CP issues, not thickening

[Jamison]

What's an alternative I can use from olive oil? Should I use just veg oil until I get my brain wrapped around this type of craft?

*I'm speaking form a money perspective here. Olive oil isn't cheap.

 

[soapsmurf]

What's an alternative I can use from olive oil? Should I use just veg oil until I get my brain wrapped around this type of craft?

*I'm speaking form a money perspective here. Olive oil isn't cheap.

Many people have made soap from a variety of fats- like vegetable shortening. Olive oil is certainly not a must- you can make soap without it. Adjust your recipe accordingly.

 

[Jamison]

I surely wouldn't use veg shortening... gross.

I'm going to try saffola, castor, and peanut in smaller amounts next.


Olive seems to be the best main oil from what I've read. Along w/ coconut too. I'm not trying to just "make soap" I want something that's a quality product in every aspect. No silly additives unless they're beneficial to the skin.

 

[Jamison]

And Canola oil.....

 

[BakingNana]

I hear Canola goes rancid pretty quickly. As does sunflower. Yuck. I've been avoiding those. I get OO from Costco (in the States) by the gallon; not the expensive EVOO stuff I cook with...just the run-of-the-mill stuff that's a mixture of OO from various countries. A gallon is around $22.

 

[Jamison]

What is "yuck" about a natural and pure oil?



I attempted another batch today:
15oz olive oil
6.25oz coconut oil (butter-type)
3oz peanut oil
1oz hemp oil
1oz jojoba oil

9.98oz water
3.79oz lye

I've had a hand-mixer on it for an hour and 45mins. It got a little thicker in the first 30 mins, but has remained about the same for the remainder of the time. It's not getting any thicker....

 

[Jamison]

use a stick blender, it will save you much time in, w sb trace comes fast, like a minute? more for high oo.
also, all trace is, is mixing the oils with the lye/water, so if it mixed, it will work, people think that you have to see "trails" on top of mixture, not true.

what you are saying contradicts every online tutorial, book, and the people posting in this thread......

But it makes sense to me... getting everything melted and mixed together thoroughly is the important part.

However, not getting it to the 'trace trail' thickness hasn't yielded me soap. I have some still drying from a previous attempt, but it doesn't seem to be acting like it should at this point. And I just poured another batch. I'll see what happens in a day.

 

[BakingNana]

Jamison, what temp are you soaping at? I'm confused as to why this wouldn't trace after all that time and using a mixer, unless maybe the oils were too cool?

...and oils are yuck if they make your soap go rancid. I'd rather not have that happen. I make too much soap to use it all very quickly. I want it to keep well, and people who know a LOT more than me have warned about sunflower, soy, and canola not keeping well for a long time or contributing to DOS. I do use sunflower and hemp, but in small batches that I make sure to use within a reasonable time just in case. Ingredients are too expensive to throw things out, aren't they?!

You have me curious...If I get some time tomorrow, I'll do your recipe and see if I have trouble with it.

 

[honor435]

the book i have says this:"next you will see the mixture thickening and getting smoother, at this pont you can stop blending, saponification that produces soap can continue without further mixing, as I said before you DONT have to keep mixing long enough to see trace" Besides visual signs, you can feel for the thickness by turning off the blender and stirring with a spoon, sometimes you can hear the sb slowing down. Also you can check for a temp increase."
smart soapmaking Anne Watson

 

[Jamison]

Jamison, what temp are you soaping at? I'm confused as to why this wouldn't trace after all that time and using a mixer, unless maybe the oils were too cool?

You have me curious...If I get some time tomorrow, I'll do your recipe and see if I have trouble with it.

I'm confused too, that's why I'm here asking for suggestions.


I heated the oils to around 150. But let the oils and lye solution cool to around 120. In that hour and 45 min process, the heat dropped down into the 80's. Low 80's if I recall correctly.


I poured the stuff in a mold anyway. It did harden quite a bit, but from what I've seen, it should pop out of the mold with ease. I'm using a plastic shoe-bin for the mold.

 

[Jamison]

I've read hemp oil has a very short life and therefore should only make up 20% of your oils.

 

[BakingNana]

Sounds like you had good success with the shoe-box batch! Didn't get around to trying your recipe yet, but I will. Any problems getting the soap out of the box? I had a devil of a time once with a plastic container. Let me know your experience and anything special you did to prepare the box.

 

[carebear]

I surely wouldn't use veg shortening... gross.

what's so disgusting about vegetable shortening?

 

[carebear]

use a stick blender, it will save you much time in, w sb trace comes fast, like a minute? more for high oo.
also, all trace is, is mixing the oils with the lye/water, so if it mixed, it will work, people think that you have to see "trails" on top of mixture, not true.

what you are saying contradicts every online tutorial, book, and the people posting in this thread......

Honor is absolutely correct. You don't need to SEE the trails to know you are at trace - with a bit of experience you will know by the feel, by how the mixture moves in the bowl, etc.

Also. You don't need to reach trace. You DO, however, need to have your oils and lye/water fully emulsified and the easiest way to recognize that this has been accomplished is to wait until trace.

Olive oil is a funny beast - it takes forever to emulsify ( and trace ) and can take forever to harden up in the mold. If your soap didn't gel, I'd expect one with that much olive oil to be in the mold a week or more. I personally soap mine with a 45% lye concentration to move things along. I don't recommend that for you, yet, but at least 35-40% should help.

Canola as a cooking oil is not yuk, nor safflower. But both (especially the canola) are DOS prone, and I personally think DOS/rancidity is yuk.

Also totally yuk, IMO, is peanut oil. With allergies to peanuts being a life-threatening issue I'd never put it in soap where people aren't expecting to find it. Hidden danger unless your label screams "PEANUTS HERE! GET YOUR PEANUTS HERE!" But that's just me.

By hand mixer do you mean one of those things with the two cage-like rotating blades? It's not your best bet, if it is what you mean - get a stick blender, aka immersion blender.

 

[carebear]

What is the source of your lye?

 

[Jamison]

I have a 5 gallon bucket of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) from Essential Wholesale.


So I may just be new like you guys are saying and not knowing what to expect really. I just wasn't getting the results I saw on youtube vids and in books.


The shoebox thing worked alright... I'll line the container next time. :-X But the bars did set up and work as a soap. I just need some ph strips/meter to verify (any suggestions on that? I'd like a probe-type device)



I have also read olive oil soap can be helped w/ a little beeswax. Other sources have said beeswax will stop the soap from working on your skin.


thanks everyone!

 

[Bubbles Galore]

Why don't you try using Pomace Olive oil which traces much faster than the other types of olive oil? Cheap to play with, well it is here in Australia anyway.

Please buy a good stick blender and put yourself out of your misery pet. :wink:

 

[scouter139]

Hi Jamison,

Not sure if I read that you still have your original bars drying but you may want to try this....I made a couple small batchs of the same recipe CP about 3 months ago that were very "soft". What I mean by soft is they weren't a hard bar of soap, they mushed when I pushed on the top. Every one of the bars was like this so...I either used alot of soft oils or too much water in the batches. After 3 months, they aren't hardening as my other recipes are and as I would like them to be. So...I have an old dehydrator that is years old and hadn't been used and decided to try it.

Now, I know, the question has been asked before would a dehydrator help and the answer was basically no. But, I figured it was worth a try, I didn't like the soaps as they were, they were getting nowhere fast, so whats the harm?

I put them on the top shelves, mine is round with plastic grates in tiers, I put a couple bars on and set it up. I turned it on for 10 minutes and then turned it off, then turned the soap over and did it again. After 2 days, I upped the time to a half hour at a time and then letting them sit for a couple hours, it has worked. I left the air holes in the top open all the way for circulation. I did it to each batch I wasn't happy with and while these probably will never be super hard...they are much better and they haven't warped or shrunk.

I put a thermometer in the dehydrator and closed the holes, it gets up to 200 degrees inside. I haven't experimented yet with a fresh batch of soap yet but I have in now a batch a couple weeks old inside. There is no zap left in this batch so it will just be accelerating the evaporation of water. It is hardening the bars nicely.

Since, we all know how difficult it is to be patient while waiting for a new batch of CP to use, my next experiment will be a fresh batch of cold process. So, I'll let the soap go through gel, cut it and put half the bars out to dry like I normally do and the other half in the dehydrator and test the zappiness day by day.

Sorry, to be so long on this post Jamison but just thought I'd give you some suggestions in case this would help your first batches.

 

[soapsmurf]

I have a 5 gallon bucket of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) from Essential Wholesale.

Depending on the frequency of your soaping, you may want to transfer your lye into smaller containers. You don't want a lot of headroom inside the container, or the lye will try to react to any moisture in the air above it.

 

[ChrisShepp]

I put a thermometer in the dehydrator and closed the holes, it gets up to 200 degrees inside. I haven't experimented yet with a fresh batch of soap yet but I have in now a batch a couple weeks old inside.

200 degrees isn't melting your soap? :shock: