Help! When to unfold PVC mold

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RalphTheMastiff

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I made some soap yesterday, my first batch and i was hoping to un-mold this morning. Its all congealed and held together and the top looks like it may have pulled away from the edges a little but the bottom (i can't reach the top) is fairly soft, i can put a thumb imprint, like cold butter. Should i wait? should i Un-mold?
 
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I made some soap yesterday, my first batch and i was hoping to unfold this morning. Its all congealed and help together and the lop looks like it may have pulled away from the edges a little but the bottom (i can't reach the top) is fairly soft, i can put a thumb imprint, like cold butter. Should i wait? should i Un-mold?

If it's still soft you will need to leave it in the mold until it's hard enough to remove.

Is it in a round tube type PVC or loaf?

Did you line the mold with freezer paper? That too will play a big part in removal.

What kind of recipe are you using?
 
If it's still soft you will need to leave it in the mold until it's hard enough to remove.

Is it in a round tube type PVC or loaf?

Did you line the mold with freezer paper? That too will play a big part in removal.

What kind of recipe are you using?
When is hard enough to remove? Could you describe it? I think i could get it out now but not sure if i could should wait.

it is in a round PVC pipe. What i did was added whole eggs to the soap and did not account for the high water content of the eggs, thus it took a while to come to trace, and has i'd say a good 1 oz a lb of water to much, this is why i think its still a little on the soft side.

No liner but finished the inside with a micro finish to the PVC, have used for soft cheeses and have not had a problem.

John

1/3 coconut
1/3 soy
1/3 canola
1 egg per lb of oil
 
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When is hard enough to remove? Could you describe it? I think i could get it out now but not sure if i could should wait.

it is in a round PVC pipe. What i did was added whole eggs to the soap and did not account for the high water content of the eggs, thus it took a while to come to trace, and has i'd say a good 1 oz a lb of water to much, this is why i think its still a little on the soft side.

No liner but finished the inside with a micro finish to the PVC, have used for soft cheeses and have not had a problem.

John

1/3 coconut
1/3 soy
1/3 canola
1 egg per lb of oil


If you can remove it without damaging it then go for it. Generally it can take from 12-72 hours for soap to be hard enough to unmold. Depends on the recipe as well as if it gels or not. Your recipe is not a very good recipe and the Coconut is too high. Canola and Soy are both oils known to go rancid. And why the egg?
 
If you can remove it without damaging it then go for it. Generally it can take from 12-72 hours for soap to be hard enough to unmold. Depends on the recipe as well as if it gels or not. Your recipe is not a very good recipe and the Coconut is too high. Canola and Soy are both oils known to go rancid. And why the egg?
Canola and soy are readily available ingredients, inexpensive, available by me fresh, and in soap we buy locally that we like. The soy is more for a filler and the Canola is because it was described as being similar to olive oil for oleic acid and contributing protein and moisturizing quality. The egg is because of reading about it and the potential benefits it brings to the soap, i have a few cookbooks that are over 100 years aloe and the soap recipes in the back of the book calls for them, I also just like using things that come from our land and keeping things as close to home as possible. If you could enlighten me to why the coconut is to high? i did it at 1/3 to offset what i'v read canola being on the soft side. Id be more than happy to reduce this as it is the most expensive of the 3 oils. I'v done a tun of reading before trying to make soap but as we all know that only takes you so far and is no replacement for hands on experience and years of making.
 
Coconut is one of the oils with the highest cleansing value. Cleansing here is a bit of a misnomer, it tends to refer to how well it strips oils. Most people find using more than 20% coconut strips too many of their natural oils for a daily recipe. There are certainly places where you would want a lot of coconut (like a salt bar) but everyone is different and you may like the 30% coconut.

My question for you is: did you use a lye calculator or did you directly follow a recipe from a book? While there may be nothing wrong with the recipe, if you make your own adjustments you might want to look one up to be sure you have the right amount of NaOH. Soapee.com and soapcalc.net are popular ones.
 
My other thought was that soy being so lousy at cleansing needed something to compensate for that. I'm hoping that the higher content of coconut makes up for the soy. I am a person with oily skin so that may be why i tend to like using soaps with a lot of coconut oil. That being said i'd like to ad soap to what we sell and have to think of what other people would like just not myself. In upstate NY there is a soap company that makes soup using 100% soy and i hate it it, i don't feel clean, no bubbles, and does not last long, BUT i have a good friend who LOVES it, she buys $100's of dollars of it at a time to take back home with her.

I did not use a recipe from a book, but read a lot of them and what people had to say and formulated this based on reading feed back. i did plug everything in to a lye calculator act 3% supperfat (that does not include the fats that will saponify in the eggs and i was off just a hair in measuring fats so its more like 5 or 6)(I did a low supper fat to help with the rancidity problem you mentioned earlier, and hope that the preservation property's of the egg white helps with that)

Back to the original topic

I un-molded just now and while i had no liner it actual went really smooth. I used compressed air to gently move the soap out and once 4 or 5 inches were out of the tube were able to pull it out with the air on the other side it came right out nice and clean. it took about 10 seconds to remove the soap. The ends as i had mentioned were softer than i thought they should be and they were but 1/3 of an inch in it was much firmer so i think because the tubes were sealed it was just the excess moisture building up in the ends.

In the pictures you will see it is green and i believe from the respect i'v done that will go away over the curing proses as the egg molecules oxides and moisture comes out but time will tell

Let me know your thoughts any and all feedback, criticism, or advice is greatly appreciated.

IMG_6089.jpg


IMG_6090.jpg


IMG_6091.jpg
 
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Before you even think of selling you really need to do more research on oil properties etc. it takes at least a year of testing and formulating recipes to know how your soaps will be in 3,6, 9, 12 months or longer. And could you share your resource where you found information that the eggs will preserve the soap? I would love to see that information as not much survives the lye monster. Canola and Soy are very well known to go rancid unless used in small amounts. Read up on DOS as well. As you are likely to see it sooner rather than later. Another good source that you may want to read is Scientific soapmaking by Kevin Dunn. So much valuable information. And we have several very smart science folks here too.

Oily skin does not require a high cleansing factor. If you strip too much oil off the skin it will create more oil and for many causes more issues. So, again you really need to do more research.

I highly recommend reading the last 10 pages or so of the beginners section or even more. Also, please visit the introduction thread and tell us a little about yourself.
 
Your soap looks nice and it looks like it came out of your mold nicely. Next time, maybe rub a little lanolin or mineral oil inside the mold to assist in easy removal. I use lanolin for hard plastic molds and it really helps get the soap out smoothly. Additionally, you can put it in the freezer for a few minutes (maybe 15 minutes) right before you unmold. That also helps get it out more easily with plastic molds.

I really like egg yolk soap. But when I make it, I do deduct the egg from the water portion in my lye water. I whip the egg yolks with a fork, then stir them into the oil with my stick blender before adding the lye solution. I have found that the eggs do help in high CO content soap to counteract the excess cleansing/stripping ability of Coconut Oil. Otherwise, I don't like high CO soaps. I have also made egg white soap, but never soap using both parts of the egg, so maybe I'll try that someday and see what it's like.

Anyway, I find that egg yolk soap colors darker than soap without egg yolks. Every time I use egg yolks in soap the color is yellow, somewhat like dark mustard or old egg yolks, and that is with no added color. Adding colorants can change that, of course. Egg whites don't influence the color of the soap at all in my experience.

So I'm wondering what made your soap green? I didn't notice if you said you added anything that would give that color. Did you add any fragrance or colorants to your soap?

Is it zap free yet?
 
I agree that selling should probably be taken off the table until at least a year from now, so you have plenty of time to learn the science behind soapmaking and start formulating some recipes that you like and that will still perform well after a nice long cure. Make sure to also familiarize yourself with the laws, insurance and regulations around selling cosmetics in your location.

Like others say, your current recipe could end up having some pretty nasty DOS, so keep an eye on it over the coming months.

As a next step, you could try a batch of soap with a standard recipe so you'll have something to compare as both cure. High lard/palm/tallow, medium olive oil, low/medium coconut oil (no higher than 20%) and 5% castor would be a good starting point.
 
As Earlene said:

The weight of Additives (eggs etc) and purees should be subtracted from the amount of water in a recipe.

Your soap looks nice.
 
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Before you even think of selling you really need to do more research on oil properties etc. it takes at least a year of testing and formulating recipes to know how your soaps will be in 3,6, 9, 12 months or longer. And could you share your resource where you found information that the eggs will preserve the soap? I would love to see that information as not much survives the lye monster. Canola and Soy are very well known to go rancid unless used in small amounts. Read up on DOS as well. As you are likely to see it sooner rather than later. Another good source that you may want to read is Scientific soapmaking by Kevin Dunn. So much valuable information. And we have several very smart science folks here too.

Oily skin does not require a high cleansing factor. If you strip too much oil off the skin it will create more oil and for many causes more issues. So, again you really need to do more research.

I highly recommend reading the last 10 pages or so of the beginners section or even more. Also, please visit the introduction thread and tell us a little about yourself.
i agree I'm far from selling, and also read in the introductions someone will jump down my throat about it, did not take long lol, but thats the eventual goal.

A lot of the info i have found on DOS from the medical field has to be with low quality of old oil to begin with. I am using Fresher and a higher grade of oil than that found in a supermarket, That cupped with using equipment and space that has bean sanitized to minimize the exposure to bacteria that could lead to DOS down the road.

The other theories i have read on DOS (not on DOS but talking about molecular differences and defects on dan blahblahblah) is the chemical solvents that are used in making Canola could contribute to them if the temp of the final evaporation of said chemical if it gets to high. This compromises the quality of the oil and can leave small traces of it behind, not to mention execrating the aging process from over heating. I'm hoping by avoiding these 2 situations i won't have a problem, But time will tell.

if you go on youtube and watch a lot of soap makers, its clear to see they are done so in well less than clean conditions. But I'm thinking its the second that may be leading to DOS in Canola or other oils that are extracted using the same methods.

The information on eggs in soap I have is in vintage cookbooks and also some vintage published college research on eggs in soap from the 20's that is with a collection on agriculture reports i have, I'll see about digitizing them.

I'll check out Kevin Dunn! Thanks!

While i understand shipping to much oils causes more to be produced, why only wash my hair weekly, I also would like to see how the soy effects this with the coconut. it will be interesting to see.

I'll read those 10 pages and then some I'v gotten some done but not all and will go to the intro page.

Let me know your thoughts, agin i'v read a lot and we all know that is only so good, especially online information.

Your soap looks nice and it looks like it came out of your mold nicely. Next time, maybe rub a little lanolin or mineral oil inside the mold to assist in easy removal. I use lanolin for hard plastic molds and it really helps get the soap out smoothly. Additionally, you can put it in the freezer for a few minutes (maybe 15 minutes) right before you unmold. That also helps get it out more easily with plastic molds.

I really like egg yolk soap. But when I make it, I do deduct the egg from the water portion in my lye water. I whip the egg yolks with a fork, then stir them into the oil with my stick blender before adding the lye solution. I have found that the eggs do help in high CO content soap to counteract the excess cleansing/stripping ability of Coconut Oil. Otherwise, I don't like high CO soaps. I have also made egg white soap, but never soap using both parts of the egg, so maybe I'll try that someday and see what it's like.

Anyway, I find that egg yolk soap colors darker than soap without egg yolks. Every time I use egg yolks in soap the color is yellow, somewhat like dark mustard or old egg yolks, and that is with no added color. Adding colorants can change that, of course. Egg whites don't influence the color of the soap at all in my experience.

So I'm wondering what made your soap green? I didn't notice if you said you added anything that would give that color. Did you add any fragrance or colorants to your soap?

Is it zap free yet?
It ended up coming out super easy and took no time or effort at all! lanolin is something I'm interested in incorporating in soap along with beeswax. Good stuff!

I am trying agin tomorrow morning and am going to reduce the amount of water that i used, it came out fine but just took a long time to trace.

I'd love to see a picture of your egg soaps, its hard to come by them in the marketplace, mainly because i think of the difficulty of not making scrambled eggs haha. The ones I'v used are FANTASTIC but no one i know who soaps want to deal with it and say 1/2 the time they ruin a batch and have to throw it out.

now the Green! Its great from the reaction of the whole egg!!! No colorants, no Fragrances, Just eggs! Cool right!? unfortunately i believe it will completely go away, it also has to do in the manner i incorporate it. Cool stuff though!

Zap!? Free!? Ehhh how long after making it should i wait? haha
 
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The other theories i have read on DOS (not on DOS but talking about molecular differences and defects on dan blahblahblah) is the chemical solvents that are used in making Canola could contribute to them if the temp of the final evaporation of said chemical if it gets to high.

Let me know your thoughts, agin i'v read a lot and we all know that is only so good, especially online information.

You might be interested in reading this good experiment on single oil soaps. It gives an insight into how each oil reacts.

http://alchemyandashes.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/single-oil-soap-experiment-phase-one.html?m=1

Click thru on a computer (I can't get the link on the mobile) to see her follow up results. It's startling!
 
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I agree that selling should probably be taken off the table until at least a year from now, so you have plenty of time to learn the science behind soapmaking and start formulating some recipes that you like and that will still perform well after a nice long cure. Make sure to also familiarize yourself with the laws, insurance and regulations around selling cosmetics in your location.

Like others say, your current recipe could end up having some pretty nasty DOS, so keep an eye on it over the coming months.

As a next step, you could try a batch of soap with a standard recipe so you'll have something to compare as both cure. High lard/palm/tallow, medium olive oil, low/medium coconut oil (no higher than 20%) and 5% castor would be a good starting point.
I am covered under business insurance i already have, but YES always insure yourself and your never to small to have an LLC! More crafters need both in this crazy world!

I agree i have much to learn and make before selling but that is the goal and what i'm working towards!

I have a controle batch using a recipe out of the everything soap making book, along with a vintage egg soap to compare this one to. Using both as controls.

Tallow is on my list to get but its a 4 hour trip to get highly tested stuff so it has to wait!

Thank you for your thoughts and please ad as manny as you can!!!

As Earlene said:

The weight of Additives (eggs etc) and purees should be subtracted from the amount of water in a recipe.

Your soap looks nice.
Thank you I'm happy with how it came out! I'm going to try and reduce water tomorrow for a batch.

Thank you for contributing!

You might be interested in reading this good experiment on single oil soaps. It gives an insight into how each oil reacts.

http://alchemyandashes.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/single-oil-soap-experiment-phase-one.html?m=1

Click thru on a computer (I can't get the link on the mobile) to see her follow up results. It's startling!
I was on a site similar the other day where she did a bunch of videos of it sudsing very cool thank you for sharing I'm going to read over the site tonight!
 
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Thank you I'm happy with how it came out! I'm going to try and reduce water tomorrow for a batch.

Thank you for contributing!

No I mean if you have a recipe you know works you can adjusts it to add any purée or liquid additive by subtracting it from the water in the recipe.

Adjusting the lye concentration is different. Even though both do the same theoretically. I think the aim is to make soap scientifically (precisely) so you can repeat the same soap again and again.

That's probably where the others have gone wrong with their egg recipes.

An egg might be 20g, 60g or 80g. Unless you weigh it and subtract that weight from your water you won't be able to repeat what you did.

Your 31% or 33% lye concentration adjustments will be meaningless because you won't know how much "water" you added.
 
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No I mean if you have a recipe you know works you can adjusts it to add any purée or liquid additive by subtracting it from the water in the recipe.

Adjusting the lye concentration is different. Even though both do the same theoretically. I think the aim is to make soap scientifically (precisely) so you can repeat the same soap again and again.

That's probably where the others have gone wrong with their egg recipes.

An egg might be 20g, 60g or 80g. Unless you weigh it and subtract that weight from your water you won't be able to repeat what you did.

Your 31% or 33% lye concentration adjustments will be meaningless because you won't know how much "water" you added.
By reducing the water i meant replacing with the egg by weight, end up with the same water content or the same lye concentration.
 
I think the soap looks great (though the green surprises me) and while not like what everyone else here makes, the recipe is fine in my book. I like to see what happens with around-the-house oils as well as all the exotic stuff I've spent too much money on.

I have made two batches of shampoo soap and both included three egg yolks. I don't color these because, well, it's going on hair and they always turn out medium tan in color as someone else mentioned earlier. Haven't seen the green color.

Are these your own eggs or store bought?
 
I think the soap looks great (though the green surprises me) and while not like what everyone else here makes, the recipe is fine in my book. I like to see what happens with around-the-house oils as well as all the exotic stuff I've spent too much money on.

I have made two batches of shampoo soap and both included three egg yolks. I don't color these because, well, it's going on hair and they always turn out medium tan in color as someone else mentioned earlier. Haven't seen the green color.

Are these your own eggs or store bought?
The eggs i used are "store bought" but local free range, i have no laying birds right now how i will be getting ducks and am interested it see how duck eggs are in the soap, completely different makeup.

i tend to steer away from color in soaps when i buy them because why? its just more unnecessary dyes I'm also a yellow cheese free home as well haha.

You might be interested in reading this good experiment on single oil soaps. It gives an insight into how each oil reacts.

http://alchemyandashes.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/single-oil-soap-experiment-phase-one.html?m=1

Click thru on a computer (I can't get the link on the mobile) to see her follow up results. It's startling!
Wow very cool link, the results are very encouraging and surprised the coconut had DOS but some other oils you would think would did not! what a fantastic resource!
 
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Wow very cool link, the results are very encouraging and surprised the coconut had DOS but some other oils you would think would did not! what a fantastic resource!


I really think good hygiene and ventilation are important too as you said before. Good luck with your experiments.

I was amazed at your American cheese!!! We don't add colour to our cheese here and it was a shock to see yours. Don't know why they bother adding it. I don't find orange cheese at all enticing but some Americans must. I thought it was interesting that there didn't seem to be a choice for uncoloured in the small range of supermarkets we went to while visiting unless you bought tasteless edam or swiss I think. We have some lovely strong and bitey tasty cheese that is pale, pale, pale butter colour.
 
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