soap sticking in silcone mold

[corrine025]

Ok so I have a recipe that I love and in my wooden loaf mold worked beautifully. I wanted to do some FO testing so I used a slicone mold with different cavaties. that soap has been in the mold for 3 days and its still sticking at the very bottom when I go to remove it! I dont understand why. Is it because of the silicone?

 

[TVivian]

I'm going to guess that because the soaps are in individual cavities they don't heat up or go through gel phase and/or your recipe is high in liquid oils. My basic recipe is high in olive oil and I cannot get individual silicone molds to work without CPOP. I sometimes put my extra batter into my silicone cavity molds and it will sit for a week. Even then I'll have to stick it into the freezer to unmold them cleanly. The same batter gets hard and comes out perfect in a loaf mold. So my advice is to CPOP or be extra patient

 

[spenny92]

That's odd. I use silicone loaf moulds and haven't used anything else. I've had soap stick to the corners sometimes, but a couple of hours in the freezer normally does the trick.

 

[corrine025]

actually the only "soft" oils in my recipe castor at 5% and rice bran at 25%. the others are palm, lard, coconut, and mango butter. I would think that 70% hard oils/butters would be fine and I even use sodium lactate lol. I am just like wow really!

 

[corrine025]

Im gonna throw it in the freezer lol

 

[TVivian]

actually the only "soft" oils in my recipe castor at 5% and rice bran at 25%. the others are palm, lard, coconut, and mango butter. I would think that 70% hard oils/butters would be fine and I even use sodium lactate lol. I am just like wow really!

Oh wow.. Yup that should be hard enough!

 

[Seawolfe]

Mine do that, when the same recipe does not in the lined wooden mold. I think its because it cant "breathe" properly. The only thing that works for me is to just walk away and try the next day. You cant hurt it by leaving it in too long, really.

 

[shunt2011]

I experience the same thing with individual molds but the same recipe works fine in my silicone loaf. I CPOP or let them sit for a few days in the individual molds then put them in the freezer for about a half hour.

 

[navigator9]

I'm with TViv and shunt.....the only time I've ever had trouble removing soap from any of my silicone molds, is when it hasn't gelled. I bet if you test it, it zaps. It needs more time. If you're not going to need the mold right away, leave if for several days, and I bet it pops right out. Ungelled soap just takes its time to finish saponifying. That's why I like CPOP.......instant gratification.

 

[TeresaT]

Odd. This same thing just happened to me. I made a single batch of batter then divided it into four to test new FOs. Only my Bitter Almond FO got stuck in the mold. All of the other individual soaps came out cleanly. They had been sitting in the molds for a week. In fact there were two different FOs in the same mold. It's an 8 bar mold and one FO filled 3 cavities. The almond filled 5. I had to turn the cavities inside out and scrape the soap out of them and turned that into an extra bar. Anyway. What I am getting at is it could have been your FO and not the mold. That was the first time I've used that FO. I'm going use it again this weekend in a silicone loaf mold and a lined mold to see if that happens again.

 

[TVivian]

Odd. This same thing just happened to me. I made a single batch of batter then divided it into four to test new FOs. Only my Bitter Almond FO got stuck in the mold. All of the other individual soaps came out cleanly. They had been sitting in the molds for a week. In fact there were two different FOs in the same mold. It's an 8 bar mold and one FO filled 3 cavities. The almond filled 5. I had to turn the cavities inside out and scrape the soap out of them and turned that into an extra bar. Anyway. What I am getting at is it could have been your FO and not the mold. That was the first time I've used that FO. I'm going use it again this weekend in a silicone loaf mold and a lined mold to see if that happens again.

The FO definitely plays a part. When I make my soap scent samples, the worst behaved FO's (the ones that heat up like crazy) are always easy to unmold.

 

[TeresaT]

Thanks for the info Viv. I soaped at room temp and the bitter almond was the last one that I did. I actually had a bit less batter for that than the others (by about 2 gm), but I don't think that should have made a difference. When I was unmolding, it was like the consistency of melting caramel or taffy. You know when you pick it up and it's firm and crusty on top but the bottom sticks and you get a blob of sticky mess? Right now I'm on a tear through my house cleaning and getting rid of the cobwebs I've been neglecting because of soaping. I just found another giant brown (wolf?) spider in my laundry room. Spiders are OK, but when they get to be the size of a ping pong ball, not so much. Chemical weaponry is next. Gotta find the sprayer.

 

[JayJay]

Im gonna throw it in the freezer lol

Did it work? I have a similar problem with a stiff individual cavity silicon mold.

 

[corrine025]

well the freezer trick worked to an extent. They came out ok but a couple still stuck. Now that they are out of the mold they are getting hard just fine. Im not sure lol. That was my first time using that mold as well so too many variables I think lol