JuliaNegusuk
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2017
- Messages
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Hi - recently I posted about castor oil and soda ash as I had made some soap without castor oil and it hadn't ashed for a change!
Background - I always refrigerated my soap and never had problems with ash until I certified a recipe for sale and now have constant ash problems as well as crumbly bottoms. These vary across the soap varieties and between batches. I have been making with a 33% lye ratio (2:1) and find this makes no difference. Also I mostly CPOP, and this usually works to reduce the soda ash and crumbly bottoms but turns some of the soaps funny colours (I use natural colourants a couple of which don't respond well to being CPOPed.) The last batch however, ashed badly despite being CPOPed (though someone mentioned that I might not be doing it properly). However, I don't want to learn to CPOP right, I want to refrigerate my soaps (to avoid partial gel) and get no ash, which always worked before this recipe from hell!
So following the last post about this which led to a general discussion about soda ash, someone said they reduced their water by a small amount and this helped. So I decided to try this, but opted to reduce the water considerably so a 1.5:1 water lye ratio or 40% lye concentration depending on how you look at it.
Recipe:
Olive Oil 50%
Coconut Oil 35% (yes I know its high and don't care)
Cocoa Butter 5%
Shea Butter 5%
Castor oil 5%
Sugar 1%
Lye 40% concentration
I made three batches of my ashiest soaps, two lemongrass and poppyseed and one tea tree and mint. I only made two bars of each, covering one with cling film and leaving the other uncovered. All the soaps were refrigerated overnight and the uncovered one unmoulded the following day, the covered one left covered and in the mould for three days. They were made on 9th May, 13th May and 19th May, so all been curing for a while (I find ash creeps up on me over several weeks.)
Result - NO ASH!!!!! No crumbly bottoms! No difference between the covered and uncovered soaps.
I also tried to make my lavender and tussah silk soap with a 40% lye concentration but it didn't work. Don't know if that was because of the lack of water in general or the extremely small size of the batch but the silk didn't dissolve properly. So I'll have to do some further tests, but right now I've got enough soap to be going on with so I'll leave that for a future date.
But - No ash, no ash, no ash!!!!! Great. Why didn't I try this ages ago? I know this won't help the people who like patterns and swirling as low water tends to speed up trace, but for those of us who have the simpler goal of a bar of soap with no ash, give it a go! From now on (apart from possibly the lavender soap) I will be doing all my soaping at reduced water levels. I only hope it still works when I scale the batches.
Thank you for the advice - now a much happier soaper.
Background - I always refrigerated my soap and never had problems with ash until I certified a recipe for sale and now have constant ash problems as well as crumbly bottoms. These vary across the soap varieties and between batches. I have been making with a 33% lye ratio (2:1) and find this makes no difference. Also I mostly CPOP, and this usually works to reduce the soda ash and crumbly bottoms but turns some of the soaps funny colours (I use natural colourants a couple of which don't respond well to being CPOPed.) The last batch however, ashed badly despite being CPOPed (though someone mentioned that I might not be doing it properly). However, I don't want to learn to CPOP right, I want to refrigerate my soaps (to avoid partial gel) and get no ash, which always worked before this recipe from hell!
So following the last post about this which led to a general discussion about soda ash, someone said they reduced their water by a small amount and this helped. So I decided to try this, but opted to reduce the water considerably so a 1.5:1 water lye ratio or 40% lye concentration depending on how you look at it.
Recipe:
Olive Oil 50%
Coconut Oil 35% (yes I know its high and don't care)
Cocoa Butter 5%
Shea Butter 5%
Castor oil 5%
Sugar 1%
Lye 40% concentration
I made three batches of my ashiest soaps, two lemongrass and poppyseed and one tea tree and mint. I only made two bars of each, covering one with cling film and leaving the other uncovered. All the soaps were refrigerated overnight and the uncovered one unmoulded the following day, the covered one left covered and in the mould for three days. They were made on 9th May, 13th May and 19th May, so all been curing for a while (I find ash creeps up on me over several weeks.)
Result - NO ASH!!!!! No crumbly bottoms! No difference between the covered and uncovered soaps.
I also tried to make my lavender and tussah silk soap with a 40% lye concentration but it didn't work. Don't know if that was because of the lack of water in general or the extremely small size of the batch but the silk didn't dissolve properly. So I'll have to do some further tests, but right now I've got enough soap to be going on with so I'll leave that for a future date.
But - No ash, no ash, no ash!!!!! Great. Why didn't I try this ages ago? I know this won't help the people who like patterns and swirling as low water tends to speed up trace, but for those of us who have the simpler goal of a bar of soap with no ash, give it a go! From now on (apart from possibly the lavender soap) I will be doing all my soaping at reduced water levels. I only hope it still works when I scale the batches.
Thank you for the advice - now a much happier soaper.
