swirling help???

[Stacey]

I’ve been soaping for over a year and a half now. I’ve come up with what I think is a good recipe. I haven’t had any trouble with DOS, it has a rich lather that is moisturizing and is a nice solid bar. HOWEVER! I can not make a decent swirl with it to save my soul. Multiple tries with different FO’s. I simply cannot do it. I get a gloppy mess.

Now I understand some people are fanatics about temps and some people are dumpers. I’ve been a dumper. Is THAT my problem? How important is temp to swirling?

Is it my beeswax? I read that some people add about 1% to help against ash and to ensure a hard bar. I’m now using the spray alcohol for the ash and could eliminate beeswax. My DH is a beekeeper and I’d like to keep the beeswax. Even if it is just for label appeal. But I could/would eliminate it if that’s causing the problem.

Here’s the facts of what we’re dealing with…I'm laying out my recipe and my process in order to give you the straight scoop on what I'm doing.

I call it my Best Basic Soap at 5% Superfat
Water 19.4
Lye 8.3
5.95 Shea butter (refined)
.65 Beeswax
14.40 Coconut Oil (76 degree)
7.15 Palm Oil
3.0 Castor Oil
28.7 Olive Oil
3.66 Fragrance Oil (sometimes I add a little more)

I’ve calculated it using Summer Bee Meadow’s Soap calculator because of the recipe resizer they have on there.

I mix up my lye/water first and let it sit in the sink while I’m working on everything else. My molds are always lined before I start anything. I start with melting the beeswax and the shea in the microwave at 30% power. Checking it about every minute until it’s about half melted. Then I add the coconut and the palm until everything is completely melted.

Then I add the castor and olive…I read that you shouldn’t heat olive oil. Why exactly, I don’t remember but I still don’t do it.

Slowly pour in the lye/water and mix with a stick blender until emulsified. I usually whisk in the FO’s. I don’t stick blend them in. I am aware that some FO’s can cause acceleration so I am cautious about when exactly to add them.

Usually I put my mica in a cup and mix it with a little bit of the warmed oils to get it started. Then I add a little more soap batter to it to mix up. If I’m doing a solid color bar, I’ll mix the FO after the mica. If I’m doing a two color bar, I’ll mix the color part up first and divide the FO into both colors and mix.

But pretty soon I’m getting a gloppy mess. Even if I just try to only color a small amount of soap batter for drizzling on the top. It's happened to me with various FO's. Even some FO's that everyone claims to be a dream to soap with.

It’s so frustrating. I can a make solid colored soap. Sometimes I can make an ok two colored sorta swirl. But mostly if I get beyond two colors I’m in deep gloppy doo-doo before I can start think about swirling.

I watch KB Shimmer’s Youtube tutorial on the 15 color swirl with complete envy. How in the world does she do that?

Is it my lack of temperature readings? Is it my recipe? Is it just me?

If it’s lack of temperature readings..then what temp should I be at?

Is there something I can add or take away from my recipe?

I understand palm oil and lard have similar properties in the soap outcome and that lard is a dream to soap with. Should I switch out the lard for the palm when swirling? (After running it through the calculator first, of course.) It won't bother me to use lard in the soaps at all.

Sorry for the long post but I think the more info I can give up front will help some of the more experienced soapers answer my questions.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[newbie]

I'm sure there are other factors that people will chime in about, but I recently started using a shea recipe because I wanted to use up my supply. The amount it accelerates trace is amazing, although my percentage is higher than yours. I can only hand whisk it because it goes so quickly and a fragrance that has any sort of acceleration, which might be negligible otherwise, is deadly. I used an FO yesterday that was non-accelerating and the batter was chunked up in far less than a minute. I had unscented portions of the same batter out and the difference was night and day. I'm not aware that beeswax accelerates trace, but I don't know for certain. Lard will slow trace down, so subbing that for palm could help. Room temp or 90-100 degrees helps, as long as you aren't using oils that would give you false trace. If you're soaping hot, it can really move your batter along. Full water will help with swirling (38%). I was too lazy to calculate your rate of FO, but if it's over 0.8 ppo, it might be worth it to bring it down to 0.7-0.8 ppo. Too much can cause problems.

This is what happened to me last night, with my shea recipe. The white and red were unscented and were like pouring water over setting concrete- which had the non-accelerating FO in it. Dreadful.


http://img220.imageshack.us/i/img3785w.jpg/

http://img11.imageshack.us/i/img3787qs.jpg/

Edited because I forgot to ask- are you separating everything after you've just gotten emulsification? Is it coming to a trace before you separate or add the FO? Or do you do it when it's waxing (well, that's what I call it when it starts to look waxy on top but isn't leaving any trace yet)?

 

[Romane]

Since the melting point of beeswax is higher than oils, it can accelerate the trace because the higher the temp of your oils is, the faster is the trace. Be sure to cool down your mix at 40 C (at least) before put in the lye.

Try to make your cp soap at room temp: I found that it slows the trace significantly. My last swirl (just two colors) was very nice because the paste was more «stable» after the trace: it stayed at light trace longer.

 

[busymakinsoap!]

IMHO room temp is great if you have soft oils to start with. It doesnt work for me because I use cocoa butter and shea - if the temps are too cool I get lumps - its not ricing, its just that the butters are starting to solidify.

I dont use beeswax in soap, but I know from balms etc, that if you add room temp soft oils to melted beeswax, it begins to harden straight away. You have to heat the soft oils in with the wax - perhaps this is your problem?

I have a fast tracing recipe (stick blend for 10 secs and at trace), but I manage swirls. For me its all about the fragrance - they will make or break your swirl. I dont bother with florals. There are some magical ones that actually slow down trace - find these and you are good to go. Full water is also a must. I use soapcalcs full water % (sorry I didnt check yours, but medow seems to have lower water recommendations) it takes a lot longer to cure, but you can manage swirls that way.
I even add a small amount of water to my seperated portions if they begin to thicken, it can save a batch (water based colourants are a good way to achieve this)

Also if it is a recipe you are confident with you can stir you batch till just emulsified (just before trace) and then add colours. By the time your colours are mixed in your trace will be nice and light and perfect for swirling.

Hope this helps

 

[Stacey]

Hmmm...so it could be the beeswax AND the temp. I do know that when melting everything it takes the beeswax a considerably longer time to melt up so perhaps I have been soaping a little hotter than I should. Not really a problem if I'm just doing a single color.

I wonder if I eliminate the beeswax will that affect the hardness of my bar? I mean there is so little beeswax in it that it shouldn't change the hardness that much should it?

You know the logical thing in my head tells me that if the soap is hotter that it will stay liquid-y longer. And the more it cools the more solidify it is. But it appears to be the opposite base on what you've all said. Let the oils and lye be room temp before mixing and I should have better luck with swirling. It's a little hard to wrap my brain around that.

My problem could also be the shea. I think I'm willing to give up the beeswax but not the shea. Once I added it to my recipe, I don't think I'd ever go without it in soaps again.

I think my first experiment will be trying my regular recipe at room temp or as close as I can get without getting lumpiness/solidifying in the hard oils. Then I'll try my recipe without the beeswax. Lastly, I'll switch out the palm for the lard and go without beeswax.

newbie: I seperate the portions to color right after the whole batch is emulsified. I mix in colors then try to mix in the FO in the larger portion (or what could be called the base color of the swirl).

busymakingsoap!: If you add water to your batch that is getting thick do you use room temp water? And I imagine that you problem use a small amount like a Tablespoon at a time and whisk it in?

Thanks everyone so much for all your help. I really do appreciate it.

 

[Romane]

I think it should work better if you lower the temp.

You can keep the shea: my basic recipe is 30% palm, 25% coco, 30% olive, 5% castor and 10% shea. It's great: good SAP value and hard soap. Beeswax is not necessary to get hard soap.

Good luck with your trials!

 

[photoshadows]

I agree with everyone that the lowest temps you can get away with should help. I would also prepare your colors before you even mix the lye and oils. What I do is put a little (just enough to cover the bottom of a cup) olive oil into a disposable cup and add my powdered color. I mix the color into the oil and once the soap mix is emulsified (I usually don't wait for it to actually reach trace), I seperate the mix and pour it into the pre-mixed colors and mix well. Then I do my swirling. I've heard that adding lecthin (not sure I spelled that correctly) to a thickening batch can help slow down trace as well, though I have not tried this yet.

 

[carebear]

I'd frankly skip the beeswax if you are trying this. Maybe when you are more practiced - but for now it'll just make things worse.

And palm oil is purported to speed trace, so if you are not averse to it you might try replacing it with lard (and recalculating) as lard is very slow to trace. Also - while regular and EV olive oils are slow to trace, pomace (at least from columbus foods/soapers choice) is very fast so if that's what you are using it could contribute.

And that's a LOT of fragrance oil, if I'm reading this correctly - it's 2 oz ppo... where are you getting your FO? That may be beyond the level for which they are approved (or maybe not).

KBShimmer's soap and tutorial are actually based on Grumpy Girl's - and Grumpy absolutely recommends FULL water - about a 26-27% solution. Here is GG's modified for salt bars: http://thesoapbar.blogspot.com/2011/05/ ... orial.html

 

[Stacey]

Thanks again for the addition advice.

Carebear: I generally use 1 oz of FO/PPO. I don't know what I did with with calculations or the typing here that caused it to be so far off. But I'll double check my recipe to make sure I'm actually using 1 oz/ppo. I usually get my FO's from NG or BB.

Just to make sure I'm clear....when you say use full water, you mean to take away the superfat percentage, right?

And based upon what "busymakingsoap" said, adding additional water when it thickens is ok.

Adding additional water will just require the soap to set up a little longer in the mold and might need a little more cure time, right? I generally cure for 4-6 weeks anyway...so now I'll just make sure it's full 6 weeks or longer.

So to summarize: drop the superfat, ditch the beeswax, switch out the palm for lard and soap cooler. Correct?

Thanks a million!

 

[carebear]

Just to make sure I'm clear....when you say use full water, you mean to take away the superfat percentage, right?

nonono! superfat has nothing to do with the water. you are, perhaps, thinking of water discount which is a useless term that I don't use.

superfat means either adding extra OIL or using a bit less LYE.
I'm saying to set your lye concentration (amount of water) at the default amount, or if you want to get specific set it at 27% - 28%.

do NOT eliminate your superfat.

using more water may mean it takes a bit longer to get it out of the mold.

 

[Stacey]

oooohh! I must have been thinking of water discount like you said.

It's good that I try to clarify everything otherwise I'd be in a world of hurt.

So you're saying go to Soapcalc (for instance) and plug in 27% in the "lye concentration" box in #3, that's what you're talking about. Right?

Or am I still not understanding it correctly??

That leads me to another question: Would using "full water" be a good practice with any and all soap recipes regardless if one wanted to "swirl" or not? Are there other advantages?

Thanks.

 

[newbie]

"Full water" will also help if you prefer to gel your soaps. They gel more readily with full water. You will have a bit more shrinkage with full water- there's more to evaporate. If you do not want gel, using less water helps a bit with that, although some FO's/sugar/milk/honey make soap very hot and it's more difficult to prevent gel when you use those, even if you use less water. They are a bit easier/faster to unmold, with less water, and the bars won't shrink quite so much. Starting out, it is probably an advantage to use full water and then as you get more experienced, more efficient, and more aware of how your recipe behaves, then you can play around with less water more confidently.

 

[Stacey]

So you're saying go to Soapcalc (for instance) and plug in 27% in the "lye concentration" box in #3, that's what you're talking about. Right?

Or am I still not understanding it correctly??

Thanks.

Thanks Newbie that helps a great deal.

Is using the example I've given the right way to ensure the use of "full water"?

 

[newbie]

I use soapcalc, and full water is set at 38 of "water as percent of oils" (#3 and they give a few option of how you want to put in your water amount.) It's the default setting, so if you put in your recipe for the correct size and then hit view or print recipe, it will have that amount of water automatically listed.

http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

I'm not familiar enough with the other calculators to say how they work or what default setting they have.

 

[Stacey]

I'm sorry...I'm so confused now. I feel like such an idiot.

This is what carebear said earlier and what I was wondering about:

"I'm saying to set your lye concentration (amount of water) at the default amount, or if you want to get specific set it at 27% - 28%. "

That's why I wondered if the lye concentrate was where the adjustment was made. I saw that the water level was defaulted at 38%.

LOL! I'm pretty sure it's just me reading more into or not even into it. I think I need to quit while I'm ahead. For now anyway. Perhaps I will just learn to like solid colored soap.

Like carebear says...you can't cure stupid. Hey! I resemble that remark!

BTW: Happy Friday!

 

[newbie]

DOn't worry. It is confusing because there are different ways of talking about the amount of water. I believe what CArebear was talking about was the lye concentration, and I was talking about water as percentage of oils- two different ways of talking about how dilute your lye concentration is or how much water goes into the recipe.

The lye needed for the recipe will remain the same regardless of which way you try to figure the water. Water as percentage of oils (the one I mentioned, the 38%) means that you are calculating the amount of water based on the weight of the OILS- you are using about a 2:5 ratio of wateril.

Lye concentration calculates the water in relation to the LYE (which is the same amount either way you calculate, remember), NOT the oils. So the approx 25% (for ease of discussion) that Carebear mentioned means that the lye weighs 25% as much as the water weighs. That is a 1:4 ratio of lye: water, if that then makes the 25% thing more evident.

They compare the weight of the water to two separate things. People like to work certain ways or one measure makes more sense to them. Pick your poison! They will each get you where you want to go.

If you look at soapcalc under the #3- the water section, you can pick the water as percent of oils, the top line, or the lye concentration (lye as percent of water) in the second line down. The water as percent of oils defaults at 38% for "full water" and the lye concentration at 25-27% will give you "full water".

Does that make sense?