Soft soap?

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Anthony0327

Active Member
Joined
Oct 6, 2017
Messages
36
Reaction score
18
Hello,

So I just made a batch of soap and am having an issue. When I went to go unmold it ( I waited 24 hours) I picked it up and it was not completely soft but soft enough that if I pressed my thumb into it would leave an impression. I am using

Coconut Oil
Palm Oil
Rice Bran Oil
Olive Oil

Any help is much appreciated

Thanks,

Anthony
 
We'd need the exact recipe, including the amount of water and lye, to make a perfect diagnosis as to what's happening here.

However, high water (as in using SoapCalc and allowing it to use the default 38% percent of oil weight) can certainly result in a softer soap.

Using high percentages of olive plus rice bran oil will also result in soft soap; while olive eventually results in a harder bar, it does take a bit to get there. Rice bran, ditto.

Other things can cause soft bars, including very high super fat levels, although hopefully that's not an issue here.

If you didn't allow it to go through gel phase, it tends to result in slightly softer soap initially (in the long run, there's no difference). CPOP tends to result in a harder soap sooner, if you want the soap to gel or at least don't mind if it does.

In the case of high water or high levels of liquid oils, with no gel, 24 hours and still soft isn't at all unusual. I've had a few that I couldn't remove from the mold for 4 days.

In most cases (where the mix isn't in error, it just happens to be a soft recipe), this has no bearing on what the soap will eventually be like once you can decant it and give it a full cure. Most likely, this'll still end up being great soap, it just has a slightly slow start.
 
I agree with what MorpheusPA says except for the bit about achieving gel makes no difference to a soap in the long run.
In my experience achieving gel makes colours brighter, the soap more translucent, a soap harder faster and in the long run.
 
MorpheusPA mentions in the long run the hardness does not make a difference if gelled or un-gelled. Gelling makes a difference many times whether a soap can be un-molded quickly or a few days later, but after curing it will be the same and last just as long, as the un-gelled soap. The colors will definetly be different between the two, being the main difference. Trace can make a big difference on whether an un-gelled soap can be un-molded in a few hrs versus a couple of days.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top