Problems with demolding

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

kmkieva

Active Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2015
Messages
29
Reaction score
6
I bought a plastic, 8-bar mold for a M&P soap and it worked out fine. I used that same mold for my first "from scratch" batch of goat milk soap and just demolded it; big chunks came away with the mold.
I used the following from a published recipe:

coconut oil 76 33%
Crisco 13%
Castor oil 6.5%
sunflower oil 20%
almond oil, sweet 27%

I'm thinking the formulation was too soft. Should I rebatch it? What can I do to increase the hardness?
 
If it didn't gel, and it's hard to get soaps to gel in those individual plastic molds, (like Milky Way brand), then I'd leave it for at least a week, to make sure it's finished saponifying. Then I'd stick it in the freezer for at least a few hours before trying to unmold. If you don't have any luck with that method, you might try adding a bit of sodium lactate to your recipe to make the soap harder. Are you against using palm, that would help, too.
 
I spray my hard plastic molds with Pam. You will need a release agent such as Vaseline or Mineral oil or in my case Pam. with Pam it helps to put the mold in the freezer for a little while then pop them out. Do not leave in the freezer until the soap is completely frozen, many times the mold will crack when you try to release them. Adding in some Sodium Lactate will help harden your soap for de-molding. You cannot use veggie or animal fats because the fat will saponify and cause the soap to really stick
 
I tried PAM with the original M&P soap and I ended up with tiny bubbles that were transferred to the soap. It didn't look "bad" but it wasn't as neat as I wanted. How do you eliminate the bubbles?
 

Latest posts

Back
Top