Hi everyone! Happy New Year!
I finally have the time to share the results of my attempt to fix cracked soap:
The problem was that it was made with too many hard oils.
As discussed in this other thread (10% Honey - Help finding a thread) using a lot of sugars has the opposite effect, of making soap soft.
So I did an experiment with the original recipe (40% cocoa butter, 30% coconut oil, 30% shea; 5% SF; 1:2.2 lye:water) and added:
- 2.5% of the batter weight in honey
- 5% honey
- and 10% honey
(This photo is from when they were first unmolded)
Now, I have tested all of them for a week or so, and even the 10% honey is a perfectly hard bar of soap, and so far none of them have cracked!
The biggest difference between the amounts is obviously color, with the 10% being a nice caramel. But also the fragrance of the honey comes through with that much honey!
So moral of the story, you can fix a really hard bar of soap with high amounts of sugar, or vice versa you can use stupid amounts of sugar if you make an excessively hard soap recipe.
I just highly recommend moving fast once you add the honey, and using cavity molds to avoid overheating.
This is the soapcalc info:
I finally have the time to share the results of my attempt to fix cracked soap:
The problem was that it was made with too many hard oils.
As discussed in this other thread (10% Honey - Help finding a thread) using a lot of sugars has the opposite effect, of making soap soft.
So I did an experiment with the original recipe (40% cocoa butter, 30% coconut oil, 30% shea; 5% SF; 1:2.2 lye:water) and added:
- 2.5% of the batter weight in honey
- 5% honey
- and 10% honey
(This photo is from when they were first unmolded)
Now, I have tested all of them for a week or so, and even the 10% honey is a perfectly hard bar of soap, and so far none of them have cracked!
The biggest difference between the amounts is obviously color, with the 10% being a nice caramel. But also the fragrance of the honey comes through with that much honey!
So moral of the story, you can fix a really hard bar of soap with high amounts of sugar, or vice versa you can use stupid amounts of sugar if you make an excessively hard soap recipe.
I just highly recommend moving fast once you add the honey, and using cavity molds to avoid overheating.
This is the soapcalc info:
