Too soft to cut?

[Jydnew]

My 12 year old wanted to make soap for her teacher Christmas gifts this year. I have made many batches of in the past without using any colorants and no fragrances besides simple essential oils. However, she wanted to get fancy so she watched a bunch of Brambleberry videos on swirling techniques, etc and then I ordered colorants and fragrances from Brambleberry. We got a recipe on a soap making forum Reddit (i know, i know...), made the soaps. We were able to unmold one of the soaps within 24 hours, but waited 48 for the second one because we forgot to put in the sodium lactate (which I have never used before in my own soap making). It's been 4 days since we made the first soap and three since we made the second, and when we cut into the first bar today, it still seemed a little soft to me. I attached a picture of what the cutter looks like after she did a slice. Is that normal? Should we wait longer or is this going to always be kind of mushy? I usually do hot process, so my bars are pretty hard pretty quick. I also don't pay much attention to how they look since they're just for family.

I'm wondering if it's because I used a little bit of sunflower oil to mix the colorants before adding them to the soap. Obviously anything could have gone wrong, considering how I have very little experience with any of this!

 

[bookworm42]

Hard to know without your exact recipe but I've had bars that did drags like that. It can create drags in the soap and affect the cosmetics but not the functionality.

My guess is that you either didn't gel or had a high superfat. In either case if you feel it's too soft you can leave your soap and trying cutting it after a few more days. That's what I've done.

 

[artemis]

It does look a little too soft to cut. Most people think the best time to cut is when the soap feels like a firm block of cheddar cheese. But, @bookworm42 is right: it will help to know your recipe.

A few little tips to try when cutting:
1. Try cutting with a wet blade.
2. Try sort of twisting the bar to slide it off the blade.
3. If you have a wire cheese cutter, try using that instead of the blade.