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Stella Marie

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Nov 22, 2007
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Hi all!

I'm new! I've been making M & P soaps for about 5 years. This year, I started making HP soaps. I will never go back! I've been having very good luck so far because I've been sticking to very a simple castille recipe, but I recently tried to add some softer fats to one of my soaps without investigating good balances. My recipe was: 4 oz cocoa butter, 4 oz shea butter, 42 oz olive oil, 6.25 oz lye, 19 oz water. I used a lye calculator to get the right amounts.

I ended up with a very soft soap. It set up, but it's still a bit spongy. Every day it gets a little harder as it dries out, but I fear that it won't ever really harden to my liking.

I don't think my measurements were the problem. I just didn't balance the bar with, say, palm oil to add a hardening element. I basically chose the 3 softest fats! No wonder.

My question to you all is, should I continue to let the bars dry out and see if the results improve, should I re-batch, or should I chuck it? I'd rather not re-batch if I can help it since this is a chocolate mint soap and I swirled dark brown into a mint green.

I look forward to your thoughts!

Thanks for having me as part of the forum!

SM
 
Welcome!!

Sorry, I know nothing about HP....I'm relatively new to soaping and stick to mostly CP. Keep us posted with what you decide.

Nice to meet another NewEnglander...I'm north of Boston. Brrr...it's going to be 20 degree's tonight!!!
 
Welcome! I'm not the HP expert either! :roll: There are a couple here who do HP though. Just wanted to say; "HI!"

Paul... :) :wink:
 
Thanks!

Thanks for getting back to me, all! And thanks for the warm welcome!

Lucy - yep, it's back to another NE winter! I don't mind, though - I actually enjoy the change of seasons :D

I decided to just keep the soap aside. I made another batch of chocolate mint with my "tried and true" recipe and it's fine. If the bars harden in a couple of weeks, I'll test one of them out. If they are ok, maybe I'll use them as gifts or free samples.

I look forward to more soap discussions with you all!


SM
 
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