Teach Soap

Can you freeze the soap then run a knife between the mold and the soap to loosen it?

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

I can try

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The Soapinatrix! *whip-crack*
- Posting the trials and tribulations of my Soaping Journey!

Hiya Coolah

First, DONT GIVE UP! I think we started CP about the same time so if you give up where does that leave me? ...sniff...

I too have one of those silicone log moulds & have noticed they 'crack' at the edges if Im impatient & try to 'test' if its ready to unmould.
I leave it longer & always it's just popped out with clean edges.

Maybe the soap is just playing with our minds!!!

Cheers
Rochy

I'm really trying not to give up. I really want to make all those beautiful soaps I see everyone else making. It's just mega frustrating when I can't work out what I'm doing wrong... especially when I am following recipe's

I've finally managed to wrestle the soap out of it's mold. Yes, wrestle. I even broke the mold trying to get it out.

Freezing didn't stop the cracks I showed - but I'm thinking maybe once they are there, then they are there kinda thing. Like why would the soap bother pulling away from the sides when 1cm in is a formed crack sort of thing.

Using my knife, I went a little way down all 4 sides trying to get past the depth of the crack hoping that it would come away on it's own after that. It didn't. It still looked 'stuck' when I peeked down. So I used the knife again and went around all 4 sides to the depth of the mold.

I flipped it over and pushed. I pushed some more. I got my daughter to push on it. I got my daughter to STAND on it (yes, two feet, full weight of a 4 yr old), then I put it on the kitchen floor and I stood on it! Nothing.

I banged it on the bench, I banged it on the floor. I took it outside and banged it on the concrete. I had a teeny tiny hissy fit and half threw it down on the concrete (crack, broken mold, but at this point I could care less lol).

NOTHING was getting this soap out of the mold.

So I came back inside and decided to start trying to cut pieces hoping that it would help air get down the bottom. After about 8 incisions into the soap, it still wasn't moving. So I got my hands in and started ripping pieces out of the mold. I eventually got the soap out... missing it's bottom layer. That part will was a bit wet and tacky.

I'm going to blame the mold for this one. Even though I've done other CP batches in them, (in that very mold in fact) and they've come out fine, this one didn't. But still, I will blame the mold. I followed the recipe to the letter, it's a NEWBIE's recipe... it has to be the mold.... right?

Mangled cut pieces:


Broken Mold:


The bottom layer of my soap:


A piece of soap. Notice the bottom is still that soft/tacky look:

_________________
The Soapinatrix! *whip-crack*
- Posting the trials and tribulations of my Soaping Journey!

It looks like it didn't gel. Ungelled soap does take more time to harden.
Make lemonade out of lemons. Form the soap into soap balls.

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

Definitely Gelled. This is it 10 minutes after pouring:



The actual soap pieces are hard, it's just the bottom part that stuck and is soft/tacky.

I did two batches last night and I can't even get the other one out of the mold!

_________________
The Soapinatrix! *whip-crack*
- Posting the trials and tribulations of my Soaping Journey!

I see. Ok, I would either change your recipe and sub some harder oils or try adding 1 teaspoon of salt added to your lye water per 1 lb. (2 kilos?) batch.

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

Yeah I've been reading about adding some salt to help firm it up. That and Borax, but I've also been reading that people are 50/50 if Borax actually does anything, plus I can't seem to find it anywhere...

This is the recipe I used, it was listed as a great first timers recipe and 'fail proof' ROFL!

Olive Oil - 50%
Coconut Oil - 20%
Palm Oil - 20%
Castor Oil - 10%
** Although I dropped 5% off the castor oil and instead put in 55% Olive

_________________
The Soapinatrix! *whip-crack*
- Posting the trials and tribulations of my Soaping Journey!

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Dammit! I'm gel-ous! Thats a beautiful looking gel! *grumbles and heads back to laboratory.. err kitchen*

Head up! You'll get to the bottom of this! And, as a bonus, you got to slam, beat, and slice up a naughty loaf of soap! Bet that felt kind of great =D

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

I would not use borax in soap unless you use it after you shred it to make laundry soap. It really isn't suitable for just CP.

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

Yup, ran it through the calculator AND the soap software. I used the water amount the soap software told me (converted into grams) ended up being 226 or something.

That's another thing I noticed - the soap software tells me that ml and grams are identical! Like if it says to use 250ml of water, it also says 250gr of water right above it.

I was thinking of doing the oven thing - warming it up, turning it off and putting the soap in there to help gel. Or even just the light on and no oven heat or something. I would like to NOT gel after I get the hang of it all (prefer the lighter colours, especially as this new oil is quite dark already), but for now I just want to get soap that actually works.

And yeah, I'm shy of using Borax in my soap.

_________________
The Soapinatrix! *whip-crack*
- Posting the trials and tribulations of my Soaping Journey!

_________________
The Soapinatrix! *whip-crack*
- Posting the trials and tribulations of my Soaping Journey!

I take back my earlier post about ml. and grams NOT weighing the same. Water is the only exception.
Since you're not adding anything to your soap that would accelerate trace, make the soap seize or rice, try a water discount. For my castile soap I do a 40% lye solution with a hefty water discount.

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

With water 1 ml = 1 g = 1 cc = 1 square cm. Actually, water = 1 in sooo many mathematical and scientific ways. Good ole water =D

Is it super humid there Coolah? I know some parts of Aussieland are, just not sure about your part!

_________________
~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist