Shea butter

[maryloucb]

I used shea butter for the first time and I'm wondering if it made my batter thicken up immediately! The other ingredients were olive oil, coconut oil and cocoa butter. I reheated the solid oils immediately before I added the lye mixture, which was about 90 degrees. I added the lye mixture, stirred it a bit with the stick blender and then gave a quick pulse of the blender and it immediately became quite thick where I had blended it. So I put the stick blender away and then just mixed it with a spatula and then added my essential oil and clay. When I poured it into the mold I noticed some white spots, so I got out the stick blender and blended it in the mold to get rid of the spots. I was afraid I had gotten false trace, but it was all pretty warm. Could the shea butter have been the culprit? The soap turned out fine. I forced gel in the oven and after cutting there are no stearic spots.

 

[dibbles]

It could have been the shea, but not necessarily. What was your percentage of shea? You said your lye solution was 90, but how warm were your oils? Was your olive oil pomace? Did you use a fragrance or EO?

 

[maryloucb]

Shea butter was at 9%, cocoa butter 11%. Oils were 100-110 degrees. I do use pomace. I added rosemary and peppermint EOs after the thickening up happened.

 

[dibbles]

I would blame the pomace before the butters, especially if you used pomace in a large percentage of your recipe, but it could be a combination of both. Pomace definitely traces fast for me, and I have noticed it with shea sometimes as well, but I don't use it often enough to tell you if it was a factor or not.

 

[maryloucb]

I use pomace in all my recipes and this is the first time it’s done this.

 

[dibbles]

Then maybe it wasn't due to the pomace. Just a thought based on my experience using it.

 

[cmzaha]

It would not have been the percentage of your shea butter, but your cocoa butter could have been the issue, and with the two butters your percentage was 20% total butter, although still not really high. You mention your oil temp between 100-110 which was it? That is a pretty big spread with your lye being 90, if you used 100-degree oils you would have cooled down your oils when you dumped in your cooler lye cooling down your butters, especially your cocoa butter which has a melt temp around 101 degrees, so you could temporarily have a false trace until the lye started reacting and heating up your batter. When dealing with a false trace you just have to wait it out until the batter becomes fluid.

 

[maryloucb]

I’ve never had it happen with cocoa butter, but maybe it was the higher percentage of hard oils I used. I’ll keep an eye on it next time I use that recipe and try to keep temps higher!