Teach Soap

I have a batch that isn't reaching full hardness and am wondering if I should just toss it? Is there a way to salvage a "soft" batch? I figure adding anything to it would most likely make it softer...

What was your recipe? How much did you superfat? Did you use both hard and soft oils?

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

How long has it been? Maybe it just needs more time?

It was 8 oz palm oil, 16 oz olive oil, 6 oz coconut oil, 12 oz castor oil, 1.6 oz BB FO, 15.96 oz water, 5.64 oz lye. Every time I find a recipe I want to try, I run it through the lye calc. Every time I've done this, the lye calc gives me weird water and lye amounts. I double check my entries. And the lye calc automatically superfats at 5%

And I made it on May 14

You have 28.57% of castor in there. I don't think it will ever harden up. Castor is a very soft oil. You need more hard oils/butters in there. I would start over with a different formula.

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

oh, ok! Thanks. Are there any recipe websites you recommend? I have a book also. I will stick to the book for now. Thanks again.

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

I've never had to throw out a batch. I made a 100% canola oil bar that took 2 months to harden and it's a year later and it's my daughter's favorite bar.

I hate rebatching but I've found that if I just make a fresh batch of HP and then shred my "bad" batch into that as it's cooking I'm very happy with the results. This takes a little planning to be sure you come out with something you like... and that depends on what is wrong with the "bad" soap. So if it's over colored or too strongly scented I use less or no colorant or scent in the new batch to balance it out.

Something like this I would probably use 0% Superfat in the new recipe and maybe tweak it towards extra hard oils. Maybe even 100% CO.
I don't always necessarily put the entire bad batch into the same size new batch... it seems to max out between 50-75%. That's the point the bad stuff stops melting easily into the new oils and starts to become more like the rebatching I hate.
I also don't use any expensive oils in the new batch since you don't know exactly what you will end up with. It's just an easy way to salvage good oils without the pain of regular rebatching.

I have also shredded ugly soap into regular CP for a confetti look and that often looks wonderful.

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- Mickey!