And this is why I hate experimenting...

In order to try and replicate my favorite soap I made a 70% palm, 20% pko and a 10% shea butter, 33% lye, fo, and 4% sf. I hand stirred until almost medium trace, poured into silicone cavity molds.

What did I get? Well - it's definitely not my favorite soap! The texture is dry and powdery, matte finish instead of shiny, with tiny cracks that are still developing at 24 hrs old.

Anybody care to guess why?

Quite frankly, I've never made a bad batch or failed soap (except in the design), but this could be it. It's only a pound recipe, but I hate wasting materials.

I use a lot of palm but will never go over 40%. Palm is hard, waxy and no lather. Remember I did some test with 100% palm. What an awful soap

The cracks lead me to think over heating. Was your FO a heater?

I don't use palm and can't help any more than that

Battlegnome, the fo was lemon verbena from Rustic Escentuals, and the soap didn't gel.

Carolyn, funny how I didn't get any of that waxy quality at 70%, it's dry and "airy". But the soap I'm trying to replicate is mass produced from (probably from) a type of soap noodle and maybe milling compacts it to a normal texture.

Or, does a 33% lye concentration not work well with a recipe of 100% hard oils?

lenarenee said:

In order to try and replicate my favorite soap I made a 70% palm, 20% pko and a 10% shea butter, 33% lye, fo, and 4% sf. I hand stirred until almost medium trace, poured into silicone cavity molds. What did I get? Well - it's definitely not my favorite soap! The texture is dry and powdery, matte finish instead of shiny, with tiny cracks that are still developing at 24 hrs old. Anybody care to guess why?

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Check the values on SoapCalc or Soapee. That soap has a hardness value of 58. The range recommends a value of 54 tops. So, there 'ya go. My guess is the soap is too hard, therefore cracking up. boo hoo.

Just curious... what soap is your "favorite soap" that you were trying to replicate??? Maybe we can help??? One of my family's favorite bars is my "Palm Olive" Bar:
62% palm, 24% olive oil, 14% PKO (flakes). 33% NaOH discount; 2% sf

Quite frankly, I've never made a bad batch or failed soap (except in the design), but this could be it. It's only a pound recipe, but I hate wasting materials.

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First of all, congratulations on being an awesome soaper! That's a record to be proud of! I hate wasting materials too but I like experimenting! LOL I think this batch can easily be saved.

Zany_in_CO said:

Check the values on SoapCalc or Soapee. That soap has a hardness value of 58. The range recommends a value of 54 tops. So, there 'ya go. My guess is the soap is too hard, therefore cracking up. boo hoo.

Just curious... what soap is your "favorite soap" that you were trying to replicate??? Maybe we can help??? One of my family's favorite bars is my "Palm Olive" Bar:
62% palm, 24% olive oil, 14% PKO (flakes). 33% NaOH discount; 2% sf
First of all, congratulations on being an awesome soaper! That's a record to be proud of! I hate wasting materials too but I like experimenting! LOL I think this batch can easily be saved.

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Interesting thought on the hardness; but let me add that I just cut a bar in half and I find it - delicate. Not soft like an ungelled lard soap - delicate. Hit it with a hammer and I bet it would powder apart.

Which got me to thinking...it reminds me of a white bar of Oil of O--- soap, which is firm but has a dry almost gritty feel to it before you use it.
Titanium Dioxide. I used .5 tsp Nurture's td, plus Lemon Chiffon mica which lists it's second ingredient as td. That's roughly 1.5 - 2 tsps. of td in a one pound recipe. (the mica morphed to pumpkin orange, and the fo was lemon so I wanted to tone the color down with td) Maybe that caused the funky texture, not the recipe itself.

The soap I'm copying is Bela, (wholesale by Australian Soap Company). Someone on the forum deduced it was most likely an 80/20 ish soap noodle type because the ingredients only listed palm, pko, shea.

I'm not a great soaper because I've never had a bad batch; initially I was a scared soap who did her research, was given a sure fire basic recipe by forum member Hazel, learned the basics of how to make well balanced recipe and worked from that. I quickly found an economic and environmentally responsible recipe that I loved. (Lard - don't let it rot in the landfills to create methane - transform it into soap!) (please don't take offense if you don't like lard - we all have our beliefs and follow them in the manner we believe best)

(Yes, I'm using palm and pko right now despite my environmental knowledge, but it's been sitting in the cabinet for years going to waste.)

That's recipe sounds very nice! It was difficult for my head to wrap around this experimental recipe due to the lack of soft oils...kept wanting to throw 20% olive or sunflower in there!!

lenarenee said:

... plus Lemon Chiffon mica which lists it's second ingredient as td. That's roughly 1.5 - 2 tsps. of td in a one pound recipe. (the mica morphed to pumpkin orange, and the fo was lemon so I wanted to tone the color down with td) Maybe that caused the funky texture, not the recipe itself.

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My Lemon Chiffon morphed orange, too! I assumed it was due to the FO I was using. It calmed down a day or two later.

lenarenee said:

I'm not a great soaper because I've never had a bad batch; initially I was a scared soap who did her research, was given a sure fire basic recipe by forum member Hazel, learned the basics of how to make well balanced recipe and worked from that.

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Oh gosh! That sounds SO familiar! I was so scared the first time I added lye to oils! I did it in the garage, with the door open! I wore what I like to call my "full body hazmat suit"! LOL Now I see whatshername in her cute matching goggles, stickblender, gloves and apron and just giggle.

lenarenee said:

The soap I'm copying is Bela, (wholesale by Australian Soap Company). Someone on the forum deduced it was most likely an 80/20 ish soap noodle type because the ingredients only listed palm, pko, shea.

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Here's a link to the complete list of the ingredients in Bela Soap. Interesting. Definitely nothing like the homemade bars we make... tough to duplicate.

http://www.belasoap.com/our-ingredients/

ETA: I just noticed that it's also "French Milled" -- which is a process where the soap is grated, then pressed through a roller, typically 3 times, to return it to its solid form. Makes for a very elegant finish.

From SOAPEDIA BLOG
French Triple-Milled Soap Manufacture

In most cases, these French soaps are manufactured with a combination of fatty acid, like fat or oil, with soda. These are mixed together and a natural chemical reaction causes ‘saponification’. This basically means it turns into soap. This is then allowed to dry to form soap crystals. Natural colours and essential oils are added to these crystals, giving them special properties. The soap mixture is then passed through high-pressure rollers. This step is then repeated a minimum of three times, hence the name French triple milled soap. The resulting soap paste is then pressed into the desired soap moulds.

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