Teach Soap

Ok I know this has been addressed before, however, I see all the pictures you have posted along with many of your website links and your soap is beautiful. My soap is ugly. My daughter describes it as looking like dried out peanut butter. We use goats milk and no coloring so yes they are all brown. I like that but I don't like the crumbly (sp?) look.

Any suggestions. I would post a picture if I had a better camera.

Maybe it's your recipe... If you wouldn't mind posting it, we can look at how to help you.

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Petra

I have a few I play with. Here is my last one:

Palm Oil 15oz
Olive oil 15oz
Coconut oil 15oz
Castor oil 5oz
Shea Butter 5oz
Lye 7.85oz
Goats milk 20.62
F.O. 2.39 (I really like it strong so I usually use a little more each time)

A common one is:

Cocoa butter 3oz
Cocount oil 24oz
Palm oil 38oz
olive oil 24oz
almond oil 3 oz
Lye 13.27 oz
Goats milk 34.5oz
F.O. 4oz
my calculator shows INS of155-160 on both

I alway cut with the jagged blade (sorry don't recall the name). I noticed some trim edges. Maybe I could get them prettier, but they don't ever look smooth and nice. Maybe it is in the cut??

Well, I am going to assume you are using a lye calculator for all your recipes. Sometimes a crumbly bar can be a result of too much lye. Another crumbly result is cutting the bars when they are too hard or frozen--- if you freeze or refrigerate. The color is where I can help. Some fo's you choose will color the soaps brown--especially anything with food/vanilla/spice scents--- the manufacturer usually tells you this when you are choosing your order. Also, your goatmilk will color your soaps brown/orange unless your are freezing it and adding the lye powder slowly to goat milk frozen ice cubes. You can get a nice creamy white by using goatmilk this way.

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You may be only one person to the world, but you may also be the world to one person

I do not use any color, I prefer to leave it the natural brown caused by the goats milk. The color is not an issue it is the texture I don't like. I do use a calculator every time. It isn't crumbly when you use it, it really is fantastic. I just don't get the smooth pretty texture that I see in other CP soaps??

Are you doing CP or hot? CP gives a much smoother finish than hot process.

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You may be only one person to the world, but you may also be the world to one person

If you are cooking it, soap dries out if its cooked too long.

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

How long do you leave it in the mold to dry? Some books and other soapers say to leave it in the mold 2 or more days.
However I've found if you unmold it as soon as it's hard (12-24 hrs) it cuts much nicer and will make a smoother looking bar. You can cut it even if it's still warm to the touch just as long as it's pretty hard and slips out of your mold. Each soap takes a different time to harden enough, so just push on the top with your finger, if it's hard like cheese-ish you can cut it. If it's still soft or jiggly or mushy let it sit longer!! So cut and trim as soon as possible, then put it on your drying rack.

It is CP. I just tried to cut a bar with a straight edge and it looks much better. I usually unmold within 24hrs and cut. It always cuts great but then just doesnt look great after drying. Almost like it looks dried out??

Do the recipes look ok?

Castor Oil 5oz. 9.09%
Coconut Oil 15ozs. 27.27%
Olive Oil 15 27ozs. 27%
Palm Oil 15 27ozs. 27%
Shea Butter 5ozs. 9.09%
Total Weight 55 ozs.

For that size batch, recomended use is 14 to 21 fluid ounces of liquid. I would go for 18 to 19 ozs. of liquid. I would use 2.6 of fragrance.

For a 5% superfat, you would need 7.79 ozs. of lye.
For a 4% superfat you would need 7.88 ozs. of lye.

I think you have too much liquid in there and that's why the bars shrink so much.

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

Is it safe to discount liquid ? I have some bars that just will not harden, can I discount without causing problems?

It is safe to discount liquid within reason. The result is obviously a higher lye concentration.

You may want to work up to a higher lye concentration slowly until you are comfortable with it as less liquid CAN mean quicker trace. There may be times when you DON'T want to discount such as when you think other ingredients might make your soap trace too fast. There could be other differences in the process but it shouldn't impact the outcome of your soap other than it may cure a little faster with less liquid to evaporate.

I usually soap at a 33% solution which works out to 2 parts liquid to one part lye. This works well for me since I'm a little math challenged and this is very easy to calculate. Some people may go with a higher concentration but that's about as far as I push it.

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- Mickey!

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

Ok! I was wondering if you discount water and lye concentration goes up if that throws off your superfatting, would you need to add more oils to balance it all out?

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