Hard soap

[Hummingbirdpc]

I have been soaking for a little while now I haven't had any problems until lately for some reason myself is so hard I can't cut it after 24 hours. Does anyone know why that might be or how to fix it or how I can cut it without it crumbling?

 

[AliOop]

Hi @Hummingbirdpc we would need to know your entire recipe and process, including additives, to help you figure out what's going on.

As a general matter, high CO and high tallow soaps often need to be cut prior to 24 hours. For soaps that are too hard now, you can gently reheat them in the oven with hawk-eye concentration to take them out when they soften enough to cut.

 

[Hummingbirdpc]

I'll try that thanks.
My recipe is 419.6 g olive oil, 314.7g coconut oil, 209.8g palm oil, 52.45g jojoba, 52.45g sweet almond oil, 308.4g lye, 462.6g water

 

[AliOop]

A quick run through the soap calculator shows that you would only need 154.96g of lye to saponify that amount of oils, even with a 0% superfat.

So unless I missed something, or you left out an oil, you used 2x the amount of lye required. As a result, your soap is extremely lye heavy, which would explain why it is so crumbly. Reheating it will not help; you will either need to rebatch to add double the oils, or salt out the soap, or toss it.

Are you running all your recipes through a lye calculator before using them? Also, what was your SF? Any other other additives like colors, fragrances, clay, salt, sugar, etc.?

 

[Hummingbirdpc]

I did use a lye calculator but I must have read it wrong. It has changed from the old one I've used in the past.

 

[Hummingbirdpc]

Will heating it up in the oven still work. And is the soap still usable

 

[cmzaha]

The only way you are going to save this soap is to do the math to up the recipe to a total of 2200 g of oil, which will give you a 5% superfat. You can do this in soap calc. You have a -98 superfat in the soap you made, there is no way to save it other than a method called salting out, there are threads in this forum here, but it is a process that does not necessarily make a nice soap. Nothing other than almost doubling your recipe and rebatching will fix this. Then if it is not melted down well and mixed well it still may not be good. If you decide to rebatch adding in all the extra oils I would add in extra water and in the end give the soap a very long cure. No, this soap is NOT useable.

If you choose to try to fix it go to Soap calc and start by printing out your recipe using the method of putting in the actual grams of each oil you used. You will end up with 1049 total oils. Put -98 in the Superfat box. After you have done that go back and change the total oil to 2200 superfat 5% and let soap calc recalculate. If you have a non-reactive pan that can go in the oven I would do this in an oven because you get a better melt versus a crockpot. I know this was an expensive recipe to make but I do not know for sure it is worth trying to fix. You may waste a lot more ingredients. I Personally would toss it and take it as a lesson learned. BTW Jojoba is really considered a wax and does not lend much if anything but expense to soap. Sorry long post. It sucks but unless you salt out you have no other choice.

This soap is so LYE Heavy Do Not handle without gloves
Here is an article by DeeAnna about Salting Out Salting-out soap | Soapy Stuff

 

[AliOop]

Thank you, Carolyn, I stepped away and wasn't available to answer sooner but you said exactly what I would have recommended, too. I almost never toss out a soap batch, but I'd probably toss this one since it is so caustic.

 

[cmzaha]

Thank you, Carolyn, I stepped away and wasn't available to answer sooner but you said exactly what I would have recommended, too. I almost never toss out a soap batch, but I'd probably toss this one since it is so caustic.

The problem is getting it liquified enough to incorporate all the new ingredients. It is just not worth it in my opinion. That was a huge miss which would not be worth the risk to me.

 

[xavalyss]

I would toss it.