How to increase trance time?

[Moonday]

Hi
I need to increase trance time near 5 min more because I can't mold my soap correctly. How I buy some more time without increase water?
Regards!

 

[shunt2011]

Using either high olive or lard will give you a relatively slow trace recipe. If you post your recipe and technique we can certainly help you tweak your recipe a bit.

 

[dixiedragon]

What's your recipe? Certain oils, FOs and EOs really speed trace. I've found that more than 5% or so of butter - shea, cocoa or mango - dramatically speeds trace.

 

[Moonday]

Coconut 20%
Palm 30%
Castor 5%
Soybean 5%
Olive 35%
And SA 5%
It seem increasing or decreasing oils haven't any effect on trance time.

 

[shunt2011]

Remove the stearic acid. That will make your soap trace faster as will higher amount of Palm, but I use it at 30% and don't have an issue. Add the difference to your Olive. Also, soaping on the cooler side helps as well.

That should help a great deal.

 

[Dorymae]

Also try soaping cold, below 90 degrees. Lye water can be placed in a ice bath to cool it faster. Or prepare it a day ahead and put it out of reach of little ones in a labeled container.

 

[kumudini]

I have also noticed that no Palm, no butters recipes take forever to trace. Also if you have tricky EOs, better to add them to oils before lye. I don't have much experience with FOs. Just made my first FO soaps yesterday, HP'd those.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Coconut 20%
Palm 30%
Castor 5%
Soybean 5%
Olive 35%
And SA 5%
It seem increasing or decreasing oils haven't any effect on trance time.

Okay, so it appears that some posts have been lost in the move. There was one where Moonday said that the recipe has to contain SA, which led me to post something along these lines:

Soap recipes are often a compromise - not always, but mostly. Want a lot of CO, you need to up the SF. Want lots of OO, you need to wait a while and cure a lot. Want a low SF, you need to keep an eye on the cleansing oils.

Moonday, if you must have SA in the recipe, must not use more water and won't use lard in stead of palm.......................then you have to make do with your trace time. Soaping cooler can make the SA harder to work with and might actually give you LESS time as it will go hard so fast.

Why do you HAVE to use SA? What is it that SA brings to the table? There might be another way to get the qualities of SA in the recipe with a combination of other ingredients.

 

[Moonday]

SA help to decrease soap solubility in use. I have problem by finding oils and must use of SA.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Then as I said, I think you might just have to make do with the trace time. There is often this trade-off where something is sacrificed for something else - like if someone wanted to use Pine Tar but have a slow trace, it would not be easily managed.

 

[Spice]

Also try soaping cold, below 90 degrees. Lye water can be placed in a ice bath to cool it faster. Or prepare it a day ahead and put it out of reach of little ones in a labeled container.

Dorymae; I have been having issue with trace too. I was wondering about soaping colder, I just was sure if I could do that. I see I can. My soap would trace so fast that I was tempted to use a spatula instead of a stick blender. My lye water has been at right about 90 degree and oils the same. I will try the ice bath. Didnt mean to hijack the post.

Coconut 20%
Palm 30%
Castor 5%
Soybean 5%
Olive 35%
And SA 5%
It seem increasing or decreasing oils haven't any effect on trance time.

is SA, sweet Almond oil?

 

[Obsidian]

SA in this case means steric acid

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Coconut 20%
Palm 30%
Castor 5%
Soybean 5%
Olive 35%
And SA 5%
It seem increasing or decreasing oils haven't any effect on trance time.

As long as you have 5% stearic acid in your recipe, your soap will trace very quickly. I guarantee it. There is nothing you can do except change the laws of physics.

 

[Moonday]

so I must start to learn physic! :mrgreen: