Teach Soap

Hi ya'll I've been doing a simple basic recipe as follows
16 oz Coconut oil
16 oz palm oil
16 oz canola
& its been working great but I thought I'd try not gelling & put in in the fridge as well as adding 2 tbsp of sugar to Lye water & instaed of 16 oz canola doing 12 oz canola & 4 oz castor
I thought I'd try to boost lather a bit.
After 18 hours in the fridge my loafs have been smeary, soft creamy opaque colored, buttery type consistancy, with chunks that stick or crack off.
What do you think is the culprit? is it the castor?, the sugar? or the refridgeration?
It does harden up nicely if I can get it cut without making a disaster mess.
without all of the above alterations the bar is harder & waxier & tends to harden with less creaminess color & more tranclucent.
Any thoughts?

I generally wait 48 hours before cutting ungelled soap. Mine crumbled the first time I tried to cut it right away. Ungelled soap will also take a couple extra weeks to fully cure, just so you know.
Lately I've been doing CPOP, I haven't done a batch in the fridge in months, so maybe someone else will have more/better advice for you.

Best of luck,

Brandy

Thanks Brandy, whats CPOP?

CPOP- cold process, oven process
Basically, you do a CP soap like normal, then once it's in the mold, you put it in the oven on 170 degrees (the lowest it will go) for an hour. You get full gel and it only takes 2 to 3 weeks to cure.

Brandy

Canola is a soft oil, I would use a butter of some sort and possibly a small amount of beeswax. You can also add sodium lactate to your lye water.

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

Thats sounds right up my "impatient" alley !
soap buddy? this recipe works great if I don't either : add castor ? or add sugar ?or put it in the firdge but I don't know which is the problem
I love the sound of CPOP I'm going to try that!
but i'll need a silicone mold right?

Wood molds work just fine for CPOP as well. Remembering that you're only turning the oven on low (170 degrees) your wood molds will be just fine. I've used both wood and silicone for years with no issues. Haven't tried the plastic ones though, just the thought of "clean up" is enough to scare me away from that LOL


Brandy

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

No i didn't re calculate I just added a few oz less canola & subsituted Castor...... now after getting home 12 hors later it has hardened up a bit more & I was able to save & slice half a loaf although its kinda ugly I think it will be nice for a shower.
I used BB's sandlewood & i'm not crazy about it ,somthing too floral about it...... I really wanted the indian sandlewood but I couldn't find it on the order list Its more authentic.

Just checked one of my books, the SAP value of castor is 180.3 and cannola is 174.7 If I were you I would run the batch through a soap calculator and see what the recommended amout of lye is and how does that compare to what you used. Did you try the zap test? Just to be sure I run each batch of soap thru a calculator each and every time I make it. That also gives me a place to document any notes I need to make about the batch\fragrance\coloring.

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!