Hello everyone

Hello everyone,

Started soaping 3 months ago and documenting my results as i go, been lurking for a while now,

yesterday i got bored and decided to edit all my soap pics/recipes + test results together, ended up with a nice infograph so i thought i'd share:

http://s17.postimg.org/sbxso16v1/1422765829508.jpg

(its too big to post in the comment) :crazy:

Finally, another male. There are some of us kicking around!

I love your soap, and I wish I could (even after four years) reliably get a swirl that nice. I can't, but I'm a clumsy oaf.

MorpheusPA said:

Finally, another male. There are some of us kicking around!

I love your soap, and I wish I could (even after four years) reliably get a swirl that nice. I can't, but I'm a clumsy oaf.

Click to expand...

Thanks man, if you're talking about that green swirl then yeah i was shocked at how well it turned out, since then i've been doing in the pot swirls since less can go wrong.

SoapBro said:

Thanks man, if you're talking about that green swirl then yeah i was shocked at how well it turned out, since then i've been doing in the pot swirls since less can go wrong.

Click to expand...

I'm even a clumsy oaf on ITP swirls.

And yes, the green swirl. It's a perfect little tree in there.

My last swirl ended up looking like camouflage. Fortunately, it's evergreen scented, so at least I can give it to other guys without trying to pass off a floral.

Wow those are nice! You are so organised! Haha my recipe's are all lying around on scrap bits of paper! Going to get organised tomorrow......

MorpheusPA said:

I'm even a clumsy oaf on ITP swirls.

And yes, the green swirl. It's a perfect little tree in there.

My last swirl ended up looking like camouflage. Fortunately, it's evergreen scented, so at least I can give it to other guys without trying to pass off a floral.

Click to expand...

got a pic?

claireobell said:

Wow those are nice! You are so organised! Haha my recipe's are all lying around on scrap bits of paper! Going to get organised tomorrow......

Click to expand...

thanks, i just screenshot my recipes into my soap folder and take some pictures of the resulting soap and save that too, everything ends up sorted by date automatically so its easy to keep track.

Will be doing that from now on then!

Nice graphic to keep yourself organized!

You might want to check out Evernote as an free & easy option. Each of my batches becomes a note that I can attach pictures to and even add date reminders. I keep track of everything about it there - exactly which colorants I used, temperatures, curing notes. There's a Chrome extension that will let me copy the SoapCalc recipe directly into a new note from onscreen. Since everything is stored in the cloud, my notes are available and synced between devices. It's searchable which helps me a lot.

I noticed that you are adding oils at trace in what I'm assuming is an attempt to specify it as your superfat. Just as an FYI, it doesn't work to actually preserve that oil in CP. You might as well add it to the other oils in your batch. If you're making HP, you can selectively SF after the cook is complete since lye is not longer present.

SoapBro said:

got a pic?

Click to expand...

Lordy, no. The batch was also cut a little too soft, so some's not acceptable even for giving as gifts. It's a Bastille, nearly a Castille.

thanks, i just screenshot my recipes into my soap folder and take some pictures of the resulting soap and save that too, everything ends up sorted by date automatically so its easy to keep track.

Click to expand...

That's brilliant! I need to start doing this as I tend to simply wedge the recipe in between the bars. Which results in an oily recipe that I have difficulty reading.

Welcome, SoapBro!

Although I'm a lass, I thinks it's great whenever another lad joins. Of all the soap forums out there (at least the ones that I visit), I think we might be the one with the highest male population on the interwebs.

By the way, I love your infograph! I still go at it 'old school' style by handwriting everything meticulously down in notebooks, but when I'm done filling up my latest book, I may just do something like that or check out Evernote.

Just a head's-up on pH strips. They are notoriously unreliable where lye-based soap is concerned. Here is a great link that explains why, and also suggests the best kind to by when testing lye-based soap:

http://www.millersoap.com/phtome.html

And here are a few good discussions we've had here on the forum in regards to pH strips:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=29149&highlight=strips

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=46692&highlight=strips


IrishLass

snappyllama said:

Nice graphic to keep yourself organized!

You might want to check out Evernote as an free & easy option. Each of my batches becomes a note that I can attach pictures to and even add date reminders. I keep track of everything about it there - exactly which colorants I used, temperatures, curing notes. There's a Chrome extension that will let me copy the SoapCalc recipe directly into a new note from onscreen. Since everything is stored in the cloud, my notes are available and synced between devices. It's searchable which helps me a lot.

I noticed that you are adding oils at trace in what I'm assuming is an attempt to specify it as your superfat. Just as an FYI, it doesn't work to actually preserve that oil in CP. You might as well add it to the other oils in your batch. If you're making HP, you can selectively SF after the cook is complete since lye is not longer present.

Click to expand...

Thanks, i'll look into evernote,
not to sound like a know it at but i have read before that the lye just takes what it wants so it doesn't matter in CP soap which oil you add when, but i had a thought, actually two thoughts, the first is that yes, when adding an oil at trace that's only maybe 5% of the total oils it would really not make a difference since theres still a lot of free lye in the mix, BUT, what would happen if you waited till trace to add 30% of your oils? that means that you would stick blend 70% of your base oils in a lye solution that is way too strong for the amount of oil since a good 30% is missing, if you blended that til its soap-on-a-stick and only then added the rest of the oils, wouldn't less lye be available now to saponify the rest of the 30% then if soaped everything together from the start?

my second thought was about jojoba oil as superfatting oil, since its not really an oil and doesn't even saponify 100%, isnt it guaranteed to remain as the superfat even in CP soap?

IrishLass said:

Just a head's-up on pH strips. They are notoriously unreliable where lye-based soap is concerned. Here is a great link that explains why, and also suggests the best kind to by when testing lye-based soap:

http://www.millersoap.com/phtome.html

And here are a few good discussions we've had here on the forum in regards to pH strips:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=29149&highlight=strips

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=46692&highlight=strips


IrishLass :smile:

Click to expand...

I figured its probably not that reliable, thats why i included dr.bronners as the control soap, anyways thanks for the links, i ill look into it,

SoapBro said:

if you blended that til its soap-on-a-stick and only then added the rest of the oils, wouldn't less lye be available now to saponify the rest of the 30% then if soaped everything together from the start?

Click to expand...

Generally accepted wisdom (which seems to bear out in practice) is that saponification to trace really isn't that significant. Hence the reason that gel phase soaps harden fast, non-gel-phase don't and can take a day or seven until the lye is completely gone.

In that case, the heat of gel phase accelerates the saponification...but it still takes hours.

DeeAnna will be along, I'm sure, but I also read a study about salt metathesis in soap. Basically, your olive oil might saponify while your very-late-added almond did not. However, freely in a non-zero-Kelvin soap, some of the sodium olivate will turn back to free fat strands while the almond will saponify. And vice-versa. Until the end of the Universe.

Salt metathesis would even happen in HP, but I doubt it's all that significant after the cure period is over.

my second thought was about jojoba oil as superfatting oil, since its not really an oil and doesn't even saponify 100%, isnt it guaranteed to remain as the superfat even in CP soap?

Click to expand...

Yes and no. The saponifiable portion of the jojoba will turn to soap, but jojoba has vast amounts of unsaponifiables in it. Those will never turn to soap because they chemically don't react. Lye discount the jojoba and even some of the saponifiable stuff will remain oil.

Similarly, something like mineral oil won't saponify. Add 1 tsp PPO and it stays 1 tsp mineral oil. Some people like it (I do, but I have dry skin).

From my understanding, even if you wait until soap on a stick phase to add an oil, you will not be selecting what the lye eats. The chemical process is just getting started and there will still be lots of active lye present. There are still hours and hours of soaponification left to occur. If you apply heat, you speed up the process (aka hot process) and can then selectively superfat once your zap test indicates that the soap is ready/no lye present. I believe Kevin Dunn has demonstrated this. I haven't yet read through his book, 'Scientific Soapmaking', though so I am paraphrasing from some interview I read of his (sorry I cannot locate my bookmark for it). There are folks much smarter than myself who can talk to the science behind it.

Gotta say i find all of this extremely interesting.

what would you suppose happen if i oven processed my batch while still in the mixing bowl, got it to an even gel, then superfatted with slightly warm oil to not cool the gel and scoop it in a mold? basically a CP-HP hybrid?

Thats pretty much considered oven HP, any oil you added at full gel will stay as SF.

Plus or minus salt metathesis and whatever saponification takes place post gel-phase in your soap. Which can still be significant.

I just forced gel phase in a soap this evening, at 170° in the oven. I'm a glutton for punishment, so just zap tested it (it's now 75 minutes old). It zaps, but not much, actually.

Still, zap means saponification is still progressing in the soap. Anything added now, with gel phase calming down, would still undergo some lye processing.

Now if you HP a soap until zap is gone, then superfat, that should stay (again, plus or minus salt metathesis).