice cake or banana cake fo.

 

[szaza]

I personally would not add the puree at trace, since it is part of the water replacement and you are dealing with accelerating fo's. I personally would use a slow trace recipe, soap cool, add the puree to the oils and bring the batter to emulsion. I would then split the batter add in the EO's stir quickly and pour. Since you are layering I would pour the EO's all in the main layer which will accelerate and hold the top layer. Just watch for overheating since bananas contain a lot of sugar and the EO blend can be a heater upper. In the past, I have used bananas a lot in soap just to get rid of overripe bananas and like the little speckled look, it gives.

It sound really yummy. You could also use a nice spice cake or banana cake fo.

Yup, that actually sounds like a better plan. I didn't take layering into account when I suggested adding the fragrance to the oils and I only recommended adding puree at trace because I think that way it's easier to work with frozen puree, but the fragrance won't behave as badly in full water compared to a water discount for the puree if it's only added at trace, so that might completely negate the effect of freezing the puree..

 

[cmzaha]

Yup, that actually sounds like a better plan. I didn't take layering into account when I suggested adding the fragrance to the oils and I only recommended adding puree at trace because I think that way it's easier to work with frozen puree, but the fragrance won't behave as badly in full water compared to a water discount for the puree if it's only added at trace, so that might completely negate the effect of freezing the puree..

I never froze my banana puree just soap cool

 

[Noodge]

Don't wait too long to cut if it's gelled otherwise it'll get harder to cut through. Sugar and an accelerating fragrance (like cinnamon leaf and clove EO) together definitely make a good combo to get that sort of acceleration. It even sounds like you accidentally did a tabletop HP soap.

You hit the nail on the head there! I ended up cutting after 7 hours (!) and it was on the harder side of what I'd like to cut - blew my mind cause that recipe normally takes at least 48 hours to be hard enough to come out of the mould unscathed!

I think you're right about tabletop HP - It's definitely got the more rustic look of a HP soap (not a huge fan of the process cause I like me some swirls lol), but it came out a lot better than expected!

 

[Noodge]

I personally would not add the puree at trace, since it is part of the water replacement and you are dealing with accelerating fo's. I personally would use a slow trace recipe, soap cool, add the puree to the oils and bring the batter to emulsion. I would then split the batter add in the EO's stir quickly and pour. Since you are layering I would pour the EO's all in the main layer which will accelerate and hold the top layer. Just watch for overheating since bananas contain a lot of sugar and the EO blend can be a heater upper.

Slow trace recipe - yup (65% liquid oils!), though I may try this at some point with full olive oil as an experiment, to see if it's a bit easier to work with
Soap cool - I should probably invest in a thermometer lol, but from what I can tell I'm fairly close to room temp
Puree to oils - yup, I do not trust myself to fully blend in mashed bananas without leaving chunks if I added at trace

I'm glad I seemed to do most of it right haha, but soap does what soap wants to do I guess

I will definitely add the EO separately to each layer next time - the shame about cinnamon EO is that you have to use such a tiny amount to not hurt the skin, I'd be worried about putting it all in one half of the soap!

Pictures to follow!

 

[Noodge]

Not nearly as bad as I thought it was gonna be!

Already lost a fair amount of the scent unfortunately, but it still smells good if you get close enough haha

I quite like the looks of the chunks that didn't quite break up when I added the colourant - it looks like bananas!

Kinda wish I'd trimmed those 'horns' off when it was still a loaf though, looks like banana bread that didn't rise

Edit - I'm also wondering about the effects on cure time since it looks like it HP'd itself, looks like I'll be taking some notes over the next 8 weeks methinks!