How quickly does Kentish Rain A?

[Navaria]

I have a very specific design planned, and it's very important to me that this turn out. It's kind of a landscape so I'll need time to work. I know BB says Kentish Rain can A, but I'd like to hear from people who've used it. How bad is it? Do I have to worry about soap on a stick? Or are we talking you take it to emulsion and it goes to thin pudding before you finish your pour?

 

[newbie]

It definitely accelerates. You will have to be prepared and move quickly. It's one of the water scents and they generally don't give you much time, along the lines of some florals.

 

[IrishLass]

Kentish Rain is one of my 'problem child' FOs. Its window of swirling opportunity is too short for me to be able to do anything fancy beyond a 2-colored ITM (in the mold) swirl.....and the most successful/least stressful way that I've come up with to be able to do that is this:

1) I set the FO aside while I separate my just-emulsified batter into to 2 separate cups to color.....

2) Once each portion is colored, I then I hand-stir equal parts of the FO into each cup of colored batter (no stick-blending of the FO).

3) From that point, it takes about 1 minute or so before it really starts thickening up, so I need to work quick. Before it gets too much beyond medium trace, I simultaneously pour each portion of colored/scented batter into my mold at the same time in a crisscross pattern, then I quickly jiggle the mold to even the batter out before doing a haphazard swirl with a chopstick as best and as quick as I can before it sets up too much for me to be able to do anything more to it. Whew!

Because such things matter, I need to mention that with the above technique my formula is my tallow/lard formula (a high hard fat formula), my lye concentration is 30%, and my soaping temp is 120F.

I remember well the first time I ever soaped it- I added the FO up front to my oils, and it was a near disaster. I barely was able to get the rapidly thickening batter into the mold, where it promptly set up and got so hot that my finished soap had lots of translucent globs 'glycerin rivers' throughout it. It literally looked like I had poured a handful of chunked-up clear MP into my soap. lol

The way I work with it now goes much more smooth in comparison.


IrishLass

 

[Navaria]

Then it definitely won't do what I'm wanting to do. Thanks guys. You saved me some heartache for sure! I just need to come up with a new plan for it now.

 

[RobertBarnett]

Tip for accelerating fo's

take 1 oz. (basically equal amounts of fragrance oil to fixed oil) liquid oil out of your recipe and heat it up to 100 degrees. Then, add your fragrance into this oil. This simply dilutes the fragrance oil’s initial acceleration.

You can also add the oil/fragrance mixture earlier than usual. Rather than adding the fragrance at a thick trace, you can add it at the first sign of thin trace.

Always hand stir the fragrance/oil mixture in with a fork/ladle and never, ever use a hand blender for problem oils.

Lastly, raise your temperatures to about 110 to 115 degrees. This will help to keep your mixture more liquid than at a lower temperature. If it does start to rice you can try using your stick blender to help smooth the soap out.