Gel Phase - is it necessary?

[KiwiMoose]

I had a little surprise this evening when I checked my second-ever batch of soap. It was hot and quite thin (runnier than when I poured it into the molds) and almost clear!

I raced to my computer to ask Mr Google what was going on, and discovered there is a 'gel phase' when soaping! Who knew? I thought I had watched every you tube video and read every 'how to' article online. Did my previous (first-ever) batch of soap go through this phase without me noticing?

I thought it was mandatory to cover my soap to slow cooling down so that it would cure better? Now i read that you have a choice about whether to let it gel or not by putting it in the fridge, not covering it, etc.

So, why do we need the gel phase? Why would we want to either encourage it or discourage it?

I uncovered my soap and left it to cool. When I came back about 4 hours later it had cooled and hardened a bit more, but it is still quite clear looking. Will it go back to the creamy looking soap I had to start with?

This was CP soap.

Please advise, fellow soapers.

 

[artemis]

Here's a thread with a lot of info on gel phase: https://www.soapmakingforum.com/index.php?threads/70009/

 

[lsg]

I discourage gel when I make milk soap because gelling heats the soap up turning it a tan color. If your soap contains ingredients, like honey, that will encourage overheating, then you might want to prevent gelling.

 

[Zing]

KiwiMoose, can you post the recipe you used? I like gel phase when I use colorants because it makes the colors more vivid. When you say your soap is 'clear' I wonder if you have glycerin rivers, which doesn't affect the soap, it's a cosmetic/aesthetic thing. I get glycerin rivers when I use titanium dioxide for the color white and soap at too high a temperature. Now I soap at below 100 degrees F to prevent glycerin rivers.

 

[DeeAnna]

From your description, I'm not sure you're seeing soap in its gel phase. I'm not sure what you're seeing, but it doesn't sound like gelled soap.

When my soap is saponifying and reaches the gel state, the gelled soap looks darker and often slightly translucent, but it's definitely a thick, non-runny paste. It's not watery nor clear. Within several hours of starting into gel, the soap starts to cool and then becomes opaque and the color lightens.

To get better advice about this issue with your soap, you should provide more information about your recipe and method. Pictures would also be helpful.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Oh - thanks so much all for your replies. It's great that you're all in the USA because I can go to sleep, wake up, and voila! There are my answers.

Today, upon waking, my soap looks well on the way to hardening, with no glycerin rivers. It does have a few 'brains' on the surface, but that doesn't bother me. It's been covered with cling film the whole time

DeeAnna - it wasn't really runny per se, it was just a thinner consistency to when i actually put it into the molds. It certainly was translucent compared to the creamy mixture I poured in.

Here's a pic of when it went into the molds, and another of how it looks this morning. If you notice little flecks in it, don't be alarmed, it's ground oatmeal

 

[penelopejane]

The small very white spots might be stearic spots.
It looks like you used heaps of oatmeal. Sometimes too much oatmeal can lead to a bar that breaks.

You won’t know if you have glycerin rivers until you cut it.
Not sure where you are seeing the brains on your soap.

 

[KiwiMoose]

PJ - I put about two tablespoons of ground oatmeal into a batch with 1kg of oil (about 2 pounds of oil).

 

[penelopejane]

I use 2 Tbsp in 1.7 kg of oils.
Just watch and see if, after the soap has cured, it breaks in half etc. if it does it’s too much oatmeal. I grind my own until it is really fine then sift out all the big bits. So it’s close to colloidal but cheaper!

Did you use milk? Some of the white spots could be milk too.

 

[KiwiMoose]

I use 2 Tbsp in 1.7 kg of oils.
Just watch and see if, after the soap has cured, it breaks in half etc. if it does it’s too much oatmeal. I bring my own until it is really fine then sift out all the big bits. So it’s close to colloidal but cheaper!

Did you use milk? Some of the white spots could be milk too.

No milk - that's for you experts!

 

[Cellador]

It looks like a standard gel phase to me. One advantage of allowing soaps to gel is that you can unmold/cut more quickly.

 

[DeeAnna]

I agree now that I've seen the photos. A picture, 1000 words, and all that.....

 

[KiwiMoose]

So it's now been almost 48 hours since I poured them. And they don't look anywhere near ready to unmold - way too soft. My other CP soap I made unmolded after 24 hours and it was perfect. The only difference is in the types of oils used - this one had neem oil and castor oil in it as well as the olive oil and apricot kernel I used in my first batch (but the coconut oil 25% and the shea butter 10% ratios remained the same). The other difference is that this time I used extra-virgin olive oil instead of a blend.
PJ et al - do you think it's the oatmeal?

 

[SaltedFig]

The "brains" you mentioned suggest that your soap got very hot.

A couple of questions - how much castor did you add to the recipe?
(The full recipe makes it much easier to work out what is happening, so if you feel happy posting that, that would be of great help - please include the actual weights of the oils, hydroxide, water and additives)

And the other question - what is the mold you are using made from?

 

[KiwiMoose]

Thanks SF,
From memory:
One litre oils:
Coconut 25%
Olive 20%
Castor 20%
Apricot kernel 20%
Neem 5%
Shea Butter 10%
Water 330ml
Lye 140g
30ml EO
2 Tbls Oatmeal after trace
Calculated by soap calc . Net

 

[Anglezarke]

That's quite a lot of Castor, and quite a lot of EO.

 

[SaltedFig]

The lye concentration is just slightly lower that the 30-33% range (it's not a problem, just something to know - your soap will gel more easily and at a lower temperature when you use the lower lye concentration - raising the lye concentration raises the temperature the soap needs to reach before it can gel).

Anglezarke is right - the castor percentage is quite high for the recipe you have. Castor with this type of mostly liquid oil recipe will lead to a soft soap. The soap will very gradually harden over time, but it will never get to be much past "firm-ish", and the best texture will be at about the 3 year mark (ask me how I know ). This high level of castor works with some very high stearic/palmitic recipes (likely because they are so rock-like to begin with), but a more common percentage for castor oil is in the region of 3-5% of weight of oils.

The fragrance percentage is usually for synthetic fragrances. If you are using Essential oils, the usage rate will depend on which specific EO's you are using - some have much lower usage rates than the fragrance oils. It is also better to add by weight, rather than volume, to calculate the percentages, although once you are used to the EO's you are working with, you will know roughly what the amount looks like and can go to using volume (but to begin with it's best to use weight to calculate the percentages )

You might need to leave the soap in the mold for a week or two, or you can freeze it to get it out sooner (it should keep some of it's form, if you handle it carefully on unmolding). I personally would suggest you cure this anyway and see what you think, but you could also re-batch it.

Out of curiosity, what EO's did you use?
(And what is your mold/pan made from?)

 

[KiwiMoose]

Oh I forgot sorry - the mould is silicone.
I didn’t realise that castor oil would make so much difference to the recipe. Last time it was just coconut and Shea (same quantities), with olive and apricot kernel. It was a first batch success!
I thought it was a lot of EO too (and let’s face it, they ain’t cheap!) but that’s what the recipe said. My EOs don’t weigh well - The scales don’t seem to register anything under 10-20g. I put a measuring cup on, tare, then start adding, and the scales still show 0! So I have to base it on mls and approximation.

 

[SaltedFig]

Ah. Then it might be more than just a bit of excess castor, unfortunately.

With scales that are so inaccurate that you cannot get less than 10-20 grams to register - you cannot really safely make soap (the hydroxide measurement needs to be quite precise to be safe, and at the other end of the scale [] you could be adding a significant amount of extra oils, which might be what happened in this soap).

If you can purchase a digital scale accurate to two decimal places, that is best for soapmaking, but even a reasonable cheap scale accurate to 0.1g is better than what you currently have. At worst, use a scale accurate to 1g and don't make batches smaller than about 500g of oils (you can pick one of those up for under $20).

You'll be right once you get a good scale

 

[KiwiMoose]

These are good scales, I’m sure. But it seems that the EOs are just too light to measure. The measuring cup is only about 25g and it weighs that fine. Then when I drop the oils in I get nothing! When I get home from work I’ll post a photo of the scales.

OK - scales tested and accurate to 1g. It's just the EO that doesn't want to weigh. I'm happy that everything's ok except that being a beginner I didn't know I shouldn't use so much castor oil proportionate to the other oils. I guess my 1kg bottle will last me a little longer than expected now. Gosh darn it, I'll have to make lots of soap to use it all up!

Another interesting point is that I ran my first-ever batch recipe through the soap calc to find that soap calc says I should use more water (a higher water to lye ratio). My first recipe had 330g water with 145g lye (1kg oils). I made the recipe myself as a conglomeration of all the recipes I'd seen on you tube and read online, combined with an online lye calculator. By contrast - this latest recipe (that got very hot in the gel phase and seems to be very soft) has 380g water with 138g of lye. So aside from the over-use of castor oil, I suspect this would also cause a softer soap?

Gee - it get's the ol' brain working doesn't it? All this chemistry stuff.