Oil separation and soggy soap

[Marie]

Can anyone say what changes I would need to make to this recipe? Lye concentration and some of the 'qualities' listed look wrong to me. However, I have made this recipe successfully several times but now, two fails.

 

[AliOop]

This recipe as written is pretty low water. Although I love soaping at 40% lye concentration, it's not for everyone. Since your recipe is primarily soft oils, with a lot of olive oil, that low water can help it trace a bit faster, and harden a bit faster. So there's nothing overtly wrong with your water:lye ratio. Still, I'd select lye concentration instead of water as percent of oils. That will give you more consistent results as you change batch sizes. If you struggled with that low water amount, change it to 33% and see what you think.

This soap is very high in oleic acid, which means it is going to need a long cure, and it will have slimy lather. Consider dropping the avocado oil and sweet almond oil, and using 5-7% shea butter and putting the rest in as palm oil or lard. That will give you a much firmer bar with non-slimy lather.

 

[Marie]

What is so baffling about this soap is, I've made it successfully several times and soap was hard with no problems. Now, after two failed attempts (my returning customer wants to buy a whole loaf) disaster! I have reformulated (will have to tell my customer) to this: View attachment 69841 View attachment 69841

 

[AliOop]

I cannot view that attachment, sorry. How exactly did the "failed" batches differ from the other ones? Did they never come to trace, did they separate, or something else?

Also, did you do or add anything different, such as different EOs or FOs, or change the batch size?

 

[penelopejane]

If you have made it before then it should work again.
Have you changed the size of the recipe or any of the ingredients or additives?
Have you changed the type of olive oil you are using or the type of coconut oil?
Does this soap have honey and almond milk as listed?
I use 1 Tablespoon of honey to 1kg of oils. If you use too much it will be oily.

 

[TheGecko]

What is so baffling about this soap is, I've made it successfully several times and soap was hard with no problems. Now, after two failed attempts (my returning customer wants to buy a whole loaf) disaster! I have reformulated (will have to tell my customer) to this: View attachment 69841 View attachment 69841

So what changed? A successful recipe doesn't fail without some kind of change and reformulating may or may not solve the problem, but you need to know what the problem is to begin with. So again..........what changed?

Soaping temperature. Where your oils and/or lye solution warmer or colder than usual? If it was colder, could you have gotten false trace with the Coconut Oil?

Ingredients. How old is your Sodium Hydroxide? If it is new, are you sure you got NaOH and not KOH?

Saponification. Hot did you soap get? 1.64 oz sounds like a LOT of honey for a 2lb batch of soap.

EO. Is this something you have used before? If so, was it a new brand?

Obviously there are a lot of variables in soap making and changing just one thing can have an negative effect. So it becomes a process of elimination...what changed?