chibilightangel
Well-Known Member
I have a few questions related to the softness of soap and stickiness of soap based on my third and fourth batches.
My third batch was formulated as follows for a total of 20 oz:
10% coconut
25% lard
50% olive il
5% grapeseed oil
10% cocoa butter
8% superfat with a 5% water discount
0.8ppo FO (ginger papaya from new directions aromatics)
I tried my new labcolor (peach) with an attempt at a first swirl. Learned that taking out unscented soap to color and then once mixed adding fragrance to the other part of the batch makes for different consistencies at pour... would be great for a plain layered look though. Once cut, turned out as follows, though the flash messed up the color. The color definition is a lot less than shown, it's really a peach color against a beige type background.
Notice the bottom of the cut pieces are all kinds torn. I CPOP'd the batch with plastic wrap on top and cut a bit over the 24h mark. It was fairly soft, though I wouldn't say any more so than my first 2 batches that cut without a problem. Any ideas what might cause the stickiness just in the bottom of the bars?
Fourth batch is as follows with a total of 20 oz:
5% cocoa butter
15% coconut oil
5% grapeseed oil
25% lard
40% olive oil
10% shea butter
7% superfat with 5% water discount
.5oz ppo FO (ruby grapefruit from NDA, totally in love with the cool citrus scent it leaves)
Once again tried some swirl action with the peach labcolor... I will apparently need to practice this some more. Again CPOP'd but this time I decided to skip the plastic top. When I took it out of the oven the next day, I had ash on top which was sticky to the touch. When pulling slightly on the freezer paper, it didn't want to release cleanly, and the newly exposed edge was somewhat sticky for about 5 minutes before drying out. So I soaped Monday evening and ended up cutting only thursday evening in the hopes that it would stop being sticky (in the fridge all day thursday too). I never did get the sides to release cleanly from the freezer paper which was a new one for me as my 3 other batches came out clean). It cut without any sticking like the third batch, so lovely cut faces. Sorry no pics at the moment as it looks very similar to the third batch in terms of coloring.
So the question is, based on my recipes, what could have caused these two softness and stickiness issues? I'm undecided if it's the grapeseed oil, the use of fragrance oil (but then you'd think everyone would complain about that), the butters or something else altogether.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm going to be putting together another recipe to try this weekend in which I want to try adding some sugar to extra bubbly. I'm really loving the ability to play with oils to change the soap properties and then getting to see the finished result and test it out.
My third batch was formulated as follows for a total of 20 oz:
10% coconut
25% lard
50% olive il
5% grapeseed oil
10% cocoa butter
8% superfat with a 5% water discount
0.8ppo FO (ginger papaya from new directions aromatics)
I tried my new labcolor (peach) with an attempt at a first swirl. Learned that taking out unscented soap to color and then once mixed adding fragrance to the other part of the batch makes for different consistencies at pour... would be great for a plain layered look though. Once cut, turned out as follows, though the flash messed up the color. The color definition is a lot less than shown, it's really a peach color against a beige type background.
Notice the bottom of the cut pieces are all kinds torn. I CPOP'd the batch with plastic wrap on top and cut a bit over the 24h mark. It was fairly soft, though I wouldn't say any more so than my first 2 batches that cut without a problem. Any ideas what might cause the stickiness just in the bottom of the bars?
Fourth batch is as follows with a total of 20 oz:
5% cocoa butter
15% coconut oil
5% grapeseed oil
25% lard
40% olive oil
10% shea butter
7% superfat with 5% water discount
.5oz ppo FO (ruby grapefruit from NDA, totally in love with the cool citrus scent it leaves)
Once again tried some swirl action with the peach labcolor... I will apparently need to practice this some more. Again CPOP'd but this time I decided to skip the plastic top. When I took it out of the oven the next day, I had ash on top which was sticky to the touch. When pulling slightly on the freezer paper, it didn't want to release cleanly, and the newly exposed edge was somewhat sticky for about 5 minutes before drying out. So I soaped Monday evening and ended up cutting only thursday evening in the hopes that it would stop being sticky (in the fridge all day thursday too). I never did get the sides to release cleanly from the freezer paper which was a new one for me as my 3 other batches came out clean). It cut without any sticking like the third batch, so lovely cut faces. Sorry no pics at the moment as it looks very similar to the third batch in terms of coloring.
So the question is, based on my recipes, what could have caused these two softness and stickiness issues? I'm undecided if it's the grapeseed oil, the use of fragrance oil (but then you'd think everyone would complain about that), the butters or something else altogether.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm going to be putting together another recipe to try this weekend in which I want to try adding some sugar to extra bubbly. I'm really loving the ability to play with oils to change the soap properties and then getting to see the finished result and test it out.