Teach Soap

So, hubs made me a new log mold so I could learn swirling & all the cool stuff you girls do with your soaps... Very keen to try it out, so got my freezer paper, lugged home 10kg of lard, a liter of coconut, 3 liters of olive oil from town. And it rained the next day. So I waited for today & sunshine ~ 10am this morning. Strong sunny day until about 2pm. Cooling now, with a front from the North coming.

I'm wondering how weather fronts can affect soaping?

I made my "tried & true, never lets me down" favorite lard recipe... Separated 2 parts to color with cocoa & pink kaolin clay. Poured the "white" batter into the log mold, then did my color pours. Swirled with spatula - freaking gorgeous! Put on the reserved white w/touch of pink & brown for a fancy top - also beautiful!

Spent 15 minutes dancing about the kitchen, crowing to hubs about "You SEE! Just LOOK what beautiful swirly soaps I can make with that lovely log mold you built me!" Took a little peek under the board, just to gloat a bit more to myself... and wish I had the camera, because my lovely swirly soap was still there, but...

...sunken like Atlantis under a long oval-shaped lake of oil about 2" deep.

And then I had my "outta body" experience. Very UNLIKE me, I calmly & cheerfully just retrieved the soap pot from the bathroom, tipped the soap outta the mold & started a rebatch. Whereupon, it began to gell in the pan. So, I tried to SB it into submission , and it lugged the blender. Just when I was thinking, "Well, maybe we can do the ol' HP Hero bit," it became liquidy again. I was able to stir it vigorously with my slotted spoon & get it mixed through well AFTER it was in gel phase, hopefully without incorporating too much air.

Poured it into one of my plastic slab trays - now an incredibly lovely shade of dusty rose I'd been coveting madder root for some infusions, but guess I had the stuff I needed already & didn't know it.

So, there's 5 lbs. of lovely dark dusty rose soap with low-texture top, Patchouly/Vetiver scented... Will it be all right to use? I've been watching for it to gel again, but so far not, altho pretty warm.

I'll unmold tomorrow and get a picture before & after & cut. If no joy, I'll HP it with a tablespoon of coconut milk & add a bit of the butia butter I got from the fruits we harvested last summer. The present batch has a SF of 7%, but I like a bit more for myself. Skin changes when yer on the back side of 50.

Crossing my fingers, y'all.

Irena - Thank you in advance. I KNOW you've been making soap long enough to know somebody this has happened to and WHY? I'd love to know. Sure was an exciting day in the kitchen - I never knew CP could go through so many strange phases. HP just gets cooked until it's soap, then dumped into a container... easy peasy. This CP is MUCH more artistic, but kinda tricky in a fun way.

Tomorrow's recipe is another old fave (variety of trinity), so we'll see if IT decides to misbehave as well.

It sounds like it will a fine soap in the end. At what temps did you combine the oil and lye? Did you use a stick blender and reached a true trace? Some of my recipes go into a gel fast, but they don't separate.

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

Thanks for your reply, SoapBuddy. Because I was using your tip re the beeswax to avoid ash (never had it back in TX or Bama), I was soaping just a tad higher temp - between 110F & 115F. Lye was about 90F - 95F (had 3 tsp. salt in it). I had run all thru the lye calculator, as I'm a bit OCD at times. (I just make it part of my soaping routine - a double-check before measuring out the ingredients.)

Took about 8 min. of off/on SB/stirring until I had a fairly thin trace that would just support a drop of batter on top... The portion with the pink kaolin began to thicken fastest upon addition of clay (worked in with SB), but was still workable. The cocoa was just beautiful & smooth (SB'd as well).

All went into the mold playing nice. My first swirl, and I was SOOO PROUD of how it came out...

This morning, the color has deepened to an even more beautiful rose color, but it's still very soft, even a bit squishy, on the bottom of the mold. I can tell, because my mold is 9" x 13" x 2.5" white plastic, with a rolled edge. Normally, I can feel the soap firm up & it just jumps right out on the counter. No joy on this batch.

This morning, I put the batch into the freezer. (Hah! My "tourist" freezer is just large enough to hold the 9" x 13" pan, tilted on the diagonal, and barely get the cheap plastic door shut. ) Hopefully, around noonish I'll be able to turn it out & cut it, maybe come out all right with the bars. Fingers crossed.

If not, I'll rock on, just chunk it up & throw in the pot again. Last summer, I hand-cracked, hulled & processed about 1/2 lb. of nuts from the butia palm (after making jam & wine & eating all we could hold). Have some of the nut "butter" I made for soaping. Might incorporate a bit of that just for ME, ME, ME in about 3 bars... This soap smells so nice.

The AMAZING thing to me is that I didn't get upset & start cussin' all over the place... (tends to be part of my "normal" routine I don't have many soaping mess-ups these days, thankfully, just surprises. ) Must be all the reading of y'all's adventures in SoapLand (especially Coolah's & Hestey's).

I'm very grateful to all of you ladies (and gents). Soapmaking was always a chore to be put off as long as possible for me way back when... Now, I've got "da fevah" and am discovering the world of lovely "boughten" ingredients & scents & colors. (Gran would be ROTFL at the idea of color or scent in soap!)

The storehouse of knowledge here is SUCH a treasure! Hugs to you all!

I'll get a couple pix of how it looks in the sheet pan, then unmolded & how it finally turns out. It's been such a privilege to be able to read thru the forum & perv over all the beautiful photos... You gals ROCK!

I would have had the lye water at a higher temp, but that's me.

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

I was pretty surprised that it didn't really seem to heat up that much... Didn't get as hot as normal... especially because I was using 200g less water & working in 200g coconut milk (which I forgot to mention before, sorry).

The RB came out better than my reg HP. I threw in some Rose Otto & Geranium, got 22 120g size bars with very little waste, so I learned a lot & finished quite happy with my "how to make dusty rose or mauve" lesson.

Imagine my surprise today when I used a DIFFERENT recipe (trinity), with the only change being the addition of 1% beeswax and 100g coconut milk. (I've used 100g often before, no dramas, great soap.)

SB'd to thick pudding trace this time. Separated only about 1.5 cups for cocoa, 3 cups for clay, out of 5lb. recipe. Patchouli only, light, 0.5 ppo. Ivory batter into the mold, then clay, then cocoa... Again, the perfect swirl, but no fancy textured top... Tucked away on the staircase with a board 'lid.' Had enough batter to do 3 individual bar molds, about 120g each. Two hours later, as they were about 30% into gel phase, ALL of them began to have clear liquidy oil on top, and the design of my log of "soap" sank like Atlantis again... ROTFL!!!

WTH??? Could it be weather? These are my 2 best recipes. My go-to recipes. Never any dramas before in HP. Have done about 30 batches of CP since last November, basic, no FO, no color. Today started out 7am at about 66F, fell to 63F, whereupon I started the fire - not a blaze, mind, just 2 chunks in one corner of a masonry fireplace. Brought room temp up to 68F. The FP chimney passes upstairs where I dry the soap, giving a gentle heat, temps low 60s up there. Of course, downstairs we do have drafts when going in/out the door.

I monitor humidity constantly (as if it helps ). Basically, when it's in the "humid" range, I don't soap but make baskets or something.

I went for pudding-thick trace this time before pouring, thinking that might have been the error last time. With HP, trace may only last until you light the burner under the pot, as I'm sure you know... We don't pay a lot of attention to trace...

On point again - THIS time, I got pix of the nice swirls & etc in the log mold & the individual bars. However, after it happening 2 times in a row, I was not quite as chipper about it as I was yesterday, so I forgot to get a pic of the "sunken Atlantis" soap, complete with pretty swirls intact. We were losing daylight by then anyway.

Any suggestions would be welcome, SoapBuddy! Please have compassion on my oils, for I plan to soap again tomorrow! My fave bastille, this time. Hmmm... Mebbe I'll dream about a "floating island" this time...

Seriously, I'd really like to get this sussed out & remedied. My 1st recipe was 60% lard, the 2nd 35%, with verified good olive oil (local), and I can't imagine BW doing that to soap. I also wonder if upping the coconut milk from 100g to 200g (discounting lye water like normal) would do this. It doesn't appear to be overheating, not hot to touch... it just "returns to the oil it come from," stripes intact... What a conundrum!

One wild guess just came to me... Hubs picked up the lye for me and he's not fluent in Spanish. They have several percentages here, altho the most common is 99% (they say 100%). Of course, I threw out the plastic bag it came in (once opened, ruined) to put in my screw-top container. IF it was 79% lye, that's gonna be one helluva superfat... but then, if so, why did it come out so pretty? Washes good, too.

Think I'm gonna pick up another kg of lye when I go to town tomorrow, just to be sure... but still curious. Will get the pix put up tomorrow AM if the internet is cooperative. You won't believe HP can be so pretty!

Looking for my investigator cap & magnifying glass now...

I wish I was able to watch you make it. Coconut milk does have natural sugar. It's possible that's what made your soap sunken; it tried to overheat. I would get some new lye and see if that makes a difference.

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

Thank you so much, Irena. I'm really second-guessing myself just now...

I'm going to town with another 'Merican friend tomorrow morning, so will stop & pick up a fresh kg of 99% (and hopefully a printer for my labels).

One thing about both batches - they seemed to pour beautifully, stay great for 1.5 hours, then fall/separate. Checked our barometric pressure & no fronts coming, just normal weather. My 60% lard recipe "normally" can be relied upon to gel 100%, every time, just put the plastic pan inside a cardboard box, close & block the top with a towel or piece of cardboard. Ditto the trinity recipe.

Will do tomorrow a recipe I KNOW in my sleep... Gran's with my twist. 80% Lard, 15% Coco, 4% Castor, 1% beeswax... and ONLY 100g cocomilk. The "twist" being everything but the lard, eh? Will "shoot for" a nice patchouli-scented oatmeal soap. If the newly-bought lye is the key, we'll know for sure!

Hmmm... I'm sure learning new ways soap can "behave." Playing SoapDetective is kinda fun, eh?

Thanks again, Irena. I very much appreciate your time.

You're welcome. Good luck on your next batch!

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

Today's batch didn't get made... so now it's tomorrow's batch...

Man, have I learned a LOT this weekend! You CP folks have my total respect! *bows*

The 2nd RB came out just like the first - soft & flowing & I was able to do a bit of weird textured top on them... Color is a little lighter than the first batch, as I went easier on the cocoa. These are scented with Patchouli, Frankincense, Orange & Ylang-Ylang because the girls down here like things heavily scented... Gee, my hands still reek, but other than that... *happy dance*

Still "rotating" the other bars out of the freezer upstairs to cure, but those from the 1st rebatch are nice & hard, a glossy, shiny finish on them, like pink marble. Lather on each is great. Me LIKE.

Hopefully, my next batch will get to STAY CP. Dang! I never realized so many things could go wrong making soap.

Internet is dreadfully slow today, but I will upload the pix as soon as we have 4 bars... I can't wait to show off these little "soapbabies." Might throw in a shot of me humble thatch-roofed (eek! ) curing room & the cheap but sturdy racks hubs built me...

Must have 50+ lbs. of soap up there by now. 20 will leave soon, as one of the hostels picks up its order... and I'll have space for more bars. Hopefully, right about the time the 'fletes' from Paysandu arrives with more coconut & castor oils.

I'm so jazzed about how a CP disaster can make a lovely HP soap... Better get outta here before people wanna swat me for being so stupidly happy...

Soapbuddy - I think I figured it out (or mebbe not; could be wrong & usually am ) Could it be the use of 100% cacau (cocoa powder)? I had been using the 70% cocoa but the 100% was a good price & I got several for making chocolate... Betting that there's more natural sugar in the 100%...

Next 2 batches went great - did an Oatmeal Patchouli and Citrus Sunshine with no dramas... On the Citrus, I was thinking to use your method of not gelling (to protect the EOs a bit), so I had it ready for the fridge... Danged thing began to gel before I had a chance, so I let it be on the kitchen table. Got a WAY gorgeous yellow-orange from infusing paprika & curcurmin in the olive oil (separate jars). If the citrus doesn't stick, at least it's the yummiest, best air freshener ever...

Guess I'm gonna visit the beach for some exercise while waiting for my order of coco & castor to arrive... I've got some mica colorants on the way, as well as a few naturals that won't morph...

Thanks for being so helpful. I really appreciate your taking the time.

If you don't mind, could I have a link to your web page? I saw a couple of your soaps in the "show off" page here, & would like to learn more from a pro...

Cocoa butter at a high % can make the soap very hard, but it can also make it crumbly when you cut it. I would back off to maybe 7% or so total of your recipe. You can find my web page at gingersgarden dot com

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

Hmmm... Well, I was using a MUCH smaller % of cacao than that, so... hmmm... Guess it's still a mystery for now.

We're having some winter storms now at night, but bright & sunny days... And I've turned out 3 more batches that went perfectly in 2 different recipes.

Thank you so MUCH, Soapbuddy! I have so much to learn from you. I'm so grateful for Anne-Marie & this forum & all you wonderful people who soap.

Took a while to get organized, batteries charged, etc., but here's a pic of my 1st attempt at my cocoa clay swirl soap:



Came out lovely, but then fell into itself.

In hindsight, I figured out it was my 60% lard recipe everyone loves that was working against me... I had melted all the oils, then poured into a 5 liter polyethylene lab pitcher for the blending... The oils got a bit too cool. Also, the lye never did really heat up much, altho it made a good soap.

Ended up with a pan of pure even dusty rose pink...



So, a new way to achieve dusty rose color... And the soap was a good save. Smells divine, like the cocoa & clay, no added fragrance.

I'd been fooling around with some butia nuts (seeds from the pindo palm here we call butia) left over from when we made jam & wine. A friend said to hull & roast them, grind & use for coffee substitute, but when I cracked them, they looked like little mini shea nuts...

Sooo... unable to leave well enough alone, after cutting the straight bars, I rebatched the leftover bits with about 15 grams of processed butia butter (same way they make shea butter - labor intensive. I'm an idiot. ) Added a touch of rose, lavender & patchouli EOs & now have what I call the "Mama Bars." They're bout ready now, but will give a little longer...

Did the same soap - but with trinity recipe instead of 60% lard - same cocoa & clay, and it did EXCELLENT w/swirls, etc. Cut this AM & did a happy dance.

So, new winter program = sunny day & warm, 60% lard recipe. Grey & damp/humid = trinity recipe. Either way, the fireplace is always going so the stuff upstairs has enough warmth to cure with a 24-hour fan... I figure, I can step outside & cool off, but the soap's gotta be comfy - at least 70F.

Either way it looks good!

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

Thanks, Irena. It sure smelled delish - just from the cocoa & clay. All sold now, 2 batches.

I should have had "thinking cap" on & realized it was cold weather & better to leave the oils in the pot (thick copper bottom to keep warm) instead of pouring into my 5-liter jug for mixing... The lard gave me false trace. Duh!

What can I say? I'm a former desert rat from Texas & dealing with humidity was OK in Alabama, but we were 23 miles inland. Here, sometimes the sea sounds like it's coming into the house in a minute...

I'm still tweaking recipes... Gonna try 2% beeswax & see if that routs the soda ash gremlins... Your hints re beeswax helped the issue by about 75%, but still a bit there.

On my swirly soaps with swirled tops, I kinda like it - looks like I put on a "special treatment." But on the moulded soaps, it's kinda PIA to remove it. LOVE your website! Boy, you are a busy lady! I could NEVER handle anything that big.

<big bow to waist, Japanese style> MUCH RESPECT for all you do & thanks so much for sharing your compendium of knowledge with us!