Why oh WHY???

[Susie]

^What Shari said!

I use the heat transfer method (solid lard and CO, pour hot lye water in, SB til melted, add liquid oils), and never worry about temperature. Works well every time. I am not saying everyone has to use my method, whatever method WORKS for them, works fine. However, if that method does not yield results that the person desires, then someone might be more wise to try a different method. The only hard and fast rules are these: use a good lye calculator, and a good, reliable digital scale.

 

[nikkisessence]

Spots in Soap

Personal Experience

I have seen spots due to:
1. Titanium dioxide speckling - not mixing in well enough
2. Probable Stearic acid spots - not melting stearic acid or hard oils (I've used palm and tallow) completely into oil phase.
3. Lye spots - looks crystalline and soap bars are crumbly at cut. This can be caused by #2 above for me as well.

I tested spots by removing and placing onto two areas on paper towel. One area leave alone, the other area drop with indicator. The area around will brown if lye is present in excess. I've tested soaps with all three methods available to me - zap, pH paper, and phenolphthalein indicator.

 

[lsg]

I too disagree that oils and lye mixture both need to be 110*F. I have been soaping for years and usually don't check the temps of my oil unless I am doing an elaborate swirl. I wait until my lye water is clear and mix my melted solid fats with liquid oils, then add the lye water to the oils and stick blend to trace. When making milk soaps, I freeze the milk and break it up in pieces, then add the lye a little at a time, stirring well with each addition. I then strain the lye/milk to remove any leftover solid particles before adding to the oils. Another method is to substitute cream or evaporated milk for part of the water. Dissolve lye in water and add cream/evaporated milk to oils or at thin trace.

 

[nikkisessence]

With making milk soaps by adding lye to cold/frozen milk I have come to always filter this solution through a fine mesh sieve before adding lye phase to oil phase. Anymore, I make a 50/50w solution lye/distilled water and make up remaining liquid by weight with cold milk/beer/juice (whatever) and adding after emulsion has occurred. This seems to standardize my process a bit.

More thoughts:
Excess lye is calculated before recipe development by determining lye concentration needed according to each individual oil's saponification value then determining an excess of oil by discounting the lye. I've almost always used 5% and soapcalc values for saponification.

I agree with post aboveby lsg! Sorry for duplication in ideas!!

 

[IrishLass]

Regarding soaping at 110F: Speaking only for myself, this is something I happen do as a matter of course whenever I'm making my formulas that contain lots of butters and/or high-stearic fats. Through trial and error with my particular manner or style of soaping (which is dependent on a handful of different variables, such as when I like to pour in my additives which may be of different/varying temps), I found 110F to be my 'sweet-spot' temp that keeps pseudo-trace and the resulting stearic spots away from such batches.

But my other formulas that contain miniscule amounts of butters and/or high stearic fats do perfectly fine being soaped at much lower temps.

I guess the moral of my story is that there's no single 'set-in-stone' soaping temp that one-and-all 'must' use to make good soap. It will vary from soaper to soaper, depending on their own unique formulas and individual manner of soaping.


IrishLass

 

[dibbles]

What point would it be considered a high amount of stearic acid? Looking at soap calc, stearic acid for lard is 13, cocoa butter is 33, coconut is 3, and palm is 5. Am I looking at the wrong thing in trying to figure this out? Maybe I should be looking at more than just stearic acid numbers?

I haven't done much with butters yet, but that is something I want to start playing around with more. I have been soaping cooler to keep my batter fluid while I am learning swirl and pour techniques. But then I wonder about the melt point of the solid fats (lard and palm in particular).

 

[IrishLass]

Yep, it's more than just looking at the stearic % when it comes to soaping with harder fats/butters. Their particular melting points must also be taken into consideration.... as well as the temps of any additives you'll be adding to the mix that might drag the overall temp of the batter down too much below those melting points before the heat from the lye reaction can kick into full gear and keep things nicely fluid. It can all be quite the balancing act for sure. lol

For me, 110F has proven itself to be my catch-all temp for my harder formulas that's able to take all my particular variables into consideration in order to keep things in a nice fluid state until the lye is able to kick in and take over.

For what it's worth, my tallow/lard formula, which also contains mango butter and hydrogenated PKO, has a total of 25% stearic/palmitic content. If the temp of my batter falls much lower than 110F with this formula, it starts exhibiting pseudo-trace.


IrishLass

 

[dibbles]

Thanks IL. Always something to learn with soaping. This is what I'm going to be trying to get a handle on next. Fortunately I haven't had any false trace issues (at least I don't think I have). *knocking wood*

 

[TeresaT]

Wow! What an education. I'd like to echo the thanks others have posted with regard to your geeky science stuff. I had to laugh when Commoncenz posted "This should be good," because I thought, "let the battle commence!" I do have one question regarding "phenol" though...isn't that the stuff that killed Michael Jackson?

 

[JayJay]

Wow! What an education. I'd like to echo the thanks others have posted with regard to your geeky science stuff. I had to laugh when Commoncenz posted "This should be good," because I thought, "let the battle commence!" I do have one question regarding "phenol" though...isn't that the stuff that killed Michael Jackson?

You are thinking of propofol.

 

[Susie]

Propofol (Diprivan) is a short acting anesthetic agent used frequently and safely in hospitals every day. It is not the same as phenol.

 

[notapantsday]

Propofol is a really great anesthetic. I had it for myself once and I totally understand why Michael Jackson took it. But it also has great properties and if you use it in a hospital setting, it is very safe.

Phenol has been used to kill thousands of people in Auschwitz, so I'd say it's actually worse.

Phenolphthalein is not the same as phenol either, but it's also toxic.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

All 3 of them are utterly useless at detecting if a soap is lye-heavy or not, so they have that in common............................

 

[nikkisessence]

Stearic acid

There are many saturated fatty acids. The main one I use separately to add to soap for hardening is stearic acid. There's also palmitic, myristic, and caprylic (I believe off the top of my head). In harder oils and butters I have seen spots in my soap due to, I think, areas of saturated fatty acids that haven't incorporated. I don't find that I need the mixture to be any consistent temperature. But I have found that it works best for me to incorporate these butters into my oil phase and melt well before adding lye phase or to add lye phase to unmelted butters/hard oils-fats and mix to smooth then add remaining oils. This is my experience.

 

[Margo]

Temperature is Important

Well, I am a chemist and rely on the scientific, proven methods for all skin care and soapmaking formulations

 

[gigisiguenza]

Yep, it's more than just looking at the stearic % when it comes to soaping with harder fats/butters. Their particular melting points must also be taken into consideration.... as well as the temps of any additives you'll be adding to the mix that might drag the overall temp of the batter down too much below those melting points before the heat from the lye reaction can kick into full gear and keep things nicely fluid. It can all be quite the balancing act for sure. lol

For me, 110F has proven itself to be my catch-all temp for my harder formulas that's able to take all my particular variables into consideration in order to keep things in a nice fluid state until the lye is able to kick in and take over.

For what it's worth, my tallow/lard formula, which also contains mango butter and hydrogenated PKO, has a total of 25% stearic/palmitic content. If the temp of my batter falls much lower than 110F with this formula, it starts exhibiting pseudo-trace.


IrishLass

I think you answered a question I didn't ask yet LOL.

When making attempt number two yesterday, I used the same recipe and the same heat transfer method like I did with batch number one, but my hard oils were not melting as easily as they had on the first batch. By the time time they were melted, the batter was looking like it was beginning to trace, which I assumed was due to all the stirring I had to do to get the blasted hard oils melted.

This gave me a bit of a panic, lemme tell ya, but I added my liquid oils and stirred them in, hoping it wouldn't set up so quick that I'd have no time to pour it. I never needed to SB it, it was already at light to medium trace just stirring. I split it into batchlets and added powdered colorants, but it was suddenly thinner than before I added the powders, which confused me, but I attributed it to the FO and kept going. Only to have them all thicken up very quickly when I was trying to pour! Ugh! I did the best I could and skewer swirled and went about cleaning up.

It seemed to take forever to get even remotely warm, which is not normal for me so far, so I covered it with a towel and left it. When I cut it at 36 hours after pour (which is a good 12 hours longer than my usual cut time) it was solid but still very soft and sticky. I've set the bars on the higher shelf to put them closer to the air vent and hopefully harden them up a little quicker.

I had assumed the FO reversed trace, but now I'm wondering if it was too chilly in the room (temps have been dropping here recently) and the hard oils were solidifying again, despite the hot lye solution, giving me pseudo trace.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Well, I am a chemist and rely on the scientific, proven methods for all skin care and soapmaking formulations

As all but one of my batches has been made sans thermometer, I will take that as a proven method.

But the scientific interests me - can you link to studies where they found that the temperature of 110 (if I remember correctly, that was your temp) was the perfect temp for various recipes? Would be an interesting read

 

[annalee2003]

Absolutely love how much I learn from this forum. You guys are so knowledgeable.
I swear I learn something new each week.

 

[JayJay]

All 3 of them are utterly useless at detecting if a soap is lye-heavy or not, so they have that in common............................

So I have been wasting my time dripping propofol onto my soap bars? No wonder it never turned pink!

 

[notapantsday]

Does make for a very relaxing shower though.