Brittle hard soap. Help!

[MargoGalloway]

Hi All,

I'm new to soap making and attended a soap making workshop a couple of weeks ago. Loved it!

Being inspired I gathered ingredients straight away and made my first batches.

Made lemon and coconut with dried microplaned lemon rind and desiccated coconut which seemed to turn out of the moulds just fine. A little on the soft side but I'm hoping it will firm up as it dries.

Then I made some that I added tumeric and oatmeal to which sliced up nicely and again hopefully as it cures should harden up.

The last batch I made is my problem. I thought I would be clever and use Earl Grey tea to make the lye. Turned it out of the mould and it just crumbled when I tried to cut it.

Used exactly the same amounts of oils and lye as the other batches, so could it be the fact that I used tea instead of plain water that would have made the difference?

How can I reuse or remake this soap as I hate to waste it?

Looking forward to some sage advice

Margo

 

[seven]

can you please post your exact recipe and what you did when making the soap. that'll give us a better idea. i don't soap with tea a lot, but the few batches i made with tea as a full liquid swap came out fine.

 

[Susie]

Hey and welcome! We also need to know whether you have a digital scale and whether you have verified its accuracy lately. A nickel weighs 5 grams, so you can verify that easily. I have soaped with tea for water also, and no problems happened, so it should be some other factor.

 

[MargoGalloway]

OK The recipe I used was the one I got at the workshop and it seemed to work with the other batches but here it is:

750 gms Olive Oil
250 gms Coconut Oil (We used Copha)
139 gms caustic soda (sodium hydroxide)
375 gms water which I substituted for tea.

I added the caustic soda to the tea and made sure it had dissolved. I melted the copha and added the oil and warmed it up. I checked that they were both at around 55 degrees celcius then stirred them together. Then used a stick blender to mix it until I got it to thicken and trace. I used a silicon loaf tin thingy as a mould. Then wrapped it in towels, popped it in a box in my laundry cupboard for just over a week. It turned out of the mould ok but just crumbled when I tried to cut it. :thumbdown:

 

[MargoGalloway]

Oh and yes I have a brand spanking new digital scale

 

[Susie]

You should look to unmold and cut in just 18-24 hours(ish). It gets really hard after that. Also, always add your lye to your oils, not the other way around. The recipe checks out fine on soapcalc.net. Should be just waiting too long to unmold as the culprit.

You really need to learn to run all recipes through a good lye calculator for yourself. Many of us use http://soapcalc.net/. Click on the numbers in each section to get pointers on how to use. Also, we have a lovely tutorial by LunaSkye:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=49627&highlight=soapcalc

 

[HorseCreek]

With that much Olive oil, it shouldn't crumble after only a week though. I've cut soap after almost 4 weeks and it still doesn't crumble.
OP, how much crumble are we talking? Like just the bottom of the soap or like half the bar? Pics?

 

[lionprincess00]

Copha is 98% hydrogenated CO and 2% soy lecithin. I found this here.
http://www.soap-making-essentials.com/copha.html

It may be lye heavy which is usually a crumbling soap.Zap test to know, especially the crumbling part.

 

[seven]

I'm with Susie here, i think you left it too long in the mold. i ran your recipe on soapcalc, it looks fine and def not lye heavy. i've used copha before and put it under coconut oil 76 on soapcalc. okay so far.

there is no rule regarding how long you should leave your soap in the mold. every recipe is different. it is a good idea to keep an eye on it though, and take it out of the mold (and cut it) once it is hard. with mine, it usually happens on the 12-24 hour mark.

 

[MargoGalloway]

Thanks Everyone. For the advice. I'll post a pic tomorrow. It's pretty crumbly. Is there any way I can save or re use it?

 

[Susie]

You can rebatch it. But that is not going to give you smooth hard bars like CP does. Wait and show us pics before making any decisions. I am concerned that there may be more going on here than we know, so let us see to be sure.

 

[Kansas Farm Girl]

Every time I have had this type of issue the soap has been lye heavy, usually the recipe is fine, it turns out to be an I-D10T user error, such as the idiot (me) measuring the ingredients messed something up. A quick zap test confirmed that and I have been able to rebatch mine as I was able to determine what was left out, mis-measured or whether I did something else wrong. Have you done the zap test on it?