Soap isn't hardening! :(

[Lavandis]

Hi Everyone,
I'm new to soap making and have been reading for a few months before I decided to give soap making a go.
So after fully understanding soapcal and the basic soap making procedure I decided to make my own formula based on the oils I know I can buy.
So first I'll share my recipe and then I hope you could tell me what went wrong;

OILS:
Coconut Oil 27% 135 gr
Olive Oil 50% 250 gr
Cocoa butter 15% 75 gr
Almond Oil 8% 40 gr

Super fat discount 5%
Lye 70.8 gr
Water 190 gr

Fragrance 15 gr
* But I ended up adding 8gr in total of rosemary, tea tree and eucalyptus in equal parts of each.

Extras:
20 drops of vitamin E.
And a tablespoon of honey at light trace.

The recipe has infused olive, almond and coconut oil of herbs for allergies. The oil was first macerated in 95% proof alcohol for 8 months, then heated over 12 hours on low heat to evaporate the alcohol and result in a extra potent infused herbal oil.

I followed the basic soap procedure and poured my batter and then insulated my soap.
It has been more than 48 hours and my soap is still completely LIQUID, if I move my mould the soap swishes back and forth like soup.

I know some soaps take about 7 days to harden but I feel that at this point at least some part of my soap would have solidified and it hasn't .

I hope some of you experienced soapers out there could give me a hand or two as to what did I do wrong or if I just need to be more patient and wait for the 7 days to pass before I start to panic.

THANK YOU!!

 

[KristaY]

Your calculations in soap calc are correct so you should have been able to unmold and cut by now. The only soaps I have to wait to unmold are those high in soft oils, like castile or bastile. But those only take a day or so longer than my more balanced recipes. Here a couple of thoughts I had:

Are you sure you used sodium hydroxide (used for bar soap), not potassium hydroxide (used for liquid soap)?
I know nothing about oil maceration so have no idea if that changes anything significantly. Were the oils macerated separately so you knew you were weighing out each oil per your recipe?
Did you use a stick blender or whisk to bring it to trace? You might have separated soap if you got false trace.
Did you soap at room temp and were the oils clear when you mixed in the lye?

I'm a bit baffled so lets hope you can get to the bottom of it!

 

[DeeAnna]

"...I followed the basic soap procedure..."

What is that procedure? There are many ways to make soap, so please be more specific.

Is the batter separated into fat on top and lye solution on the bottom? If so, you never reached "trace", meaning the point at which the batter is permanently emulsified and will not separate. So knowing your method may be the key to learning why you did not get your soap batter to trace.

I hate to tell you this, but the time and work you put into infusing your oils may be for nothing. Sodium hydroxide is really tough on other chemicals, so it's likely your herbal infusions are no longer intact. The rule of thumb is that the lye always wins. You would be better off to use the infused oils in lotions or salves where the chemicals will remain effective.

 

[Lavandis]

Your calculations in soap calc are correct so you should have been able to unmold and cut by now. The only soaps I have to wait to unmold are those high in soft oils, like castile or bastile. But those only take a day or so longer than my more balanced recipes. Here a couple of thoughts I had:

Are you sure you used sodium hydroxide (used for bar soap), not potassium hydroxide (used for liquid soap)?
I know nothing about oil maceration so have no idea if that changes anything significantly. Were the oils macerated separately so you knew you were weighing out each oil per your recipe?
Did you use a stick blender or whisk to bring it to trace? You might have separated soap if you got false trace.
Did you soap at room temp and were the oils clear when you mixed in the lye?

I'm a bit baffled so lets hope you can get to the bottom of it!

Yes I'm sure that i used sodium hydroxide, for the mixing part I did use my stick blender and blended for about 20 minutes on and off, at about 5 minutes I thought I had reached trace but waited a little and the oils separated so I kept going at it with my stick blender, after a few minutes I finally achieved light trace and decided that that was good to go so I poured on the mould.
Yes I soap at room temp and my old were clear when i mixed in the lye, both oils and lye where room temp when decided to mix.

And I too am baffled haha
Thanks!

 

[KristaY]

Now I'm even more baffled. You stick blended off and on for 20 minutes and still didn't get a stable emulsion? With your recipe it should have gotten to light trace in a minute or so.

Have you checked to see if the oils are on top and lye water below as DeeAnna suggested? Honestly it sounds like you either have separation or you used KOH. Since you're sure you have NaOH, I wonder about it's purity.

For all you longer-than-me soapers, wasn't there a company that had a bad batch of lye several years ago? It ended up being about 50% pure so everyone was making soup instead of soap?

 

[Lavandis]

"...I followed the basic soap procedure..."

What is that procedure? There are many ways to make soap, so please be more specific.

Is the batter separated into fat on top and lye solution on the bottom? If so, you never reached "trace", meaning the point at which the batter is permanently emulsified and will not separate. So knowing your method may be the key to learning why you did not get your soap batter to trace.

I hate to tell you this, but the time and work you put into infusing your oils may be for nothing. Sodium hydroxide is really tough on other chemicals, so it's likely your herbal infusions are no longer intact. The rule of thumb is that the lye always wins. You would be better off to use the infused oils in lotions or salves where the chemicals will remain effective.

Well as to the procedure here is what i did:
1.Heated my oils in a double boiler until they where fully incorporated, let them sit.
2.Mixed my lye and water until it was completely dissolved and let it sit.
3. Measure out my essential oils and honey.
4. Prepared my mould and set aside.
5. Once my oils and lye water mixture where both room temp I added my lye mixture into my oils making sure it dripped first in my stick blender.
6.Started blending, after 5 minutes I thought i had reached trace but stopped blending for a while and oils separated, kept blending for a few more minutes and reached light trace.
7. At light trace I added my essential oils, vitamin E and honey.
8. Kept mixing but decided to stop since I had been mixing for about 25 minutes on and off and thought that I wouldn't reach medium/ heavy trace.
9. Poured my batter in my mould, covered with towel and stored in a dry place.

At this moment the soap batter hasn't separated, it looks like if it where liquid soap, smells great and has a really nice greenish color but is not solid at all.

I decided to use my infusion since I had already done it and hadn't used it in a while so why not? But reading what you just said I would probably use the rest of the infused oil to make an allergy salve.

I've been thinking and i don't know if maybe they were some small traces of alcohol left in the oil that may have interrupted the saponification process. I'm pretty sure that there wan't any alcohol left but i just don't know what else could have gone wrong...

Thank you

Now I'm even more baffled. You stick blended off and on for 20 minutes and still didn't get a stable emulsion? With your recipe it should have gotten to light trace in a minute or so.

Have you checked to see if the oils are on top and lye water below as DeeAnna suggested? Honestly it sounds like you either have separation or you used KOH. Since you're sure you have NaOH, I wonder about it's purity.

For all you longer-than-me soapers, wasn't there a company that had a bad batch of lye several years ago? It ended up being about 50% pure so everyone was making soup instead of soap?

I haven't poked around my soap batter but i will in a minute to check, but i at looks pretty emulsified just not solid.
And as for the sodium hydroxide I got it from a well known "Botica" or Apothecary near where I live so I don't think that I got "bad" NaOH.

But who knows...
I'll check on my soap and inform you later.

Thank you so much for your response.

Now I'm even more baffled. You stick blended off and on for 20 minutes and still didn't get a stable emulsion? With your recipe it should have gotten to light trace in a minute or so.

Have you checked to see if the oils are on top and lye water below as DeeAnna suggested? Honestly it sounds like you either have separation or you used KOH. Since you're sure you have NaOH, I wonder about it's purity.

For all you longer-than-me soapers, wasn't there a company that had a bad batch of lye several years ago? It ended up being about 50% pure so everyone was making soup instead of soap?

So i've just moved my mould and decided to tip it to one side so that I could see the bottom and I jut found out that the bottom is completely solid!
I would say that is 50-50 solid and liquid.
But I don't remember reading anything saying that the soap would solidify from the bottom up, I thought it would solidify from the center out?

Does this means that the lye is at the bottom and has solidified with some of the oils??

 

[Obsidian]

Sounds like it separated and heavier lye solution saponified some of the oils on the bottom.

Throw everything in a crock pot and cook it on low until its like soft mashed potatoes, then shove it back in the mold.

Won't be the prettiest soap but it will save the batch.

 

[DeeAnna]

"...Does this means that the lye is at the bottom and has solidified with some of the oils??..."

Yes, I'd say that's probably what's happened. Try Obsidian's advice and see if that helps.

"...And as for the sodium hydroxide I got it from a well known "Botica" or Apothecary near where I live so I don't think that I got "bad" NaOH...."

Not saying you have "bad" NaOH, just that you may not have what you think you have. If you want to make soap and not have problems, it's good to know what you've got.

First off, sometimes people incorrectly get the chemical called just "soda" and that is sodium carbonate, Na2CO3. You need caustic soda which is sodium hydroxide, NaOH.

Also NaOH purity can vary, depending on how it's stored and how it was made. If your NaOH happens to be 90% pure or lower, that could cause the problem you're seeing. There's no real problem in using that kind of lower purity NaOH, but you should correct the NaOH weight you use to account for the lower purity.

 

[Lavandis]

Sounds like it separated and heavier lye solution saponified some of the oils on the bottom.

Throw everything in a crock pot and cook it on low until its like soft mashed potatoes, then shove it back in the mold.

Won't be the prettiest soap but it will save the batch.

Hi, so I just got back from putting my soap mixture into the crock pot on low heat and after achieving "mashed potatoes" consistency i decided to give it a go with my stick blender just to really mix everything in. I got to what looks like a heavy trace and decided to scoop my batter into the mould.
So fingers crossed it comes out decent looking and hopefully its a nice bar of soap in terms of cleansing, lather, conditioning, etc.

Thank you Obsidian!

 

[Shaylyn Valdez]

Hi, so I just got back from putting my soap mixture into the crock pot on low heat and after achieving "mashed potatoes" consistency i decided to give it a go with my stick blender just to really mix everything in. I got to what looks like a heavy trace and decided to scoop my batter into the mould.
So fingers crossed it comes out decent looking and hopefully its a nice bar of soap in terms of cleansing, lather, conditioning, etc.

Thank you Obsidian!

Update?