What soapy thing have you done today?

[squidstings]

More KOH fun for me
Dish soap. Had a 4+ year old bottle of canola oil. Got some Coconut oil, and made it, with 50% glycerine, yesterday.

Today, I've almost got it all dissolved, 1:1 to refill my old Dawn bottles.

I've always loved the look/colour of glycerine soap.

About 1.3:1
I know back lighting like that isn't good photography. I just love the colour
Titanium nitride sparkles arent bad either.

 

[Nonnie]

I madesoap. Random wild and very colorful lol.

 

[Relle]

Making soap as we speak for the challenge.

 

[justsomeguy]

I played with the new planer. The cavity mold bars had serious ash buildup.

Gonna wait until cured to bevel

Ridiculously thin ribbons of soap produced

 

[ackosel]

I made soap today. It was supposed to be a Mantra swirl, but it ended up being glopped stripes that stuck to the dividers, and are probably full of air holes. It was WAY too stiff to even attempt to swirl it! I am having a whale of a time managing trace. It goes along just fine until I comes to light trace, even if I stop blending at what I think is emulsion. Then it accelerates before I have a chance to do anything fun with it. Trying to troubleshoot whether it's my technique, my recipe, ingredients or additives.

 

[Vicki C]

I made soap today. It was supposed to be a Mantra swirl, but it ended up being glopped stripes that stuck to the dividers, and are probably full of air holes. It was WAY too stiff to even attempt to swirl it! I am having a whale of a time managing trace. It goes along just fine until I comes to light trace, even if I stop blending at what I think is emulsion. Then it accelerates before I have a chance to do anything fun with it. Trying to troubleshoot whether it's my technique, my recipe, ingredients or additives.

Oh that’s frustrating! Do you want to share your recipe? I will say that I used to stick blend for too long - I m very conservative with the blending now - just a quick burst, then stir by hand, and maybe another burst, keep watching, and I do lots of hand stirring. Also, do you had your fragrance after trace? I do, even if I trust the fragrance. For me, titanium dioxide can speed up trace too.

 

[squidstings]

Felt like sharing this. Last 4 batches in use. lol

 

[ackosel]

Oh that’s frustrating! Do you want to share your recipe? I will say that I used to stick blend for too long - I m very conservative with the blending now - just a quick burst, then stir by hand, and maybe another burst, keep watching, and I do lots of hand stirring. Also, do you had your fragrance after trace? I do, even if I trust the fragrance. For me, titanium dioxide can speed up trace too.

Thank you! I would love help figuring this out! My recipe is:

40% tallow
20% lard
20% olive oil (some reserved to be split into two colors of infused olive oil)
17% coconut oil
3% castor oil
32 oz batch oils

33% lye concentration
1% superfat

Goat milk as 100% water replacement
Gentleman's lavender EO blend:
Patchouli
Sweet Orange
Litsea Cubeba
Clary Sage
Cedarwood
Lavender
in a slurry with 2 tsp. kaolin clay, 2 tsp. orange peel powder and 1 oz. castor oil.
4 tsp. sugar syrup
1/2 tsp. activated charcoal, dispersed in a few drops OO

Lye, 100°F / oils, 113°F

I blitzed the lye & oils twice for a total of about 5 or 6 seconds. Then, I added the EO slurry and sugar and blitzed for another 5 or 6 seconds in a couple bursts. At that point, I may or may not have reached emulsion. I divided the batter in half into the remaining quantities of infused olive oil and blitzed the SB to mix them. I poured off half of one of those jugs into the AC jug and hand stirred it. At this point, all the batter was definitely at emulsion. I felt the bigger jug was at light trace, but the smaller ones were behind. I am NOT confident in spotting emulsion, and since I wanted the consistency to be similar among the three colors I had, I gave the two smaller jugs each another 2-second SB burst. Definitely a mistake! Everything poured nicely into the dividers for the first two additions, but then the smaller colors stiffened to unworkable, and that's when I started jamming and cramming. By the time I got it all in the mold and got the dividers out, it was so stiff that I just barely managed to smooth the top with a spatual.

My thoughts are:

1. My recipe is heavy on hard oils, which gives me less time to work. Also, I need to soap hotter to keep them melted, which speeds up trace, if I remember correctly what I read from the experienced soapers here.

2. Sugar. I'm using a lot of accelerating sugar, including goat milk.

3. I'm sure kaolin clay doesn't help.

4. I need to become more confident in spotting emulsion and QUIT GIVING THAT LAST BURST OF STICK BLENDING.

If anyone can spot anything else that is a potential problem, please let me know!

Edited to add, please let me know if I shouldn't be cluttering up this thread with my troubleshooting problems.

 

[dmcgee5034]

@ackosel - A couple of things you might try on your future batches to see if they help….
1. Start out stirring gently with a whisk or rubber scraper instead of the SB, then literally 2-3 second SB, gentle stir stir stir, and 2 seconds of SB, gentle stir stir stir. Most times just this is enough to get to/past emulsion and on its way to trace for me.
2. Warm your FO/EO in a gentle warm water bath - someone here taught me that and it helps a lot. Wish I remembered it more before I was making soap.
3. SB everything except the lye liquid into your fats. You’ll be confident they are blended and get your SB fix in so you are less likely to over SB once the lye is in.
4. If you MB your lye, take some of your extra liquid and carefully add it to the MB lye. I only add 72g extra liquid to about 283g MB lye for a 1005g fats batch (my other 50g liquid is used to mix my additives, which I blend into my oils as noted in #3). Your lye liquid will heat back up, and you’ll need to let it cool down to your ideal temp, but for me, it seems to make the lye less reactive to the rest of the process. Is that a science thing @DeeAnna or am I just feeling like the reaction from the lye is less after the additional liquid reaction?
5. Try dropping your temps even by 5 degrees - I see your high tallow, but with the other fats, could you try a tiny bit cooler?

 

[KiwiMoose]

I made soap today. It was supposed to be a Mantra swirl, but it ended up being glopped stripes that stuck to the dividers, and are probably full of air holes. It was WAY too stiff to even attempt to swirl it! I am having a whale of a time managing trace. It goes along just fine until I comes to light trace, even if I stop blending at what I think is emulsion. Then it accelerates before I have a chance to do anything fun with it. Trying to troubleshoot whether it's my technique, my recipe, ingredients or additives.

Start a new thread about this and we can help you troubleshoot x

ETA: Oh - I should have read the posts that followed - sorry!

 

[Nonnie]

Labels. Again. It never ends. But I'm so stinking happy with the results on this set. Just some pertinent info for a text block and all done!

Now to go stamp soap

 

[MasterGiff]

Made my first batch of HP soap. I've made CP soap for many years. I decided it was time to branch out and try my hand at some other techniques. We did a bunch of melt and pour, playing with colors and fragrances. But this batch of HP I'm quite impressed with. I've named it Fierce Marble. Albeit I wouldn't mass produce this to sell due to the cost of ingredients, it is a wonderful soap with a great smell.

Coconut oil/castor oil/olive oil/mango seed butter/kokum butter.