What to do with "slimy" soap

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ns045

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I'm fairly new to soap making. I made a batch containing 50% olive oil, 20% coconut oil, 15% sunflower oil, 10% grapeseed oil and 5% castor oil; 5% superfat. Added blended cucumber and Greek yogurt and some salt. Let it cure for 6+ weeks and the bars were hard when dry. However, they become really slimy when they get (or stay) wet. I realize now the recipe contains too much liquid oil or not enough hard oils. Will surely not use that same recipe again.
I should also mention that the fragrance that I added caused the soap to gel before I had it all in the mold. I panicked because I didn't know what was happening (goggled that later) and decided to unmold and cut right away. It hardened fine on the curing shelf later.
My question now is, what do I do with that soap? I don't like the slimy feel and I also don't care anymore for the fragrance I used. Rebatch (how)? Throw away?
 
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Shove it to the back of your curing rack and let it sit for a few months, checking from time to time to make sure it isn't developing DOS. Try it again 4 or 6 months down the line and see if you still don't like it. Even if you don't care for it, it may have lost much of the slimy feeling in that time, and be suitable for family and friends.
 
That recipe would benefit from a longer cure. I prefer well balanced recipes that have cured 3 months. One with higher olive like yours, I would probably cure for 6 months or more. Some people like the "slime" and some don't. If you let it cure longer and still don't like it, maybe someone you know will love it.

If you really dislike the scent that much, you can rebatch and try adding another scent that blends well with the current one to make it more pleasant to your nose.
 
Or if you know someone who does wet felting, give the soap to him or her. A slimy high-oleic soap is perfect for the craft of felting.
 
My 50% OO soaps are everything but slimy. 50% OO 20% CO, 20% lard, 5 Castor and 5 shea butter, it is wonderful soap even when I do not use double lye
 
+Everybody Above.

Don't give up on it too soon. Although I'd worry about DOS, a very, very long cure might work for that soap if it continues to be unacceptably slimy. If you have the rack space, extend the cure, and keep extending it.

I just made a pure Castile because my mother and her friends love it. I specifically marked its birthdate--June of 2017--on the label because I won't even think about giving that away until Christmas 2018.

And frankly, it'll be better around Christmas 2019. It's workable and won't hurt you now, but it'll be a slimy mess.

I once cured some soap for five years, from a variety of recipes. The stuff was heavenly, although the scents had faded severely.
 
Dahila said:
My 50% OO soaps are everything but slimy. 50% OO 20% CO, 20% lard, 5 Castor and 5 shea butter, it is wonderful soap even when I do not use double lye
Click to expand...

If you compare your recipe to the OP's, you will see that the only fat in your recipe that is high in oleic acid is your olive oil. And you have a decent amount of stearic and palmitic acid from the shea and lard to make your soap less soluble. That will help a lot to reduce the oleic slime.

My opinion is that recipes that have 50% oleic acid or less are not super slimy. Your recipe and the OPs meet that test assuming the OP is using regular sunflower. But the OPs recipe is a lot higher than yours in linoleic acid what with the sunflower and grapeseed. I suspect this is the reason why the OP's soap is slimy -- the high linoleic + medium high oleic has tipped the balance.

Since I don't use a high % of linoleic oil in my soaps, I haven't considered the effect of high linoleic acid content on sliminess. Not sure I really want to go there either ... it's not a kind of soap that appeals to me.
 

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