Stearic acid

[Lindy]

Good looking soap.

There is a lot of myth when we are looking at the hardness of a bar. My soaps are high in olive oil which has a very low hardness number but they are good hard soaps that are ready to sell at 4 weeks without any problems. All soaps will become hard with the exception of high castor oil and high hemp oil soaps which stay soft for a long time....

Congrats on your soap and .7% is a good logical number....

 

[SoaPetite]

Good looking soap.

There is a lot of myth when we are looking at the hardness of a bar. My soaps are high in olive oil which has a very low hardness number but they are good hard soaps that are ready to sell at 4 weeks without any problems. All soaps will become hard with the exception of high castor oil and high hemp oil soaps which stay soft for a long time....

Congrats on your soap and .7% is a good logical number....

oh okay.. thank you Lindy that's a reassurance

 

[SoaPetite]

btw that's my very first cp soap-lavender, hard to get the bubbles to surface esp once the mixture is thick..and I also had some cracks.. any advice welcome

 

[shunt2011]

Very pretty. Some florals trace pretty quickly. Just gently banging the mold on the counter several times will help release a lot of the air bubbles. A agree with the hardness of bars. I too use a fairly high amout of OO and have nice hard bars after cure.

 

[Lindy]

Beautiful soap! You would never ever guess that was your first bar

 

[MzMolly65]

Wow .. the peach coloured bars were nice the but purple ones are WOW! I'm envious and inspired.

 

[songwind]

Nice looking soap!

Your experience is similar to mine w/ my high shea butter soap. If I stop blending it right away as soon as it emulsifies, it's fine. If I have to keep stirring or blending for any reason it quickly goes from pancake batter to cake batter to pudding.

 

[DeeAnna]

The hardness number in Soapcalc is the hardness right after the soap is made. It's not really a measure of the hardness later on, as Lindy pointed out.

Also additives like sodium lactate can affect the hardness from Day 1 and Soapcalc doesn't take additives like that into account. It only looks at saponifiable ingredients -- the fats and fatty acids.

 

[SoaPetite]

Thanks everyone! There are lots of beautiful soaps on the web and they too got me inspired Would try using sodium lactate next time Deeana, I'm now really curious about that stuff.

 

[Obsidian]

You can also use salt to help harden your soap. Use 1 tsp PPO and dissolve it in your water before adding the lye.

 

[SoaPetite]

Hi Obsidian! I add sugar for bubbles but I heard salt will decrease bubbles..? I would love to try salt to help harden the soaps but what about the bubbles..?