Soap still gooey after curing for 2 weeks

[Sudsandscrubs]

I know that a cure of 4 weeks minimum is recommend but my soap is not just soft, but sticky. I noticed it felt really spongy, dry on the outside but very soft in the middle. So I broke open a sample bar and it's very gooey in the middle. It's not my recipe because it's the same one I've used for the past year and it always makes a nice hard bar. I did add in some oatmeal for a exfoliant so I don't know if that absorbed a lot of water and is making the middle soft still? There's also a chance I used too much fragrance oil. I was a little stuffy that day and after I weighed my oil ( .56 for a pound and a bit more of soap) I couldn't smell it so I just splashed some more in. Bad idea, I know. But now, my question is, should I continue to let it sit and hope it dries out enough or should I rebatch it? I weigh my bars daily and in the 2 weeks it has not lost any weight. The soaps are on a wire rack with a fan under the rack to increase air flow. Thanks in advance!

 

[Arimara]

Can you please post your recipe and include the details of how you made this soap? It's hard to troubleshoot without that info.

 

[Sudsandscrubs]

8 oz Crisco
4 oz Canola
4 oz of coconut oil
5% superfat.

I let my oils and lye water sit until they reach probably 90 degrees F or so. Stick belended until emulsion, added in colorents ( dispursed in about 2 teaspoons of the oil, I didn't add any extra oils, just discounted from the recipe) added in fragrance oils ( maybe about . 8 of an ounce to a full ounce? As I mentioned above I did weight them out but added more because the fragrance wasn't as strong as I liked) Then I blended to thick trace so the oatmeal would stay in suspension, added about 1/3 a cup of the oat meal, hand mixed them in, and poured into a mold. I did forget to mention, I did force gel because I used a chocolate brown mica and I really wanted it to stay to deep brown.

 

[amd]

What type of hydroxide (lye) did you use? Was it sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide?

 

[Sudsandscrubs]

Sodium hydroxide, 33% solution

 

[KiwiMoose]

What's in your crisco? Is it palm oil? 100% or something else? Is it the same crisco you've always used? We don't have it here in NZ but i hear they've recently changed the recipe?
Was the CO the usual kind that's hard when it's at room temp? It wasn't fractionated, or liquid MCT oil?
How much water did you use?
Sounds like something may have gone awry with your measurements ( and I don't think the extra FO would have caused it)

 

[Sudsandscrubs]

Crisco is a soybean palm oil mix, and on the calculator I use Crisco is an option to choose. I did use the full amount of water, I believe it was something like 4-6 ounces and I used the full 6. Coconut oil is the one that's solid at room temp and is the same brand I always use. I honestly have no idea what could have happened with this batch as I did everything exactly as I normally do.The only thing I did differently was insulate the molds to force gel but I always that that gelling caused a harder soap not a softer one. The only think I can think is that maybe my scale was off for some reason and caused my measurements to be off.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Ounces confuse me - but at face value that seems a lot of water. My water is less than a third of my oil amount. Yours seems more like about 38%?

 

[Sudsandscrubs]

About, yes. That was the water amount given by the calculator I use, I think it's called The Sage but it was the maximum amount to use. I'm just wondering if I should try to rebatch it or if it will eventually dry out enough to use.

 

[Arimara]

Ounces confuse me - but at face value that seems a lot of water. My water is less than a third of my oil amount. Yours seems more like about 38%?

Shes used about 454g of oil and soaped with a 33% lye solution. Worst case, could be the FO, as crazy as it sounds.

 

[Sudsandscrubs]

Shes used about 454g of oil and soaped with a 33% lye solution. Worst case, could be the FO, as crazy as it sounds.

Thank you, I was worried about that. Should I let it be or should I melt it down and try to rebatch it? I've made hot process soap before and I'd assume it's the same process once the soap "melts" down?

 

[Arimara]

Thank you, I was worried about that. Should I let it be or should I melt it down and try to rebatch it? I've made hot process soap before and I'd assume it's the same process once the soap "melts" down?

I reread the thread. 1/3 c of oatmeal is a lot of oatmeal for a batch this small. Do you always add that much?

 

[Sudsandscrubs]

I reread the thread. 1/3 c of oatmeal is a lot of oatmeal for a batch this small. Do you always add that much?

It was probably closer to 1/4 a cup( still probably too much though) I didn't really measure, just sprinkled until it looked like the amount of scrubby-ness I wanted. But no, I've never added oatmeal to anything before. I originally was going to use pumice sand but that didn't arrive in time and used oatmeal instead. My thought was that maybe the amount of oatmeal was holding the moisture inside the soap, which would prevent the inside of the soap from curing properly.

 

[Arimara]

It was probably closer to 1/4 a cup( still probably too much though) I didn't really measure, just sprinkled until it looked like the amount of scrubby-ness I wanted. But no, I've never added oatmeal to anything before. I originally was going to use pumice sand but that didn't arrive in time and used oatmeal instead. My thought was that maybe the amount of oatmeal was holding the moisture inside the soap, which would prevent the inside of the soap from curing properly.

That's probably the real culprit. For a lb of oil, You really wouldn't want to use more than a tbsp at most. Maybe even two. I have used only 1 tbsp before as I did not want to risk messing up my soap. YOu probably could grate this down and try to rebatch this but I am not sure if this batch is worth the trouble. Let's hope someone with more experience can chime in on that.

 

[Sudsandscrubs]

Thank you! I'll definitely concider that when making soap with anything in it.

 

[Sudsandscrubs]

Just an update, I did end up trying to rebatch it. It was for a father's day soap and so I was starting to get pressed on time to get a good cure in. I have yet to unmold or frankly even tough the mold because I'm worried I wasn't able to save it After rebatching and molding, it was still super soft and liquidy in the center. I let is sit overnight and it firmed up some but not as much as I was hoping. So I left if for about a week now and plan on unmolding it today so fingers crossed I was able to save it