Teach Soap

I want to give this thread a big bump rather than start a new one...

My 70% olive oil - 30% coconut oil bars...6 weeks old and still soft enough for me to leave an impression on - have me wondering about water discounting. From this thread, and pieces of others, I have gleaned that less water can speed up trace, and make a harder bar.

Does less water mean faster unmolding - AND faster curing? Or just faster unmolding?

I am using soapcalc.net standard 38% water (in relation to oils) for my recipes. They note that beginners should work towards reducing that to 33% over time. What increment of change makes a difference...1%? Or do you have to reduce by 2% before one can notice?

At what point did you feel ready to start discounting water?

What are the trade-offs, if any, to using a lower amount of water - other than faster tracing when you might not want it to be fast? Does it change the texture of the soap, for example.

Finally - discounting water appears to be incompatible with complex designs that require lots of time. In that case, one would be wise to use the maximum amount of water?

I do 40% solution for my castile. At that %, the olive oil soap gets hard fast. I do give it a full cure and more. Castile gets better with age. At 6 weeks, your soap should be pretty hard. Is it possible that your olive oil is adultarated?

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Did both gel? If they did, I would try a different olive oil.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Pretty sure they did. Bearing in mind they were my first two batches ever...I peeked at them every 20 minutes. They got quite hot and dark all the way through. I am using 3 lb. wooden loaf molds. No insulation.

Will try a different brand of oil next time. These batches used Kirkland (Costco) olive oil.

That is usually a very nice oil, well tested and usually not adulterated.

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

So... does it mean that the lower water u use the faster soap in the pot moves? Recently I have made one of slow moving recipes by discounted water to 30%. And I had no time even to wink - so fast it hardened. Even before I added EOs. My other idea is to blasme it all on my supplier who possibly mixed something into my coconut oil.

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I am Lora

This is why it is so important to keep recipe notes. I print out the recipe page for every batch and put it in a folder, so I can see what happened when next I use that particular FO. There are some FOs that don't work for me even with no water discount, and others that allow a really big discount.

I am trying to develop a very slow tracing soap for intricate swirls yet do want to be able to use some hard oils, in particular coconut as 25% of total oils for cleansing My basic recipe is a Bastille with over 60% of OO. I have been using the 38% default "Water as % of Oils" but have been wondering if perhaps I need to increase that a bit?

I am almost ready to start playing with these settings after using the defaults for over a year now. Guidance and advice would be well received.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!