Gel and soap temps

[Cookie]

Hi,

I normally wrap my molds, wood and silicone, in an old towel and put it on the washing machine. I have been able to get full gel on my soaps this way. I made some soap yesterday and the temp of both my lye mix and oils was 26 degrees Celsius. Even though I did exactly the same thing I was unable to get the soap to gel. Actually it never got very hot till about 3am, about 12 hours later. I've usually noticed this level of heat after about 3 or so hours in the mould.

It's the same recipe I've used before, the only new thing are some new micas. Is the lack of gel just because my temps were quite low to start with? I'm using the silicone mould this time and I notice that even more than 24 hours later the soap is still quite soft and can't be unmolded yet. Does it just take longer to harden in a silicone mold?

Also, do mica colours get stronger/brighter during the hardening and/or curing?

Thanks in advance

 

[snappyllama]

Silicon molds do not insulate as well as wooden ones and can take more effort to get a gel going. They also can take longer to unmold. Gelling your soap tends to intensify colors so your ungelled soaps will be more pastel and opaque looking. Some colorants change a bit after cutting... for example: a pink can look orange in the loaf until oxygenation changes it back to pink.

If you're starting colder than normal, it can take time for the reaction to get going...

 

[navigator9]

^ ^ ^ What snappy said. This is why many people who want their soap to gel in silicone molds, CPOP their soap.....prewarm the mold in the oven at it's lowest setting, while they mix the batter, pour into the warmed mold, stick it back in the warm oven, and turn the oven off. That's how I do it, and my soap gels every time.

 

[Susie]

Or, you can place the mold on top of a heating pad that has been on high long enough to get hot, then unplug it when you place the full mold on top of it. Works a charm in my cool house this winter.

 

[Cookie]

Thanks for the feedback, I haven't tried CPOP yet but I'll have to give it a go as I don't have a heating pad.

 

[Cookie]

Hi Again,

Do lower soaping temps contribute to it taking longer for the soap to be ready to unmold? I used the same recipe that I used the last time I used the silicone mold and it was ready to unmold 48 hours later, but this time it's still too soft. I kind of gently forced it out and it wasn't too bad but I've put it back in the mold to harden some more. I did cut one piece though......impatient.........and I'm worried about the highlighted areas. I poured at emulsion and mixed the mica in. I did have trouble with the green and blue but I didn't have any white batter. I thought that I mixed everything well enough but do you think there's a chance that it's lye? The whole soap is still a little zappy so I can't tell that way.

Thanks in advance

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

As for the first part - it can! Saponification creates heat but it is also sped up with heat, so when we soap colder the whole process takes a little bit longer than when we soap hotter

 

[shunt2011]

I generally soap at room temp and I always use some kind of milk and it can take it a couple hours or so until it starts to gel. I use silicone lined wood molds and just keep them covered with a towel over the top of the lid and always get gel though it takes awhile.

 

[navigator9]

Hi Again,

Do lower soaping temps contribute to it taking longer for the soap to be ready to unmold? I used the same recipe that I used the last time I used the silicone mold and it was ready to unmold 48 hours later, but this time it's still too soft. I kind of gently forced it out and it wasn't too bad but I've put it back in the mold to harden some more. I did cut one piece though......impatient.........and I'm worried about the highlighted areas. I poured at emulsion and mixed the mica in. I did have trouble with the green and blue but I didn't have any white batter. I thought that I mixed everything well enough but do you think there's a chance that it's lye? The whole soap is still a little zappy so I can't tell that way.

Thanks in advance

What happens is that if the batter is cooler to begin with, it takes longer for the saponification process to begin to heat up the batter and start to gel, and the gelling affects how long it takes to unmold. I soap cool because I like to have a little more control....things move along a bit more slowly. I like to CPOP for a couple of reasons. The first is that I like to be able to unmold the next day. CPOP forces gel, and that makes soap go through saponification faster, so the soap can be unmolded the next day, and no zap is left. Then my mold is free to be used again, and my soap has unmolded cleanly and is ready to be cut. The second reason I like to CPOP is that it insures that the soap gels all the way to the edges. I've been doing this almost from the beginning. There are as many ways of soaping as there are soapers, this is the way that works best for me. Each soaper finds their own groove. It just takes time. :smile:

 

[Cookie]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I will CPOP next time since I'm too impatient to wait three days to unmold but I do like to soap cool. I guess time will tell if there's undissolved lye, hopefully I'll have more answers about that when I'm able to cut the whole loaf.

 

[Cookie]

Wow, have I learnt from this batch! The soap was still too soft to unmold last night, more than three days later! What a difference soaping cold makes. Hopefully it will be ready in the next few days. The left overs which I poured into individual silicone moulds are also still soft

I saw a friend yesterday with much more soaping experience than me and he thinks that the white line I was worried about is probably undissolved copha. It was all melted but because I left it for a few hours after that and didn't blend it with my other oils straight away he believes a little may have solidified without me noticing it. So, soaping too hot causes problems, but so does soaping cold. He said most people wouldn't soap as cold as I did this time.

Also I didn't pre blend my Micas with a little oil and that caused problems

Interesting!