Teach Soap

Help. My last three batches of CP Soap using the same recipe, the same ingredients, oils and lye at same temperature. Don't seem to be hardening after three days in their individual molds. The only thing that has changed is that I have bought the Palm Oil and Coconut Oil in 12.5kg boxes instead of 1kg lots.

What has gone wrong.

Have these bars gelled? I know my soaps rarely gel in single molds unless it is forced

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Anna Rose @-}--
blog

What is your actual recipe? Did you run it through a lye calc? How much did you superfat? You can't sub one oil for another without running it through a lye calc again.

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

Did you melt down your palm oil and stir it up really well before you measured out what you needed? Each time you used it? If not, that may be the problem. Also, how's your weather? My area has gotten seriously humid over the past couple of weeks and I've noticed it's taking twice as long for my bars to be ready to cut. And that's with the air-conditioner going full blast too. Gotta love the Gulf Coast. Two weeks ago we were freezing and it was dry as a bone down here.

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Jennifer
Doing my best to blow up my kitchen. In style!

If the soap didn't gel, which is highly likely in individual molds, it does take longer for the soap to get hard. It could also be if you didn't premelt and stir your palm oil.

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

You might want to give this a try. Lick your finger, rub it on the soap, then touch it to your tongue. Does it zap? If so, it may be as others have suggested, that your soap hasn't gelled and is just taking longer to go through the saponiication process. In my early days of soapmaking, I had a couple of batches that did not gel and I thought they were lye heavy. They weren't. They were just taking their sweet time. I'd wait a few days and see what happens. Good luck!

I think you misunderstood the question about your palm oil. You said your problem started when you bought the larger, 12.5 kg container of palm oil. You have to melt down the entire 12.5 kg amount and stir it well every time you measure it out for your soap. Palm solidifies in layers, and the stearic acid settles out at the bottom. It wouldn't have been as noticeable when you were using the palm oil in the 1 kg container. It was a small enough that you were probably still getting some of the stearic acid into your soap. If you aren't melting the entire container, by the time you get to the bottom you'll end up with stearic streaks in your soap.

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Jennifer
Doing my best to blow up my kitchen. In style!

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Olivia :)

I'm still thinking the problem has to do with not melting down and stirring your entire container of palm oil, but I'm certainly no expert! If Irena doesn't check in soon (soapbuddy) send her a PM and ask her to check in on this thread. You can certainly put your soap in the freezer, but that will just help you get it out of the mold easily. If it's still so soft that it can't hold it's shape, freezing is just a temporary fix. It will lose shape once it warms back up. Sometimes you just have to wait. And wait. And wait...

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Jennifer
Doing my best to blow up my kitchen. In style!

My bet is still on the palm oil. Unless the palm is melted and stirred each and very time, the stearic will settle to the bottom. The oil that is scooped up from the top has no stearines, making the soap soft.

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