Batch of questions from a newbie!

[rdc1978]

Hi, I have a bunch of questions and so I thought I'd put them all here and hope for the best

• Good recipe for swirls? - I have been using a soap recipe from soaping 101 which is slow moving, but I worry it might take FOREVER to harden and cure - it's basically 25% coconut oil, 68% olive oil and 7% castor oil. I've used this recipe with 35 % water and a 5% sf. It's wonderful for allowing time for decoration but it literally took a week before I could take it out of the mold.
• Can I cut down on the time this soap takes to harden with sodium lactate? If so, how much of a difference would it make?
• Also, while I'm at it, how could I clean up this soap? I really like the design but I can see some of the colored soap from where I scraped, is there a good way to clean it up so it looks tidy?
  

Thanks!,

 

[bookreader451]

You can cut down on the OO and add harder oils like lard or palm. Sodium lactate will help some, but it still is a high percent of soft oils. Don’t worry about where you scraped the design. Give those bars to your family.

The design is lovely

 

[rdc1978]

You can cut down on the OO and add harder oils like lard or palm. Sodium lactate will help but it still is a high percent of soft oils. Don’t worry about where you scraped the design. Give those bars to your family.

Thanks for the reply. I have some palm oil I haven't touched, how much do you think I could add to keep it soft enough to do twirls and designs, but hard enough to reasonably come out the mold. Do you think that if I cut down the o/o to like 58% and then added 10% palm oil it would still be slow moving enough for designs, but hard enough to de-mold reasonably?

As for the scrapes, I feel like I see them all over . I'm not sure how to keep them from happening again

Thanks again!!

Thanks again

 

[bookreader451]

I am not a huge fan of a lot of OO. I never use more than 30%. I usually have about 50 to 60 percent hard oils. You need to run your recipes through a calculator. But start with adding at least 30-35 percent of a hard oil.

 

[BattleGnome]

Do you gel your soaps?

If I don’t gel my soap it takes a week for my soaps to harden enough to unmold and maybe a day or two longer to cut. I’m lucky enough that my oven has a “heat and hold” setting that keeps things at 170F to encourage gel. If your oven is unreliable or doesn’t have the same settings you can wrap your mold in old towels or insulate in a cooler to encourage gel. When I gel my soaps I can cut within 12 hours which is much nicer than the full week.

 

[rdc1978]

Do you gel your soaps?

If I don’t gel my soap it takes a week for my soaps to harden enough to unmold and maybe a day or two longer to cut. I’m lucky enough that my oven has a “heat and hold” setting that keeps things at 170F to encourage gel. If your oven is unreliable or doesn’t have the same settings you can wrap your mold in old towels or insulate in a cooler to encourage gel. When I gel my soaps I can cut within 12 hours which is much nicer than the full week.

I think my soaps go through gel phase, but that's mostly because I cover them in blankets. But I wonder if you're right because in order to slow trace I mixed my lye water and oils at a lower temperature, like 90 degrees instead of 120 so maybe that means that even if I cover my soaps that they aren't going through gel phase. Excellent point.

I have never even read up on putting the soap in the oven to force gel phase since it seemed like it might be dangerous, but maybe I should try it. Thank you, I really hadn't thought of that.

 

[BattleGnome]

If you don’t want to use the oven you can use a heating pad. Place your mold on top of the pad then cover in blankets like you’ve been doing. You’ll have to do some experimenting to test how much heat is too much but you’ll learn when to turn off the heating pad and when to uncover everything. several members use this method, maybe they’ll pop in to give you more precise advice

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Holly at Kapia Mera soaps does a lot of swirling and has a YouTube channel. She shares her recipe for every soap she posts. That's where I started, using one of her recipes with palm oil that is high in soft oils.

 

[bookreader451]

I CPOP most of my soaps because I soap cool and I soap in by basement which is cool.
I have an oven down there and I turn it on to 170 and turn it of when I pull my warmed oils off the double boiler. I also keep a covered foil warming pan filled with water on the lower shelf. This also helps hold the heat. When the soap is done I pop it in, turn on the light and leave it.

I did find if you are using a shallower slab mold you have to watch it. I had one overheat and get alien brain. Also watch it with milk soaps.

 

[Todd Ziegler]

This is what I use for swirling and it works great.
50% lard
25% olive or safflower
20% coconut
5% castor

 

[rdc1978]

Todd - thank you so much I've been looking for a straight up recipe so I really appreciate it! I've had bad luck with my lard soap having a smell, but I think that might be because I heated it up really fast.

Bookreader - thank you, I absolutely think I'm going to try that with this batch. My mold isn't shallow but that's good info to have in case I start using the CPOP method all the time!

PS - I tried to quote each of you but I clearly don't know what I'm doing

Moback - oh thank you for that tip! I have been stalking various YT'ers and hadn't come across her channel. I had gotten my original swirl recipe from soaping 101 and it DOES offer a lot of time for swirls but this soap feels like it's never gonna harden!

 

[bookreader451]

Todd - thank you so much I've been looking for a straight up recipe so I really appreciate it! I've had bad luck with my lard soap having a smell, but I think that might be because I heated it up really fast.
PS - I tried to quote each of you but I clearly don't know what I'm doing

Yes, lard can be piggy if it gets to hot but I love it in soaps. If you are using a microwave watch it carefully and stir it to finish the melting instead of heating it more.

 

[amd]

Yes, lard can be piggy if it gets to hot

Or if you have a sensitive nose. I have used at 25% and swear that I'm showering in bacon... and don't get me started on that one time that I used a 100% lard soap, I'm still in therapy. I prefer to use tallow because of the smell, but the difference in trace time between lard and tallow is crazy ridiculous. (Lard is so much slower)