Teach Soap

Now help me figure out what I did wrong!

I soaped at around room temp. I used goat milk (frozen goat milk, so the lye mixture was on the cool side). The recipe was 80% olive oil, 10% castor oil, 4% avocado oil, and 6% coconut oil. I used a stick blender at first and at a few times intermittently, but stirred by hand the rest of the time. It took about an hour to get to trace that way. Then I scented with an orange blossom FO. The FO didn't seem to accelerate or anything. Then I molded and CPOP'd. After 1/2 an hour it was completely solid in the mold, but no sign of gel. After the next 1/2 an hour it looked like it had fully gelled, so I took it out. But it never solidified. I left it overnight just to be sure. It had TOTALLY separated. There was a layer of set up soap, but the set up soap was really ricey/grainy and there was a good 3/4 of an inch of separated oil on top. So I rebatched the whole thing, and it's setting up in the mold right now.

What happened? Any insight? I'm thinking about CPHPing the next time I try a high olive oil soap.

Is it possible that you didn't reach true trace? High olive oil soap seems to work the best if you stick blend it, til you reach trace. Some oils tend to solidify if they are too cold and you can get false trace. Did you stick blend the fragrance in? Was the fragrance CP soap safe? Where did you get it? Is it possible that the soap overheated? At what temp did you process it in the oven?

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

All great questions from Irena, but I tend to think that trace was not reached......an 80% olive oil soap at that extremely low temp is high on the list for false trace issues. I would toss it all in the crock pot, rebatch/hp it and see what happens.

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy

The fragrance is cold process soap safe (and for what it's worth, the rebatched soap smells really good). It's from a seller on Etsy... I know what you're thinking. But I trust them and they haven't steered me wrong so far. But I'll try the scent in a (small) reliable recipe and see if I have the same problem.

I knew false trace was an issue with high olive soaps, but I don't know how to tell false from true trace. Is there a trick? I did use the stick blender, I've just read SO OFTEN lately to not overuse it. You wouldn't want to stick blend non stop until trace, would you? I just figure hand stirring more and stick blending only a little is... I don't know, safer? More fool proof? Plus, I don't hate stirring soap, even for a long time (yet....). Plus, if it was false trace the bar wouldn't have solidified in the mold, would it have? It was totally solid when I checked on it after the first hour.

The oven was set on 200... which for my oven means more like 180. If it overheated wouldn't it bubble up or crack or something?

I'm going to try the batch again, for sure. I'll do it hotter. What's a good temp for bastille/castille soaps? 120's?

For my bastile soap, the temp is about 110, since I go by the feel of my hands. I stick blend off and on til I reach a true trace. For me true trace is when some of the raw soap starts lightly sticking to the sides of the pot, sort of like a thin lotion. Then I know it's a true trace.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

I think false trace was it, then- right before I got to trace it started to look oily around the sides, and I was like "great, it's starting to seperate" but it was just a little, then it stopped. But I don't think it ever started to cling to the sides.

Last night I decided to try it again. I soaped at around 120 (it was late-ish, and I wasn't trying any fancy swirls or anything, so I decided to risk it going super fast). And I used cow milk instead of goat, because I had just a little raw milk left in a jar that was JUST past the point where my husband will drink it (he's picky- he won't really drink when it's more than 4-5 days old), and I hate to waste. But otherwise the same recipe.

I also didn't CPOP, because I wanted to see if it would gel on it's own. It definitely gelled, but I can't tell if it got all the way to the edges or not. We'll see when I cut it. But overall it turned out 1000x better than the last batch. Glad I tried it again!

Now I'm going to try it a 3rd time with the orange blossom fragrance, just to be sure that didn't cause the problem.