Teach Soap

I had finally came up with a bar that didn't dry me out, everyone loved it but it was gone in no time, so I was trying to make it harder without sodium lactate my experimental batches goes like this.....Olive 50%- Coconut 15%- Palm 15%- Avocado 5%- Castor 5%- Jojoba 5%- Beeswax 5% because this was a smaller batch I was off a little from the original on my %s but only in the 1% range. To hurry it along I put it the oven for three hrs. @ 180 then turned oven off and left it in till next day. It was sticky,and kind of greasy, had to leave it in mold till following day it finally released from the mold liner with some work, but its been a week now and it feels spongy. At the same time I made two more batches one with Shea instead of Avocado it is spongy with what looks like a thin layer of wax on top, and another with Cocoa butter instead of Shea butter, super fatted all @ 51/2% added Beeswax @ trace. Can anyone give me some insight on my spongy soap ?....Thank You

Did you recalculate your recipe on a soap calc?
It's also possible that your soap overheated.

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

What happened to the soap when you added the beeswax? I usually add my beeswax to my melted oils, but before I added the lye - making sure it is nicely melted in. Since beeswax has a relatively high melting temp (around 145) it would be difficult to add at trace unless your soap mixture is pretty hot.
Petra

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Petra

Always use calculator, when I added beeswax it became super thick thought I was going to have my 1st seized batch, but I powered though with my stir stick and it loosened up after a few seconds and seemed to blend in nicely, it was thick but easy to pour in mold. When I made my original bar with Beeswax I melted with hard oils and because of melting temp. of the wax it cooled too much and didn't mix properly (little flecks) in bar thats why I tried to improve hardness of bar, thought that the wax wasn't doing it's job cause improperly mixed ......... Thanks oops forgot to add I mixed soap @ about 110 degrees was trying new infrared thermometer, tested @ about 2 degrees off

I always add my solid oils and beeswax to the pot to melt. After it melts, I add my liquid oils to cool it down.

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

It sounds like overheating to me, too - I use the CPOP (oven) method a lot, and I only leave the oven on for 30-60 minutes, depending on the fragrance I'm using. I think three hours is too long.

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Thank you to all, I remade the batch with Shea butter last night, didn't pop it in the oven, got up this morning, and it's as hard as a rock ! The final test will be how long it lasts in the soap dish.......also am going to try 30-60 min. in the oven.

Great the last batch finally worked! Don't forget that the longer you let the soap cure, the harder the bar gets. Even soft oil recipes--- for example all olive--- will harden up with a good cure.

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