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Louis mercy

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I have a situation I hope to get some help that would result to solutions hopefully
Here goes
Made soap yesterday of coconut oil ,red palm butter from Africa,and palm kernel oil
Replaced water with pineapple juice and pulp well blended
Having sugar and dried silk fiber as additives
Soap isn’t hard stil looking mushy
Also oils leaks outta the mold
I am pained 😭😭😭😭
Will attach pictures soon
 

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I have a situation I hope to get some help that would result to solutions hopefully
Here goes
Made soap yesterday of coconut oil ,red palm butter from Africa,and palm kernel oil
Replaced water with pineapple juice and pulp well blended
Having sugar and dried silk fiber as additives
Soap isn’t hard stil looking mushy
Also oils leaks outta the mold
I am pained 😭😭😭😭
Will attach pictures soon
Make sure to list the exact recipe you used (weights of all ingredients or at least the total weight of oils with the exact percentages of oils) including all weights/measurements of all additives, including name & brand/vendor of any added fragrance, etc. Also list the name brand of the pineapple juice or indicate if it was from a fresh pineapple or whatever. Also include the recipe settings from whatever lye calculator you used, such as Lye Concentration or Water to Lye Ratio, Superfat setting, etc. And your method, whatever specific things you did, such as temperatures if you took them, stickblending if you used one (and for how long), etc. Did you pre-dissolve the silk fiber in the lye solution? When did you add the sugar & in what form? How much pineapple pulp (weight is the measurement I would use, but if you didn't please indicate how much you used) and did you deduct any of the liquid weight from the pulp weight?
 
Make sure to list the exact recipe you used (weights of all ingredients or at least the total weight of oils with the exact percentages of oils) including all weights/measurements of all additives, including name & brand/vendor of any added fragrance, etc. Also list the name brand of the pineapple juice or indicate if it was from a fresh pineapple or whatever. Also include the recipe settings from whatever lye calculator you used, such as Lye Concentration or Water to Lye Ratio, Superfat setting, etc. And your method, whatever specific things you did, such as temperatures if you took them, stickblending if you used one (and for how long), etc. Did you pre-dissolve the silk fiber in the lye solution? When did you add the sugar & in what form? How much pineapple pulp (weight is the measurement I would use, but if you didn't please indicate how much you used) and did you deduct any of the liquid weight from the pulp weight?
Thank you for your reply will list them all out accordingly
I used 3types of oils
👉🏻red palm butter 325g
👉🏻Hot pressed coconut oil 696g (made by me)
👉Hot pressed PKO 409g
👉🏻Pineapple pulp replaced all the water content @926g
👉🏻lye I used naoh&Koh
Naoh 150g
KOH 166.37
Additives 👉🏻Sugar 30g added to warm lye
Tamarind powder 36g added at trace
Dried but not powder Corn Silk 5g added to base of soap mold and a little in the soap batter
No super fat
No fragrance
I used the soap making friend calculator to construct my recipe
Hope these information helps
Right now I have safely unmoulded the soap but it’s still a bit soft and stil very oily
 
Pineapples are highly acidic even more than some lemons from what I quickly read so that is part of your problem, this causes a higher superfatted soap since the acid uses up your lye. The problem is if you do not know the acid content of pineapple juice you can only guess at the rate of extra lye you need to add to compensate. Now you added in sugar from the juice and pulp and extra sugar which can cause overheating and I will guess it did. Actually soaping cool with enough sugar and how you insulate soap can overheat. Bottom line is, that you simply cannot soap with ingredients without researching how to use them ie, acid containing liquids. sugars etc.

You will just have to wait it out and see if the soap eventually hardens and it is not full of holes on the inside.
 
I see some problems with your recipe and some possible attempts to counteract the excess citric acid in the pineapple, but I cannot give you a fix for this soap. Personally, I think it is beyond repair and I will explain why I believe that.

I tried to come up with that recipe using only water and not pineapple pulp in soapmakersfriend soap calculator & it was not easy to duplicate it, but here goes:

Using 25.3% Lye concentration and -4% SF (negative 4) with 59% NaOH and 41% KOH, I got really close to your formula (but with water only and not the pineapple pulp in place of water). (See image at bottom)

If you planned to offset the citric acid's effect on the lye (which it looks like you must have done), where did you get the numbers for how to figure that out? Just curious. According to DeeAnna's site (link) "10 g citric acid neutralizes 6.24 g NaOH and 10 g citric acid neutralizes 8.42 g KOH". So you need to know how much citric acid was actually in your pineapple pulp. I found this link which states that there is 0.6-1.2% acid, of which 87% is actually citric acid (so some math is involved to get the correct range). I won't do that math, but I hope that you did.

The next issue is the huge volume of food pulp you used instead of water. Two issues come immediately to mind:

The first of which is how did you dissolve the lye in the pulp? Did you simply add the lye flakes or granules to the pulp and mix them up really well and how did you verify that all the crystals/granules/flakes were completely dissolved? I can only guess as to how well I'd be able to ascertain 100% dissolution (I don't think I'd really know.)

The second of which is that you used more food product in this recipe than is generally recommended for safe use in lye soap. In the 2019 Soap Challenge Club, put on by Amy Warden, we did a food additivies challenge. The amount of puréed food (not chunks) for safe use in soap is 1 part food to 8 parts oils (or 12% of oil weight). So for 1430 grams of oils, 1:8 would mean you can only use 178. grams of food product (in the form of a purée, not chunks). You used 926 grams of pineapple pulp, which amounts to a whopping 64% of your oil weight, far exceeding the safe usage rate of food in solid soap. Some other sources recommend even less food additives, at only 1 ounce per pound of soap, which equates to 6% of oil weight. Several sources online go with the more conservative 6% amount.

Obviously this soap will always remain soft, but not only that, I predict it will become moldy and spoil as food does over time when left out to open air.

Besides the excessive amount of food in this soap, the amount of KOH is also another reason this soap is never going to become hard soap. That's a lot of KOH to put into a solid soap. Now, I cannot say that if you had made this soap with only water and not with pineapple pulp that it might not have hardened up; maybe it would. I don't make hybrid soap with that much KOH (I usually stick to 95% NaOH to 5%KOH, although others do 90%/10% without problems, depending on the recipe.)


One other question I have is how did you make Hot Pressed Coconut Oil? We don't have many soapmakers here at SMF who actually make their own oils, so that's fairly uncommon in my experience.

Here is the recipe per soapmakingfriend using only water in case you are interested:
1657645231494.png


Edited to add links to other sources regarding how much food purée to safely add to soap:

https://lovelygreens.com/complete-guide-natural-soap-additives/https://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-...ricks/how-to-add-purees-to-cold-process-soap/
 
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All that everyone has already told you is good advice/troubleshooting. There is just one more thing that I noticed and that is your use of sugar. You said you added your sugar to the warmed lye. I'm not sure how you added it, but just want to let you know for the future that when you want to add sugar to the lye solution it should be fully dissolved in your batch liquid before adding the NaOH. If added to an already made lye solution, it will become a thick, gloppy mass that is hard to dissolve. I'm only trying to help you avoid a potential issue when you try your next batch. I don't find that white granulated or powdered sugar causes problems with heating the way that other additives (honey, beer, milk etc) do.
 
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One other question I have is how did you make Hot Pressed Coconut Oil? We don't have many soapmakers here at SMF who actually make their own oils, so that's fairly uncommon in my experience.
From what little I quickly researched, you can purchase it; kind of like how you can buy EV Olive Oil or Pomace Olive Oil. And as we know, the process used to extract the last of the oil from olives has an affect on it. Same with ‘hot pressing’…the higher temperatures of the seeds and nuts has an effect of the chemical composition so it stands to reason that this change would/could effect the outcome of the soap.

It would make for an interesting experiment as I have used EV Olive Oil, Olive Oil and Pomace Olive Oil
 
Make sure to list the exact recipe you used (weights of all ingredients or at least the total weight of oils with the exact percentages of oils) including all weights/measurements of all additives, including name & brand/vendor of any added fragrance, etc. Also list the name brand of the pineapple juice or indicate if it was from a fresh pineapple or whatever. Also include the recipe settings from whatever lye calculator you used, such as Lye Concentration or Water to Lye Ratio, Superfat setting, etc. And your method, whatever specific things you did, such as temperatures if you took them, stickblending if you used one (and for how long), etc. Did you pre-dissolve the silk fiber in the lye solution? When did you add the sugar & in what form? How much pineapple pulp (weight is the measurement I would use, but if you didn't please indicate how much you used) and did you deduct any of the liquid weight from the pulp weight?
Thank you for your reply will list them all out accordingly
I used 3types of oils
👉🏻red palm butter 325g
👉🏻Hot pressed coconut oil 696g (made by me)
👉Hot pressed PKO 409g
👉🏻Pineapple pulp replaced all the water content @926g
👉🏻lye I used naoh&Koh
Naoh 150g
KOH 166.37
Additives 👉🏻Sugar 30g added to warm lye
Tamarind powder 36g added at trace
Dried but not powder Corn Silk 5g added to base of soap mold and a little in the soap batter
No super fat
No fragrance
 
I see some problems with your recipe and some possible attempts to counteract the excess citric acid in the pineapple, but I cannot give you a fix for this soap. Personally, I think it is beyond repair and I will explain why I believe that.

I tried to come up with that recipe using only water and not pineapple pulp in soapmakersfriend soap calculator & it was not easy to duplicate it, but here goes:

Using 25.3% Lye concentration and -4% SF (negative 4) with 59% NaOH and 41% KOH, I got really close to your formula (but with water only and not the pineapple pulp in place of water). (See image at bottom)

If you planned to offset the citric acid's effect on the lye (which it looks like you must have done), where did you get the numbers for how to figure that out? Just curious. According to DeeAnna's site (link) "10 g citric acid neutralizes 6.24 g NaOH and 10 g citric acid neutralizes 8.42 g KOH". So you need to know how much citric acid was actually in your pineapple pulp. I found this link which states that there is 0.6-1.2% acid, of which 87% is actually citric acid (so some math is involved to get the correct range). I won't do that math, but I hope that you did.

The next issue is the huge volume of food pulp you used instead of water. Two issues come immediately to mind:

The first of which is how did you dissolve the lye in the pulp? Did you simply add the lye flakes or granules to the pulp and mix them up really well and how did you verify that all the crystals/granules/flakes were completely dissolved? I can only guess as to how well I'd be able to ascertain 100% dissolution (I don't think I'd really know.)

The second of which is that you used more food product in this recipe than is generally recommended for safe use in lye soap. In the 2019 Soap Challenge Club, put on by Amy Warden, we did a food additivies challenge. The amount of puréed food (not chunks) for safe use in soap is 1 part food to 8 parts oils (or 12% of oil weight). So for 1430 grams of oils, 1:8 would mean you can only use 178. grams of food product (in the form of a purée, not chunks). You used 926 grams of pineapple pulp, which amounts to a whopping 64% of your oil weight, far exceeding the safe usage rate of food in solid soap. Some other sources recommend even less food additives, at only 1 ounce per pound of soap, which equates to 6% of oil weight. Several sources online go with the more conservative 6% amount.

Obviously this soap will always remain soft, but not only that, I predict it will become moldy and spoil as food does over time when left out to open air.

Besides the excessive amount of food in this soap, the amount of KOH is also another reason this soap is never going to become hard soap. That's a lot of KOH to put into a solid soap. Now, I cannot say that if you had made this soap with only water and not with pineapple pulp that it might not have hardened up; maybe it would. I don't make hybrid soap with that much KOH (I usually stick to 95% NaOH to 5%KOH, although others do 90%/10% without problems, depending on the recipe.)


One other question I have is how did you make Hot Pressed Coconut Oil? We don't have many soapmakers here at SMF who actually make their own oils, so that's fairly uncommon in my experience.

Here is the recipe per soapmakingfriend using only water in case you are interested:
View attachment 67685

Edited to add links to other sources regarding how much food purée to safely add to soap:

https://lovelygreens.com/complete-guide-natural-soap-additives/https://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-...ricks/how-to-add-purees-to-cold-process-soap/
Thank you very much for the concise details in your response
The pineapple isn’t pulp even tho I referred to it as such it’s actually puréed I mean well puréed and frozen to the teeth
So I used frozen pineapple purée on dissolving the lye
I used white sugar added to warm lye solution in another comment I was advised to first dissolve in a liquid before adding lye
I have noted all corrections
It’s my first attempt making a hybrid soap
And yea. I did make the hot pressed coconut oil taught me by my grandmother
Not like cold pressed isn’t good but it just takes way too long time and I needed to use up some of these ingredients so I went ahead to using the hot pressed coconut oil.
The soap isn’t looking all too badt. Checked them today they are not so hard and also not so soft
Il call it a soft soap
The oil content is still a bit on the high
When I touch the soap I have oil on my fingers 😣😣
I intend to repeat this recipe only this time Il follow all the corrections I’ve been given by you all here
Thank you all so much for helping me feel better about my mess
 
All that everyone has already told you is good advice/troubleshooting. There is just one more thing that I noticed and that is your use of sugar. You said you added your sugar to the warmed lye. I'm not sure how you added it, but just want to let you know for the future that when you want to add sugar to the lye solution it should be fully dissolved in your batch liquid before adding the NaOH. If added to an already made lye solution, it will become a thick, gloppy mass that is hard to dissolve. I'm only trying to help you avoid a potential issue when you try your next batch. I don't find that white granulated or powdered sugar causes problems with heating the way that other additives (honey, beer, milk etc) do.
Indeed there is a lot I still need to learn in soap making but I am glad I’m in safe hands
You all are like family
Fundamental to my growth in soap making I am proud to have you all .
Thank you all so much
 
Definitely the pineapple pulp and tamarind powder would have added a fair amount of acidity that would "use up" some of the lye that should have been used to saponify the oils. If you want to use those two ingredients, you will need to figure out how much additional lye to use for your recipe so that it doesn't end up soft and oily. Good luck!
 
I second Earlene on the Naoh/Koh ratios. And also the concentration. Aim for a 30 - 33% lye concentration overall ( or more - especially if you you don't want to do the math on the acid content). And stick to at least 90% NaOH within the combo of lyes.
 
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