Used too much EO, soap still soft...what to do with it now?

[SchenckOrchard]

I made a patchouli sweet orange batch yesterday and today it is still not hard, its past the gelling phase, but just soft, like when I touch it I can push through it. Any suggestions on what to do with it now? If I rebatch, what do I add to harden it? Options other than rebatching with it?

I am pretty sure I just used too much EO because I over did the patchouli and kept adding orange to calm it down....I know better than to do that too :/

 

[dagmar88]

What's your recipe?

 

[SchenckOrchard]

What's your recipe?

I made two different scents with the same recipe, so I know the oil and lye was fine because the second soap came out perfectly. I used about .1 oz eo in the other scent. I didnt measure the amount of "base" batch (before adding the EOs) but it was about 60% went to the patchouli and 40% to the other.

4 oz castor oil
4 oz canola oil
4 oz coconut oil
15 oz olive oil
10 oz palm oil

12 oz water
4.8 oz lye
0.3 oz EOs

 

[honor435]

i would wait and see if it gets hard, ive overdone fo and it worked.

 

[carebear]

that amount of EO shouldn't impact the hardness of the soap. something else is going on.

the lye concentration is fine.
the lye amount is fine.
it might be that 40% olive oil will mean it takes longer to harden up, but with that much palm and coconut I don't THINK so. but I could be wrong.

I'm guess it's the 11% castor oil that's the issue - give it time and maybe it'll harden up. I never go above 5% castor. Actually I don't use castor any more - so maybe someone with more castor expertise can look at your oils proportions and comment.

 

[SchenckOrchard]

This was my first time using castor oil, so maybe in larger amounts it does take longer to harden. I guess I am playing the waiting game now. Thanks for the input.

 

[judymoody]

Could you clarify? You said you used .1 oz EO in one batch and .3 oz EO for the other. Is that per pound of oils or for the entire batch? Also did you mean .1 and .3 or 1 and 3? What fragrance did you use in your other batch?

Is it possible that this orange/patch batch didn't gel fully?

I think carebear is also on to something, castor can make your soap really sticky even at only 7-8% of your total oils, IME. I don't use it much in soap anymore.

You might also want to check your scale and make sure it's properly calibrated and has fresh batteries.

Good luck, I hope you figure it out.

 

[dieSpinne]

According to most of my reading, anything over 10% castor is going always be a little soft and slightly sticky.
I generally use 5-7% and get a really creamy lather. The one time I used more than that the soap was always sticky, and though it did eventually harden in the cure, as soon as it hit the shower, BOOM! Sticky again.

 

[IrishLass]

Re: castor/stickiness/softness. I've found that much depends on the formula. They have a well-known saying in the real estate business- "Location, location, location!", but in the soaping world I like to say, "Formula, formula, formula!" :wink:

I use 11.5% castor in my regular tallow/lard formula and it makes for a very hard, non-sticky bar. I also go as high as 23% castor with no soft/sticky issues in a formula that contains a whopping 65% beef tallow (the rest of the % is coconut oil and olive oil), although I must admit that I'm fairly sure things would be much different if my recipe did not have such a high % of hard fats to counterbalance the higher amount of castor.

IrishLass

 

[Stinkydancer]

I use 10% Castor in every batch with no stickiness at all.

I did however go higher for a shaving bar which was sticky. I would take the Castor down- even if you just go to 10%.

Take it with a grain of salt though- for whatever reason- 10% Castor doesn't work for everyone. Many people just go with 5% I think.