How did you endure the wait ???

This is my first post, and my third and fourth try at cold process soap making ... you don't want to see the first two tries.

I made the soap loaves, then grit my teeth for 24 hours to cut them, and now I am suppose to wait another 4 to 6 weeks before I can try them in the bath. The bars are sitting on top of one of my studio shelves just reaking these great smells every time I walk by. And ... I keep peaking to check if the bars are getting harder and how the color might be changing.

So how did you endure or are you enduring the seemingly long wait to see if the recipes that I used are worth doing another batch? Four weeks?

FOUR WEEKS until I know if these worked ???? AHHH!

And ... what do I do in the mean time as I don't want to repeat the recipe if the recipe isn't what I hope it is but I sure don't want to wait for four weeks before I make another batch of soap ?????

28 oz. olive oil
10 oz. vegetable oil
6 oz. coconut oil
13.2 oz distilled water
5.9 oz. lye
2 tble. finely ground oatmeal

For the brown bar - 1 oz. white tea and ginger scent from BrambleBerry and 1 tsp. cocoa powder for the brown coloring.

For the green bar - 1 oz. cedarwood scent from BrambleBerry, 1 tsp. ground cloves for the pale green, and 1 tble. dried, ground dandylion leaves for the dark green.

The birch slabs, rusty chicken wire, and burlap ribbon are from Save-On-Crafts.com

Thank you for reading! Wyvern~

Beautiful photos!

It's hard to wait, isn't it?

But this may make you feel better. Many people actually recommend that newbies DO try their soap as they cure. Wash your hands with your soap at a 1 week cure, 2 week cure, 3 week cure and 4 week cure. Write down your notes on how your bar feels.

At 4-6 weeks, your bar will be fully cured and ready for proper use. But there's nothing stopping you from trying out a bar to learn the different stages of the cure. You'll probably find it very drying and stripping on your skin at first, but it's interesting to see it change. And make sure to hold onto at least one bar for 6 months or more - that's when soap gets unbelievably good.

Toxikon, thank you!

I sure hated the idea of waiting a full month before I discover an idea of the results. With your suggestion I can at least try a few more recipes with some of the more 'exotic oils' while I test the first batches.

Obviously, MAKE MORE SOAP. LOL. But like toxicon said, test it now! Just your hands.

Oh! Just what I wanted to hear, Good Dragon Sister !!!!

Such beautiful soaps for a beginner! Like dixiedragon said, make more soap! Oh and buy more soap dishes. You will soon have 8+ bars of soap in your shower

But please wait a week before trying young soap in the shower to make absolutely sure the saponification is truly and completely done.

Don't ask me how I know this -- all I will say is I too was once an over-eager novice soaper.

Sharryn said:

Such beautiful soaps for a beginner! Like dixiedragon said, make more soap! Oh and buy more soap dishes. You will soon have 8+ bars of soap in your shower

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Sharryn, I also do basket weaving. So I think it will be easy to combine the two hobbies with weaving soap dishes between the waiting periods .. Grin!

DeeAnna said:

But please wait a week before trying young soap in the shower to make absolutely sure the saponification is truly and completely done.

Don't ask me how I know this -- all I will say is I too was once an over-eager novice soaper.

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DeeAnna ... I am waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting ... and its only been about two weeks since the first two batches and a little over one week for these two. So, maybe this weekend I will do a Careful hand washing test.

Thanks for sharing your experience with waiting!

WyvernWench said:

Sharryn, I also do basket weaving. So I think it will be easy to combine the two hobbies with weaving soap dishes between the waiting periods .. Grin!

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What a good idea!

Congrats on beautiful soaps!!! I don't want to rain on your parade, but most vegetable oil sold at grocery stores are soybean oil. I kinda run your recipe in soap calc app. Linoleic acid + linolenic acid is quite high. Most people don't exceed 15-17% ( sorry I forget the exact number, please correct me if I'm wrong )
Next time try less soybean oil, or search DOS+ soybean oil on forum.


Total oil weight (oz)44.0
Water as percent of oil weight38%
Super Fat/Discount5%
Water : Lye Ratio2.8 : 1

Sat : Unsat Ratio26 : 74
Iodine85.23
INS115.86
Fragrance Ratio0.00
Fragrance Weight (oz)0.00

IngredientPoundsOuncesGrams
Water1.0516.72474.00
Lye - NaOH0.375.94168.45

#Oil/Fat%PoundsOuncesGrams
1Coconut Oil, 76 deg13.60.386.00170.1
2Olive Oil63.61.7528.00793.8
3Soybean Oil22.70.6310.00283.5
Totals1002.75044.01247.4

Soap qualitySuggestedYour Recipe
Hardness29 - 5425.2
Cleansing12 - 229.1
Conditioning44 - 6972.2
Bubbly14 - 469.1
Creamy16 - 4816.1
Iodine41 - 7085.2
INS136 - 165115.9

Lauric6.5
Myristic2.6
Palmitic12.6
Stearic3.5
Ricinoleic0.0
Oleic50.5
Linoleic19.3
Linolenic2.5

Oh they are beautiful soaps, the wait is hard. two weeks ago I made my dual lye avocado pure and silk with babassu oil, good for face at least twice a week, I could not wait and used for my face, I was astonished how good is this soap, Imagine it in 8 or 10 weeks. Wait is difficult part of soapmaking

CherryCoke! Thank you for your kindness !!!! You answer is exactly why I posted the recipe that I used. I am so new that I am still at the "search for someone else's recipe", "copy, paste, and print", and "read and follow the directions exactly" cookie baking stage of soap making.

When I reduce the vegie (soybean) oil is it the olive oil that I increase to keep the same volume ... or do I replace the vegie oil with something like palm oil.

Right now I only have three basic recipes and don't know enough to branch out very far ... grin!

The other recipe I have tried is from BrambleBerry and came with the starter kit.

9 oz. olive oil
6 oz. coconut oil
6 oz. palm oil
1 oz. castor oil
7 oz. distilled water
3 oz. lye

Again, thanks !!!!!

Dahlia, thanks for the suggestions of the two oils. I am off to search for them online.

WyvernWench, what beautiful soaps and fantastic pictures.

The other good thing about waiting and watching and taking notes, is you get to observe and experience and learn more about how your natural colorants work in your soap over the life of the bar. Some natural colorants retain their color, while many lose their color over time.

I haven't used dandelion leaves as a colorant, only for salad, so I don't know how it behaves over time in soap, but that sure is a pretty dark green. Also I really like the set up for your pictures.

"...I am so new that I am still at the "search for someone else's recipe", "copy, paste, and print", and "read and follow the directions exactly" cookie baking stage of soap making...."

Perhaps you are still very new to soap making, but your willingness to learn and your earnest nature are wonderful to see. You have all the makings of becoming a very good soap maker! Kudos to you!!!!

WyvernWench said:

CherryCoke! Thank you for your kindness !!!! You answer is exactly why I posted the recipe that I used. I am so new that I am still at the "search for someone else's recipe", "copy, paste, and print", and "read and follow the directions exactly" cookie baking stage of soap making.

When I reduce the vegie (soybean) oil is it the olive oil that I increase to keep the same volume ... or do I replace the vegie oil with something like palm oil.

Right now I only have three basic recipes and don't know enough to branch out very far ... grin!

The other recipe I have tried is from BrambleBerry and came with the starter kit.

9 oz. olive oil
6 oz. coconut oil
6 oz. palm oil
1 oz. castor oil
7 oz. distilled water
3 oz. lye

Again, thanks !!!!!

Click to expand...

This is one of my favourite, most-used resources: http://www.lovinsoap.com/oils-chart/

It will show you the difference between different oils and butters and what they bring to your recipe.

For a general-use, balanced bar, it's generally advised to stick to a ratio of 60% hard oils and 40% soft oils.

If you haven't already, check out the Soapee calculator! It's what you'll need to learn how to use to formulate your own recipes and determine how much lye and water to use. And we usually speak in terms of percentages when it comes to recipes, because it's easier to scale up and down to suit your needs.

WyvernWench said:

CherryCoke! Thank you for your kindness !!!! You answer is exactly why I posted the recipe that I used. I am so new that I am still at the "search for someone else's recipe", "copy, paste, and print", and "read and follow the directions exactly" cookie baking stage of soap making.

When I reduce the vegie (soybean) oil is it the olive oil that I increase to keep the same volume ... or do I replace the vegie oil with something like palm oil.

Right now I only have three basic recipes and don't know enough to branch out very far ... grin!

The other recipe I have tried is from BrambleBerry and came with the starter kit.

9 oz. olive oil
6 oz. coconut oil
6 oz. palm oil
1 oz. castor oil
7 oz. distilled water
3 oz. lye

Again, thanks !!!!!

Click to expand...

Wyvern, as you probably already know, anytime you alter a soap formula you'll need to recalculate it using a lye calculator. In fact, you should run any formula you find online or elsewhere through a calculator just to make sure it's accurate and that there isn't a typo in it. There are several free calculators online. Here are a few:

https://www.thesage.com/calcs/LyeCalc.html, https://www.brambleberry.com/Pages/Lye-Calculator.aspx,
http://soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp,
http://soapee.com/calculator

Personally, I like soapee. It allows you to play with a formula and see how the different attributes of the soap change when you change oils or quantities of oils. Also, it allows you to look at the fatty acid profiles of each oil to see what qualities it can bring to your soap. Having said that, don't allow yourself to get too hung up on the numbers. There are many perfectly lovely soaps that don't fall into the parameters. The only real way to know what your skin will love is by trial and error. For example, I like a combination of coconut and palm kernel oils in my soaps at between 25%-30% of the two combined. Some people would find that stripping and drying; but for me it's just a nice bubbly lather. Additionally, as each oil requires a different amount of lye to saponify it, using a lye calculator will ensure that your soap doesn't come out lye heavy or overly super fatted.

Enjoy your new hobby, and have fun. BTW, your first soaps are beautiful.

I found soaping increased my patience by a lot. I've learned that generally speaking, I like some soaps to be cured for 3 months, especially if they are a little heavy on lard or soft oils. I've also found that my skin is a little too sensitive to use a 4 week old soap without a longer cure.

I'm also a newbie. I keep a small "test soap" from each batch and cut a small sliver of it on week 1, week 2, week 3, etc. to just use at the kitchen sink for washing my hands. It keeps me satisfied until the batch is fully cured. I can definitely tell the difference as it ages, so it's getting easier to wait each time I make a new batch.

BTW, your soaps are beautiful! Great job!!

When you decrease soybean, you can increase either Palm ( more hardness, longer lasting, creamy ) or olive oil.( more soluble, not that long lasting, more conditioning ) . But you have to rerun it through any calc they suggested above.

Your second recipe from brambleberry looks like this:


IngredientPoundsOuncesGrams
Water0.528.36237.00
Lye - NaOH0.203.1388.83

#Oil/Fat%PoundsOuncesGrams
1Castor Oil4.50.061.0028.3
2Coconut Oil, 76 deg27.30.386.00170.1
3Olive Oil40.90.569.00255.1
4Palm Oil27.30.386.00170.1
Totals1001.37522.0623.7

Soap qualitySuggestedYour Recipe
Hardness29 - 5442.1
Cleansing12 - 2218.5
Conditioning44 - 6954.1
Bubbly14 - 4622.6
Creamy16 - 4827.7
Iodine41 - 7055.9
INS136 - 165157.2

Lauric13.1
Myristic5.5
Palmitic20.2
Stearic3.4
Ricinoleic4.1
Oleic41.2
Linoleic8.4

It's all fall within the suggested range. And they're right, don't get too hung up on numbers, there's still soaps that break the rules. Google " break the rule soap" and that's another recipe to try out.

But generally speaking, there are some rule you don't want to break, or you risk DOS. ( dreaded orange spots)

Here's some reading for you. About fatty acid profile.

www.modernsoapmaking.com/the-most-popular-fatty-acid-profiles-in-soapmaking/

Greetings!

I see that everyone has swiftly swooped in and covered you on the answers. It's true--- you will always have that itch every time you make soap, but it gets more manageable. Mostly. Just read, read read, maybe plot out what you might try next. Always keep your handy-dandy soaper's notebook up to date with your adventures (before and after) each time you make a soap, even if it's a recipe you have made before.

Your photos are beautiful, and so are your first baby soaps. You'll get this, no doubt about it.
You'll also find lots of really smart people here to ask advice from. I feel like I know just enough to be dangerous still just yet so I come support where I can.

When something blows up, you can read where others have blown something up, either in order to make yourself feel better, or to further cement the fact that it happens to everyone.

Last but not least, I love love love your name youve chosen to go by/use! !