CPOP - Finished soap Q & to clean or not to clean oven?

I made my first CPOP batch last night! I melted oils/mixed lye and then brought to trace, poured in my crafter's choice green loaf mold...and then put the mold in my preheated 170 oven. I left the oven on for about an hour and 15 min. and then turned it off and let the soap sit in the oven overnight. I did preheat the oven back to 170 (right before I went to bed) and then turned it off again when it was done preheating, just to make sure it hadn't cooled down too much. I peeked at it often and felt I was letting heat out. I need to get an oven thermometer to see what my oven temp is really at. Anyways, my soap started at the top of the mold, right at the brim but not going over, and I noticed about 15-20 min. into the hour with the heat on that it was rising as a block...very strange looking. It didn't rise much and stopped rising, but did get above the mold. I have no idea if it ever reached gel stage. The top looked like it had a strange texture...mottled, bumpy, like beach sand almost is the only way I can describe it, not smooth like you would expect soap to be. Almost appeared like some of the pictures I've seen for hot process. The mold was not covered in the oven...just placed on a cookie sheet. I used a recipe with 1% beeswax but no honey and no milk. I've seen soap in this same mold go through gel with another recipe, so I know what it looks like, but never saw it gel even though I checked many times. Sorry this is so long. Anyone have an idea what happened to this batch? I unmolded today and it was very hard to unmold...had to use a butterknife to get down to the bottom of the sides and it's very sticky/tacky. Some of the soap stuck to the sides of the mold and at the bottom you can tell the soap is normal underneath the layer of gooey-spongey weirdness. No oil pooling anywhere though which I assume is a good sign. My main question is though...what do I do about the strong lemongrass/lavender eo scent in my oven?! I'm afraid to put food in there because I'm thinking that evaporated eo's are going to get into my food. I've thought of putting the oven through the self-cleaning cycle but not sure if that's a safe thing to do with eo's? All CPOP'ers out there...how do you deal with your oven when you're done with a batch? Do you clean it, do you not worry about it, does it smell at all? Any help/advice would be great! I feel like I can't use my oven again until I figure out if it's safe to put food in there...not sure why I didn't think of this before I put the soap in the oven. LOL! Thanks for reading this in advance and for any advice you ladies can give!
Shannon H.

I have had the same experiances with Cpoping in a preheated oven (no additional heat). I use the crafters choice molds as well. My soap comes out ugly and i trim it pretty. I hope someone can give me an explaination also. I wonder how little heat is required to coax these molds through gel and if anything more than incubation is required. How 'traced' is your soap before you pour it?

Well, I tried to bring the soap to a thicker trace only because I wanted to try doing a bumpy top, or a swirly look on top. It actually came out looking how I wanted it to...cpop'ing it didn't change the top...but the texture, just like you said, is still strange. I really don't want to trim it off because I feel like the crafter's choice mold makes a smaller bar anyways....so we will see. I don't sell soap or anything, just giving away and family use right now, so I may not bother with how it looks and just keep trying. I've used the mold and it went through a partial gel just covered in saran wrap on top, so maybe if I wrap a couple towels around it next time instead of putting it in the oven it will do better.

Oh, and my hubby and I ran the self clean function on the oven last night and that took care of the eo smell. Although our house smelled like smoke for 3 hours so all of us left the house for the evening, lol! No cpop for me for a while.

why oven at all? if you cover your soap it will be just fine. My hubby did not like the smells in the oven, so I stopped doing it, and Im very happy with my soap, I pour in mold and place on heating pad for an hour, full gel.

This time of year, I've found that just setting it outside for a while or in the gas grill(unlit) on the deck, provides plenty of warmth for full gel. My last oven process leaked just a tiny bit and I didn't notice it until cooking a frozen pizza a couple of days later.....set off all the smoke detectors! :shock:

Where does I gets heating pad.

heating pad, from any target, kmart, drugstore, used store.

The only reason I put mine in the oven was because I thought cpop was a special process that would cut the cure time in half. I wasn't necessarily trying to make it gel, and definitely not overheat, lol. Maybe I'm wrong about cpop...maybe it doesn't really accelerate cure times? I will try to wrap mine in towels and watch it to make sure it doesn't start "cooking" on top like my last batch, maybe this is all it will need. We shall see...

dont know about the cure times, you CAN use your cp after 3 wks, but better with a longer cure, 4-6.

honor435 said:

why oven at all? if you cover your soap it will be just fine. My hubby did not like the smells in the oven, so I stopped doing it, and Im very happy with my soap, I pour in mold and place on heating pad for an hour, full gel.

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One hour??? That's it? Covered with the lid or blankets??

FloridaSoaper said:

The only reason I put mine in the oven was because I thought cpop was a special process that would cut the cure time in half. I wasn't necessarily trying to make it gel, and definitely not overheat, lol. Maybe I'm wrong about cpop...maybe it doesn't really accelerate cure times? I will try to wrap mine in towels and watch it to make sure it doesn't start "cooking" on top like my last batch, maybe this is all it will need. We shall see...

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It hardens the soap faster and saponifys it faster but it should still cure the same amount of time.

Ok ok I see! Yah, I might try cpop again at some point, but I tried hot process last night and loved it! I unmolded the soap after about 9 hours of it being in the mold instead of 24, the soap is beautiful, and it came right out of the mold...not sticking to the sides and bottom. It's funny, the crafter's choice silicone mold I use has made it almost impossible to unmold regular cp and cpop after 24 hours of setting up until I use a butterknife down all 4 sides. But the hot process slid out so easily after a much shorter amount of time! Thanks for the input on cpop...and I think I'll grab a heating pad to help my soap gel more easily next time. I did cp with the same silicone mold a couple days ago and wrapped it in a blanket on top of a cookie sheet and it appeared to be completely gelled, but when I unmolded the next day, the bottom of the soap didn't gel...strange. So I think the heating pad would do the trick. Thanks!
Shannon

48 hours hun on the WSP mold. But I have really gotten into HP lately myself. I really love it.

I use CPOP for my green WSP molds so I don't have to fuss with insulating or covers (although I do cover lightly with plastic wrap to try and avoid severe ash - so far, so good :wink: ). I actually just cook dinner in the oven, prepare oils, etc, turn off oven, eat dinner, stick blend concoction, pop it in cooling oven...peek in about 30 minutes in (so far, always beginning gel at this point), check it again before bed to make sure nothing is overheating and head off to bed.

By morning, its like Christmas Beautiful, 100% gelled, perfect logs of soap! I use Castor in all of my recipes and so don't unmold until almost 48 hours after - then cut and set out for curing.

I feel like a totally relaxed, laid back soaper - I do RTCPOP doing everything in my own time and letting the soap do all the work. Some times it just feels so wrong

Bukawww said:

I use CPOP for my green WSP molds so I don't have to fuss with insulating or covers (although I do cover lightly with plastic wrap to try and avoid severe ash - so far, so good :wink: ). I actually just cook dinner in the oven, prepare oils, etc, turn off oven, eat dinner, stick blend concoction, pop it in cooling oven...peek in about 30 minutes in (so far, always beginning gel at this point), check it again before bed to make sure nothing is overheating and head off to bed.

By morning, its like Christmas Beautiful, 100% gelled, perfect logs of soap! I use Castor in all of my recipes and so don't unmold until almost 48 hours after - then cut and set out for curing.

I feel like a totally relaxed, laid back soaper - I do RTCPOP doing everything in my own time and letting the soap do all the work. Some times it just feels so wrong

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LOL- This is so true!