Teach Soap

I am fairly new to the CP soapmaking process, and having some difficulty making a good lathering and fairly moisturizing soap, I will try to increase the discount from 5 to 7 or 8 in previous recipes...

Any way this am I made a small test batch of soap with an INs of 128.3 it consisted of the following;

31% olive oil
30% palm kernel oil
19% avacodo oil
10% palm oil
10% sunflower oil

My batch was about a pound of soap, no colorant, no fragrance. I poured at a light trace, and it only got up to about 88 degrees. I unwrapped it at this point, it is very sticky, with a little ash on the top where the frezer paper wasnt. I will try it in 4 weeks if it isnt sticky or 6 if it is.... any ideas?

Thanks!

Sounds like your soap didn't gel. What was the temp of your oils and lye when you mixed them? How much did you superfat?

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

I would check to see if the soap zaps after a week. If it doesn't, give it at least 4 weeks of cure time. Next time I would soap a little higher, around 110 degrees and superfat at around 7%. When soap goes into gel it gets very hot. 88 degrees would not have been enough for the soap to gel. Ungelled soap is ok too, it just takes longer to completely saponify.

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

zaps? do you mean burn? I think the batch was so small (about 14 oz) it got cold while I was trying to stir it with the whisk. I will try again with double ingreds, and discount to 7. Thank you so much!!

I am so hooked on soap making. I had made the hot cocoa soap for everyone at work for christmas gifts. they loved it! and one person told me her dog tried to eat it! I will do that one again!!!

Zap is when you touch a dampened finger to the soap, then touch that finger to your tongue. If there is any free lye, it will zap like a 9 volt battery. For batches that small, you really should consider working with grams, as there is less chance for a mistake. if it got cold while you mixed, it's possible that not everything mixed (or emulsified) and part of your batch could have free floating lye. If all your measurements were correct, I would probably rebatch that soap to be safe.

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