Upcoming New Year Castile Soap Project

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Penelope, Thanks about the salt, I'd wondered if 1/2 tsp ppo was enough.

I'm doing these for comparison purposes to each other as well as the low water Castiles I already have. Even the [40% Lye Concentration] Castiles I made last June warped when cut too thin and not turned enough. The ones that were cut thicker didn't seem to, though, so I'm planning on not cutting these so thin. The 15-month old Castile I made with full water, did lose a lot of water of course, but they didn't really warp too terribly badly, but that's probably related to their shapes more than turning often enough.
 
Hi Earlene,
I am doing the same experiments as you.
I just did my first KOH (5%) NaOH (95%) mix 35% lye concentration 100% EVOO and I got partial gel! I was shocked as I haven't had that since my first soap. Did you have that problem?

I cut it at 24 hrs as I couldn't cut it earlier as the edges were soft. :???:

I am going back to 30% lye concentration and see if that is better.
I have used 30% for a over a year now and my castiles (25mm thick) haven't warped.
I cut them thicker now though - 32mm as they shrink a bit.
I don't turn them. They sit upright on their bottom the whole time. After 9 months I put them in a cardboard box.

Same day I did another dual lye Castile and accidentally added way too much KOH and it is beautiful. Cut perfectly. Both wrapped and in warm but turned off oven together to gel. So very annoying.
 
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Do you have any idea what the KOH percentage ended up being? I have only done 5% and wonder how high you can go and still have hard soap.

No, I got full gel with my [40% Lye] Castile, but I did CPOP to ensure gel because I wanted the colors to pop. And I've used CPOP with these batches as well because I am using color. But then, they have plenty of water so I expect they'd probably gel anyway as long as I covered them (after all I keep my house kind of cold.)

I didn't do my soap today, but I did get out the micas to choose color. I'll start it in the morning.
 
earlene said:
Do you have any idea what the KOH percentage ended up being? I have only done 5% and wonder how high you can go and still have hard soap.
.
Click to expand...

I haven't forgotten to answer you but I've been away and hadn't written up that recipe yet so didn't have access to the info.

Do not try this at home!
I premixed the KOH and used the whole master batch in one batch of soap. Thank goodness I only made 100g.

On soapmaker it ended up as: Lye solution strength 35%, -45% lye discount (without the extra water so it's no use as an experiment even :evil:) 8% NaOH and 6% KOH of the recipe - that's 1.46 parts NaOH to 1 part KOH. I think it is going to be a total fail but let me know if you want to know how it goes. I will not touch it for a while as I am not into zap testing and I want to be sure it is ok.

I am not sure that this is the correct maths. In soapmaker I just adjusted the lye discount until the amount of NaOH and KOH needed matched what I used. I hope it is what you want to know.
 
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I made two more batches of Castille since I last posted on this thread. So now I have made the 5 batches I planned on making. Although I may make one more tomorrow. Then I'm off to DC for a week, so won't be soaping again until my return. This is probably enough Castile for now anyway. :) At least I kept the batches small. A couple were 500 grams of oil, while the last three were 750 grams of oil.


1. super-lye Castile [-40% lye] - done January 1, 2017 - This smells so good with the Spearmint & Lavender EOs I added. It's getting hard pretty fast and has a lot of ash, which is expected.

2. a full water dual lye Castile (default water & lye per lye calculator) - I've done dual lye at [40% lye] so this is to see how it acts differently. - done Jan. 12, 2017 - as a gradient layer soap using mica, TD and White Tea & Ginger FO.

3. vinegar Castile (vinegar in place of full water) - done Jan.2, 2017 - I wouldn't say it's a hard soap as yet, but it was firm enough to cut sooner than I expected.

4. a plain jane with no additions and the same amount of water and [lye concentration]. As a 'control' soap for comparison purposes. - done Jan. 7, 2017, although I did color & fragrance it so it's not so 'Plane Jane'.

5. a full water Castile with salt - I used 1 tsp ppo. It's supposed to help make the bar harder initially, but make no difference in the long run. This really seems like an unnecessary exercise, but at least I can confirm it in my experience. - done Jan. 9, 2017 - unscented, but color gradient layers - The salt made absolutely no difference unless it made it softer initially. This batch required an second stint in the oven to CPOP because the first stint didn't help it solidify sufficiently. I have no idea why, the recipe is essentially the same as all the others except this one has salt added.
 
That is so interesting !

Earlene, I'm impressed by all your expériences. Can't wait to see what happens next :)

I'd plan to make a Castile before April, with GM. But I don't know if I'm gonna use EO or not, I'm a little afraid of olive's scent... What do you think ?
 
toxikon said:
This is the recipe I used:

75% Olive Oil
20% Coconut Oil
5% Shea Butter

1 tbsp of sugar PPO
5% SF
Click to expand...

I made a few batches of soap for the first time in 2014. But an ill dog and life distracted me. I jumped back in last weekend and used this recipe. Thank you! I took some pieces after cutting and washed my hands and the lather was very nice.
 
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Valoucia said:
That is so interesting !
Earlene, I'm impressed by all your expériences. Can't wait to see what happens next :)
I'd plan to make a Castile before April, with GM. But I don't know if I'm gonna use EO or not, I'm a little afraid of olive's scent... What do you think ?
Click to expand...

There will be no scent from a pure OO soap. I don't add any fragrance to mine and it just smells like clean soap.
 
penelopejane said:
There will be no scent from a pure OO soap. I don't add any fragrance to mine and it just smells like clean soap.
Click to expand...

I know I've read that there are a few people who don't like the smell of Olive Oil soap. Maybe they have sensitive noses. Or maybe the soap isn't done curing. I don't know really.

My oldest Castile soap doesn't smell like Olive Oil. It just smells like soap. But not all unscented soap smells the same to me, so maybe if I really tried to figure it out, well maybe I might be able to distinguish the difference. If I felt like putting my mind to it. However, I don't think I will ever put my mind to that task.
 
Robert B said:
I made a few batches of soap for the first time in 2014. But an ill dog and life distracted me. I jumped back in last weekend and used this recipe. Thank you! I took some pieces after cutting and washed my hands and the lather was very nice.
Click to expand...

Good to hear! I haven't tested any of those bars yet, but they've been curing for about 2 months so I suppose it's time to give them a try! Thanks for the reminder!
 
Bringing this up to date because I wanted to report on the soaps. Unfortunately, I lost all the documentation about them on my computer when it crashed. The photos and the specific recipes filed on my hard drive were completely lost. I can look back at my notebook, at least. Thankfully I do keep a hand-written notebook of every soap I make since I realized that my first couple of batches had no written history and did not get saved online either.

I found a collage photo of some of the Castiles I made here: https://www.soapmakingforum.com/thr...lenge-gradient-layer.62080/page-8#post-630070

So my report is this: There is absolutely no slime in my Castile soaps at 23 months. They all seem to bubble up quite well and feel quite nice on the skin while washing. A couple still have some fragrance that comes through, which I didn't quite expect. The only one I haven't tried is the Andalusian style Castile.

My conclusion: All the extra additives make little to no difference in the long run. Adding vinegar didn't matter. Adding salt didn't matter. With such a long cure as Castile needs, there seems to be absolutely no point in hurrying the set-up time with salt or reduced water. And reducing slime by adding vinegar, I had already concluded several months ago made no real difference in my experience, either. Here at 23 months cure, none have slime anyway, so as far as I am concerned, Castile does fine on its own without any extra help from me as long as it cures sufficiently long. So from here on out, the only additive to Castile I plan to use will be fragrances and/or colorants.

I think my 2019 Castile may be with DB as it has a very long lasting scent life and I do love the Dragon's Blood fragrance. It's the one that lingers on my skin for hours and hours after use. It is my favorite of all the FO's I have used in soap.
 
earlene said:
Traderbren, what fragrances have you added to your Castiles and how do they hold up in the long-term?

I made a dual lye Castile back in June with a Pear scent that I really like so far. I hope it holds up through the cure and when I gift the lot as a wedding present next year. I was thrilled when I saw the colors chosen for their bathroom towels that this soap will fit into their decor so perfectly! The scent is a 50:50 blend of MadOils 'Grow a Pear Tree' and CandlePro's 'PearBerry'. I really like how they blend.

So for this project, I want to make at least 3 or 4 small batches with some different additives to see how they fare over the course of cure. More would probably be too ambitious, but I have so many ideas, I haven't yet settled on the finalists.

1. One possibility is the super-lye Castile, but I MUST finish reading that whole thread and I am only on page 55 (of 68, so not insurmountable) before I finalize my plan for that one. - ETA: I finished it last night, whew!:thumbup: It took me days to get through that whole thread, but I do plan to try this technique. -
- started this on the evening of January 1, 2017

2. Another is a full water dual lye because the ones I made in June were at [40% Lye Concentration].

- Another is with added salt for hardness to compare to no added salt. So that recipe would have to go along with one of exactly the same without salt. - No, this isn't necessary as Castile is already hard. I don't need it to be any harder than it already is, so I'd do a strike-out, but can't see it as an option here.

3. And one with vinegar instead of water, again with full liquid / [default lye concentration]. I think I'll do this one with single lye. It will be a good comparison to the dual lye, especially if it is the same age.

4. Then there would have to be one that is plain jane with no additions and the same amount of water and [lye concentration]. Otherwise I'd have no 'control' soap to compare them to, right.

Now that adds up to 4 small batches. And that doesn't even include the idea of Goats milk or other. See, I haven't settled on the finalists, have I?

I decided there is no need to add salt for a soap that already gets plenty hard to begin with. But I do have Goats Milk in the refrigerator to use, so maybe I'll do a small batch with GM as well.
Click to expand...
Question: won't using vinegar instead of water cancel lye's alcalinity and prevent soponification? Please tell me the possible benefits you expect using vineger. I am new to soap making (I am a student of naturopathy. I make creams, salves and lotion bars for the most part.)
 
Suzy Knight said:
Question: won't using vinegar instead of water cancel lye's alcalinity and prevent soponification? Please tell me the possible benefits you expect using vineger. I am new to soap making (I am a student of naturopathy. I make creams, salves and lotion bars for the most part.)
Click to expand...

Suzy, there are several threads here about using vinegar to harden soap and how to calculate your lye for the amount of vinegar used in order to get the amount of Sodium Acetate for the hardness you want.

So it was for hardening the soap sooner via the reaction that produces SA.

Here are some of the links that go into the process:
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/how-to-use-vinegar-to-harden-your-soap.59295/#post-588321
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/oil-vinegar-sodium-acetate-in-soap-experiment.57991/
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/testing-vinegar-sodium-acetate-in-soap-phase-ii.59148/
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/hard-vinegar-soap.68661/

There may be others. These are the ones I have bookmarked.

If you read on to my most previous post, you will see I later came to the conclusion that the vinegar to harden the soap make little difference. It may harden it sooner than when not used, but in the long run with such a long cure time for Castile soap, it really doesn't matter. Castile becomes quite hard on its own without the additional help, so it seems a waste in this type of soap.
 
Thank you so much for answering my questions! I doubt I'll try Castile. I'm not big on patience!

While I've got you, what is the benefit of Castile that makes it worth waiting a year? I'm thinking of the liquid Castile of my youth that could be made into anything from baby shampoo to car wash. How is the bar soap different?
 
Suzy, there are many people who absolutely love Castile soap, while there are many who don't. Those who do, seem to like the mildness. It is often recommended for people who need a mild soap (by the medical profession, for example) and for children.

I like Castile, but it's not my only soap that benefits from a longer cure. Actually most of my soaps seem to improve with age. I actually haven't found any that deteriorate with age.

The only exception to that (benefiting from a longer cure) might be the exfoliating types of soap. The longer they cure, the more scratchy they feel to me (probably due to water loss and drying out of the exfoliate ingredients), so I don't make many of those except for specialized purposes. (Foot soap or my brother's blacksmith soap, for example.)
 
earlene said:
Suzy, there are many people who absolutely love Castile soap, while there are many who don't. Those who do, seem to like the mildness. It is often recommended for people who need a mild soap (by the medical profession, for example) and for children.

I like Castile, but it's not my only soap that benefits from a longer cure. Actually most of my soaps seem to improve with age. I actually haven't found any that deteriorate with age.

The only exception to that (benefiting from a longer cure) might be the exfoliating types of soap. The longer they cure, the more scratchy they feel to me (probably due to water loss and drying out of the exfoliate ingredients), so I don't make many of those except for specialized purposes. (Foot soap or my brother's blacksmith soap, for example.)
Click to expand...
Thanks!
 

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