Batch 2... Ready, Go!

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Soapy J

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After my first CP batch ever I hadn't planned on posting a follow up with my second batch but after the way it went today I figured I probably should get some feedback.

Background Info:
So It's taken me right at two months to gather more supplies, more information and the guts to go ahead and make a second batch. My first batch has been received quite nicely by those that have used it but I wanted to tweak my recipe a bit after the feedback I received here and the information gained from soapcalc and other websites. My first recipe (CP) was very heavy on OO, then had canola, coconut and castor, 7% SF and 38% H2O.

The tweaks to the recipe are as follows (~897g of oils batch):
Olive Oil: 36.1%
Palm: 24.7%
Coconut76: 15.9%
Canola: 13.3%
Castor: 5%
Cocoa Butter: 5%

33% H20
117g Lye
7%SF
2oz fragrance oil (white tea and ginger)

I started off by mixing my water and lye and let it cool outside (around freezing here today so figured that's help me out a bit). I then weighed out each oil beginning with palm because it was still in the bottle and needed to be melted down and poured. I then went through melting and pouring the rest of my hard oils and softs until I had my batch of oils. I then weighed out my scent and set it aside.

Once all of this was finished I had spent about 45 minutes of prep time and went back to check on my lye which had cooled down to where the container was no longer warm to the touch. I brought it inside and poured in to my room temp oils and began stick blending it. Here's where things go interesting. Trace began VERY fast, I mean within a couple of minutes at max. I used the 12 cavity single bar mold from brambleberry so I knew I needed to act fast and add my fragrance oil in and get it blended well so I could get this easily molded.

When all was said and done I had filled 10 cavities with none left over and trace was very thick by the time I was finished with the last one. From the addition of lye to the last bar molded it only took 15 minutes...

So... Questions.
Does the 33% water REALLY speed things up that fast? I figured 38% last time was super super slow and 33% shouldn't speed things up that quickly. I'm thinking this was the culprit.

Could the addition of two hard oils and decrease in % of soft make a huge difference?

Although the FO didn't speed up trace (that I know of, I felt like I was moving at rabbit speed!) do you think 1oz/ppo is too much and I should drop to .5oz? **I know I listed weight in grams but essentially I used 1oz/ppo**

Comments, Questions, Concerns?!?!?! Feedback is greatly appreciated as usual!

Pictures are attached for those of you in need of your pic fix! There will be updates to come since I went ahead and started the thread.

Empty Mold.jpg


Equipment 000.jpg


Equipment 001.jpg


Finished.jpg
 
Comment 1: how on earth did you have the patience and/or willpower to wait 2 MONTHS between batches?

I had a whole reply typed about about your 35% water not making a huge difference.....then I realized you used 33% water, which I've never done before. So comment 2 is retracted. Just see comment 1.
 
Last edited:
Comment 1: how on earth did you have the patience and/or willpower to wait 2 MONTHS between batches?

I had a whole reply typed about about your 35% water not making a huge difference.....then I realized you used 33% water, which I've never done before. So comment 2 is retracted. Just see comment 1.

The holiday's and traveling helped a ton but it took quite a bit of restraint once I got my main supply order in a few weeks ago to not go ahead and make a batch. Plus I kept being told to wait for Christmas so that helped!
 
Unmolded the soap last night (24 hours post) and it was fairly solid (no fingerprints from getting it unmolded) and a great white color! We're pretty excited to get this soap along in the curing process so that we can use it. I'll be making an unscented batch of this recipe tomorrow at 38% water to see what the difference in trace time is for when I get my colors in the mail some time this week. The next month or so should be a fun, soap making process!!!
 
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