Teach Soap

When do you try to avoid gel? I made a shaving soap today with a swirl pattern. Will the gel stage screw it up or should I just let it do it's thing? Here's the recipe
24 oz canola
18 oz coconut oil
2.5 oz cocoa butter
3.5 oz Palmer's cocoa butter formula
6 oz castor oil
16 oz olive oil
9.75 oz lye
22 oz water

1 1/2 tsp of cocoa powder added to half batch at trace, then put in one wooden loaf mold and one white plastic loaf mold.

It looks like the top (which I didn't put plastic wrap on, because it was pretty with the swirl pattern) is cracking. Right now I have a piece of card board on top but no towels or blankets. Any advice would be appreciated.

If the top is cracking, it's overheating. Take any insulation off and put it in the fridge or put a fan on it to cool it off. I don't personally gel. I prefer it that way.

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

You might want to drop the Palmer's Cocoa Butter Formula from your recipe. I looked it up. It looks like it contains mineral oil, which doesn't saponify, alcohol and some other additives that are going to cause problems for your soap. Cocoa butter is pretty far down on the list of ingredients and you're using that separately anyway.

I gel everything but milk soap. Since I'm not making that again until after the New Year, uh..well I gel everything.

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

Thanks Soapbuddy. You're a good teacher.

Thanks guys, the crack didn't get any worse and now you can't really see it anymore. The gel kept going, but I kept an eye on it so it didn't get too hot. I just have to wait until tomorrow to cut it to see if the swirl worked or not.

Hope you can post pics. Would love to see what it looks like.

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

You're welcome. Whenever you find a recipe on the web run it through a lye calc. The second ingredient in Palmer's is mineral oil. No sap value because it doesn't saponify. Microcrystalline wax is like petroleum jelly. Think vaseline. No sap value. Doesn't saponify.

This is an easy lye calc to start with because it has a recipe resizing feature for fitting molds and making small test batches.

It also has "Properties of Soapmaking Oils" on the tab on the left. Helps to learn about what oils contribute to soap, which oils are hard, which oils are soft, helpful guidelines, etc.

http://www.summerbeemeadow.com/SitePage ... ators.html

I use SoapCalc now but Summerbeemeadow and Rainbowmeadow were both helpful.

Here's Rainbowmeadow. http://www.rainbowmeadow.com/infocenter ... apcalc.php

Good luck!

Actually, your recipe looks like one of the shampoo bar recipe on Millers Soap in which she uses the palmers formula. I tried it a while back and it works great with the palmers formula, but as a shampoo bar!

Lisa

That's where I got the recipe from. I have an order from Brambleberry that was on its way since Oct 22 with clay I was supposed to make a shaving bar from a different recipe. The package got damage and got routed back to Brambleberry this week, so I went with this shaving bar instead of waiting for new package to get here. I was trying to get all my soaps I want to give out for Christmas presents done and curing before I run out of time. I think it came out pretty good, no swirl though, I have loaf molds and I'll have to try a different method next time. but I do have cream on the bottom and cocoa colored on the top. And it can pull double duty as a shaving or shampoo bar. When the package does get here, I can get the candles I'm doing for Christmas done and curing, also. But I just finished up my lye (ordered more last night) and I have some more oils on order, so this week should be busy for the Fedex guy. I should be restocked for awhileMy biggest problem seems to be getting supplies, they are no suppliers really close (so I can personally go there and pick stuff up). Thanks for all the help, I'll try to post photos later today.

Here are a couple of photos of the batch of shaving/shampoo bars, first is in the loaf mold and the other of the best of the batch for the swirls. I'll have to practice the swirl technique some more.





thanks for all the advice.

Congrats! Very nice! Have you tried one yet?

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

no, I just made them on friday, I'll let them sit for about 2 weeks and try it then.

They look good! I'm glad you didn't lose a batch.

I tried this shampoo/shaving soap tonight. I used it as a shampoo and used my regular conditioner. I didn't have any tangles when combing through my hair after towel drying. I have curly hair and it looks really good so far. It had a really nice fine lather. I usually use Ojon and it worked almost as well, I'll probably use it the next couple of hair washing to see how I like it. It would sure be alot cheaper than the Ojon, that's for sure. I didn't shave with it (did that last night), but liked the lather alot. No fragrance oil in this one, and I can't really smell the cocoa butter. I'll add some fragrance next time. Thanks for all the advice.