Well that's different.. soap soup

[qtkitty]

I had had a request for activated charcoal facial soap, so I was running an experiment by putting additives in my basic Castile recipe (100% olive oil, steep water discount, room temp oil and lye water, hits trace quick and cuts in under 24 hours). Well added 1.5Tbsp activated charcoal, .5Tbsp Aloe Vera Leaf Powder, and .5Tbsp peppermint (redistilled) EO by NG to the aprox. 36oz oils. It was extremely slow to come to any sort of trace and over 24 hours later it's at a stage I can barely use a spoon to texture the top. It's creeping towards solidification. It hasn't shown signs of separating and the soap left in the bowl solidified and when cleaned made bubbles... but geeze this is worse then watching grass grow lol. I have it in for cpop. I started with HP, but this is my first cpop. So wish me some luck.

I am still wracking my brain over why this batch suddenly is going at snail pace. It's not a bad batch of lye or olive oil, because I used the same bottles for another Castile that worked wonderfully just a few days before. I used the same recipe (Only adding those 3 ingredients) which can be cut in less than 24 hours. I know peppermint eo sometimes can slow things down, but this is waaaaay slower than any I have ever made. I measure in grams since I am working with a small loaf (hence the oz approximation earlier) and all items are measured on the same scale.

I had second guessed making another plain prior to experimenting, since I have one mold. Should have listened to my gut. Or *taps my chin* perfect excuse to justify a second mold..... must resist lol. It's way to late I am getting corny.

 

[cmzaha]

Okay, I am a little confused here. Are you saying you did this as hp? So you brought it to trace then cooked it, poured in the mold and put the oven to cpop it. This simply makes no sense. cpop is cold process that is put in the oven, not hp that is put in the oven. If you did hp put it in the oven to cpop you would have melted down the soap and you are now keeping it in a liquid state. It is simply not going to reharden as long as you keep it melted.

So what process did you actually use? If you hp'ed it it would eventually harden in the mold.

 

[qtkitty]

I used a cold process recipe. This is the first time I haven't had this recipe be ready to cut in under 24 hours. The only thing I have done differently was add additives. Since the soap seems to be slowly moving towards solidifying instead of separating or seeping. I put it in the oven on the lowest temp my oven went down to 170 and the oven thermometer went down to 150. I let it warm up til it felt warm. Kid opened the oven a few hours ago and asked if I left the oven on. It's retaining its own heat now and I have left it in the oven. So the initial little bit of heat catalyzed the reaction.

Re-reading what I wrote early this morning I can see where you got that I was using hot process. What I meant is that I have made mostly hot process soaps, cold process making has happened recently and this was the first time trying cold process oven process to help a soap gel. I make hot process soaps 10+ years ago and sold them at a local flea market. My living situation didn't allow me to make soap, but now I can make soap again. I always wanted to make swirls and things, so I have been using a cold process recipe.

 

[cmzaha]

Well, that does clarify some of the issue. What do you consider a steep water discount? When I used to make OO castile soap I would use a 40% Lye Concentration. Not Water as Percent of Oil. Not knowing how you do it it is hard to tell what your concentration is. The additives should not have slowed trace unless it was the Peppermint EO. I have run across a few EO's that will slow trace and I have had a Peppermint EO that accelerated trace. How did you add in the charcoal did you make a slurry with it in additional oil or liquid? that could make a difference. Without your entire procedure, it is just hard to tell.