Castile Soap Debacle

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Kimberly6891

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Good Morning Soapers

Maybe someone can give me some help/advise.

I have been wanting to make a castile soap (100% olive oil - no other oils) and I worried that it may be a soft soap and wondered how it would harden since olive oil is liquid, but alas, I tried it.

Here is my recipe------------with a 5% superfat (Use the Brambleberry Lye Calculator)

Olive Oil 32oz
Lye 6.08 Oz
Water 19.20
EO 1.4 oz

I made it on Saturday Morning and the top layer is all oil but underneath that layer, is SLIGHTLY solid, but I can still poke my finger through it with no problem.

I do realize that all liquid oil may not harden. Maybe I should of added a small portion of bee's wax or SOMETHING. Silly me.

I think I can just rebatch this one in my crock pot and add some other oil to it (I want to keep it as moisterizing as possible).

Any advise on how to make a very good castile soap?

Thanks - Kim
 
Did you get your batter to a thick trace before you poured? castile is prone to separating if not mixed well enough, seems thats what has happened to yours.

Go ahead and rebatch but don't add any other oils, it will get plenty hard on its own. You may not have to add any extra water, castile hardens faster if you do a water discount and it looks like you used full water. Sometimes castile will take longer to fully harden but once it does, it get really hard. No need to worry about it being a soft soap.
 
I got it to a medium trace. I was afraid to get it to a THICK trace, as my experience has been, with other non castile recipe's, it 'expands' in the mold.
 
I agree with Obsidian, I generally get my Castile to a fairly thick trace before putting it in my mold. It will remain softer at first but once cured is a hard bar of soap. But it does require a very long cure.
 
Hi Kim!

I just double-checked your recipe over on the Brambleberry lye calculator, because it looked to me like the water amount you listed as using was a bit large in proportion to your olive oil amount (i.e., 19.20 oz. water to 32 oz. olive oil). Sure enough, the water amount Brambleberry gave me was much lower that what you used, and the lye amount it gave me for a 5% S/F was much lower than what you used as well.

Here are the amounts that the Brambleberry calculator gave me when I typed in your recipe amount of 32 oz. olive oil:

32 oz. olive oil

4.074 oz. lye, superfatted @ 5% [compared to the amount of 6.08 oz. that you used]

10.56 oz. water [compared to the amount of 19.20 oz. that you used]

So, basically, if you truly used 6.08 oz. lye and 19.20 oz. water for your 32 oz. of olive oil, then, in effect (if my calculations are correct), your soap has an actual superfat of negative 40% instead of a positive 5%, and your water amount is a bit more than what is even considered to be a 'full water' amount.

Aha! That would explain to me why your soap is very soft/soupy.

Can it be saved? Yes, I believe it can. If it were me, I would re-batch it with enough olive oil added to it to offset the negative superfat, but I wouldn't add any more water to it- at least at first anyway. Keep some on hand and wait until the batter looks like it's drying out during the rebatch before adding any extra.

How much more olive oil? That's the tricky part. Pardon me while I think out loud..... Let's see....you have an excess of 2 oz. lye in your batch. Since 2 oz. of lye will saponify 16 oz of olive oil and leave you with a 5% superfat, then I would add 16 oz. more olive oil to it when you rebatch. Please don't proceed with the rebatch, though, until somebody else here re-checks my calculations and confirms them to be correct.


IrishLass :)
 
Irishlass is correct, I just did a 2 1/2 lb batch of castille and my numbers through soapcalc show I only had to use 5.094 oz lye so definitely too much lye.

Definitely re-run your numbers and you can totally save it through rebatch.

Good luck!
 
I'm surprised to hear you say liquid oils wouldn't harden in soap, because I would think the initial state wouldn't matter as much as the result after saponification. Am I wrong about that?
 
A lot of liquid oils can make a softer soap to start and may require several days before being able to unmold. However, with as long cure they can become nice hard bars of soap.
 
Cana you are right.. castiles after curing make for a very hard bar and not soft at all. They just take longer to cure and get to that point but in the end they are worth it. I love Castile but Bastile is my favorite because I like 8% castor, 8-10% coconut and some sugar to get extra bubble help.
 
Issues with Castile/Bastle

I’m in the same boat that Jennee is when it comes to making Bastile and for the same reasons, Using Castor Oil for the bubbly and suds properties and a little Coconut oil just to harden it up a touch. I still have the long curing issues which I wish there was a way around. After 6 to 8 weeks my Bastile still is a little moist to oily on the surface of the bars, so I put off shrink wrapping it even though my shrink wrap doesn’t cover the ends and it can still dry a little.

I make a lot of Bastile soap but not frequently. I just finished making about 130 bars of all different types of soap and probably won’t soap again for 8 months or a year. I made 40 bars of Bastile this time since some in the family have delicate skin issues and they like the Bastile.
 
I’m in the same boat that Jennee is when it comes to making Bastile and for the same reasons, Using Castor Oil for the bubbly and suds properties and a little Coconut oil just to harden it up a touch. I still have the long curing issues which I wish there was a way around. After 6 to 8 weeks my Bastile still is a little moist to oily on the surface of the bars, so I put off shrink wrapping it even though my shrink wrap doesn’t cover the ends and it can still dry a little.

I make a lot of Bastile soap but not frequently. I just finished making about 130 bars of all different types of soap and probably won’t soap again for 8 months or a year. I made 40 bars of Bastile this time since some in the family have delicate skin issues and they like the Bastile.

This post is over a year old. The poster hasn't been on since this post. :):)
 
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