Miller's Homemade Soap Pages:
Miller's Homemade Soap Pages:
I've enjoyed your web site for the past couple of months. It gave me the courage to begin making soap as a hobby.
For the most part, I've been very successful, particularly with the stick blender. Great advice!!
After a few weeks of drying out, I've had two batches that are very weird. The first batch is only two weeks old, and I think it separated. It had thick grease on the top, but the rest looked OK, so I thought it would incorporate into the good soap. After two weeks, it didn't, so I thought I would remill it. So I shredded it with the cheese grater, and it smelled awful, like perm solution. Very ammonia-like. It was coconut oil, olive oil, shortening, almonds, oatmeal, vanilla fragrance oil and a little bit of cinnamon.
Needless to say, I threw it away.
My other batch looked OK on the outside, but when I cut into it, and in the very center it was a darker yellow color than the outside. It also smelled like a perm (not as strong as the other). It also was coconut oil, olive oil, shortening, almonds, vitamin e, but no fragrance oil.
Do you think it's the almonds? Maybe it's just separation? I've been a little warm with both the Lye and the Oils. Around 135 degrees. Is that too hot? Would that cause separation? Is there anything I can do with it?
I appreciate any assistance you can give. Thanks!
-Priscilla-
Ouch! You could have saved that first batch of soap! :-) I hope it wasn't a huge one. When soap separates, it often has an off smell, and if you have things in it like milk or organic materials, that ammonia smell is not unusual at first. After reclaiming, I suspect it would have been fine in two days. I haven't used ground almonds in soap. They sound nice and might be fine. Bitter almond oil (the real natural stuff) mutates in cold process soap and smells awful, but sweet almond oil is fine so the almonds are probably okay. How many did you put in? If you have lots of organic material in soap, I think you're more likely to have problems than if it's a little or is dry to begin with.
The second one might be fine after a longer curing time. I wouldn't rebatch it just yet if the bars are nice and firm. The lighter center could be because it got really hot after pouring. Sometimes you don't want to insulate soap until it starts to cool down after the gel stage. That is quite a high temperature to start and I'd definitely drop that down to no higher than 120 degrees and probably somewhere around 110-110 would be better. In hot weather, some people even go down to 85 or 90, but that sounds kind of low to me. I like the 95-110 range.
Good luck on your future batches. Glad you've enjoyed the page!
Hi I need some help. I recently bought some really nice molds. So far, I have not been able to take the soap out of the molds successfully. I have sprayed them with PAM and still no success. I only have one soap that did come out perfectly. This was probably eight hours after pouring the soap. What am I doing wrong? Do you have any advise on the types of molds that have 4 to 6 cavities and made out of flexible styrene.
-Claudia Alonzo-
Is this with cold process soap? Six or eight hours is not nearly long enough if it is. That's fine for melt and pour, but cold process will need to be in the molds at least 24 hours and usually 2 days or even three is even better...until it starts to shrink from the sides at the edges. Then you can normally pop it out. It's not like you're going to need to cut it and it will be too hard for that...the harder they are, the better when they are molded. It sure is difficult to make yourself WAIT though! Believe me...I have problems not wanting to get them all out as soon as possible.
If this is rebatched soap, sometimes putting it in the freezer for an hour makes it easier to get the soaps out. After an hour, you pull them out into room temperature and let them sit until they start to sweat. Then pop them out. If even THIS fails, I have sometimes gotten results by running hot water over the back side of the mold and that will soften the tops of the bars enough to come out...they are usually sticky in the first place if they need this and will not be as smooth and pretty on top.
Good luck! Let me know if this was cold process, melt and pour or rebatched soap. I'm curious.
P.S. - I don't usually grease my molds, but if you do, Vaseline will probably work better than PAM. The Vaseline will not be saponified by contact with lye so will do a better job of not becoming part of the soap and doing its job!
Claudia - Thanks for the advice. Yes I used the cold process method and it is not a rebatch. I used 24 oz olive oil, 24 oz coconut oil, 38 oz vegetable shortening, 12 oz lye, 32 oz water. I got the recipe from the SOAP BOOK SIMPLE HERBAL RECIPES by Sandy Maine. Maybe my question should have been if it's possible to make a fresh batch of soap and then pour it into these small beautiful molds that contain 6 cavities? I heard that their is a greater chance of heat loss since these molds are tiny.
The first mold came out without a problem ( just wanted to see what it look like). I did let the other five cavities sit for 24 hours, but they didn't pop out. Today I scooped one of them out. It turns out that maybe I should have waited for at least another day. The soap was still soft. Could this be my problem? Did I not wait long enough. I also noticed that the color had darkened in spots. I used lavender essential oil and used a purple wax chip for color. You're right, it's kinda hard to wait.
I've made her recipe before and it was kind of sticky/oily. Maybe my kitchen scale is not the best either...not sure. The finished soap was nice and mild. You can use the molds, but I would cut back on the water from the original recipe to something closer to 24 ounces (no more than 28) so that it will be firmer after 24 hours. Yes...you can pour into those molds but they will lose their heat soon. I've not had a problem with that though...might just take them a little bit longer to cure.
If you want a good recipe for hard soap that comes out easily, try the "Favorite Castile II' or the "Canolive II (The Sequel)" recipe on the all vegetable recipes page. They both come out nice and hard and smooth. I use a stick blender so don't know how long it would take to firm up and trace if you are hand stirring. If you are hand stirring, the second recipe will probably trace sooner.
If soap is on the soft and sticky side, it will have to wait longer before it will be ready to pop out...maybe even a few days.
First I would like to say that I absolutely love your site. It is the most complete and informative site I have found on the web.
Now I would like to respond to a letter written by Charleymon about her burnt 15 lbs of suet. I never used salt to render tallow, it is quite unnecessary, and I use very little if any water.
The main reason I am writing is in reference to Norma Coney's book "The Complete Soapmaker". Most of the book is pretty good but you have to read carefully because there are some mistakes in it. Some of her methods I would redo, such as the rendering tallow part. The biggest mistake and most dangerous is where she says to add the water to the lye. NEVER ADD WATER TO THE LYE, ALWAYS ADD THE LYE TO THE WATER!!! By pouring water into lye it can heat too quickly and overflow causing serious burns.
Just thought I needed to mention this.
-Linda- in Irons, MI (CraftyOne)
Hi Kathy,
First of all, I would like to thank you for putting up such a super site! Your web page became my window into the wonderful world of soap.
Can you help me with my soap? I tried an all olive oil recipe (16 oz. Olive oil, 6 oz. H20, 2 oz. lye), but I decided to add some coconut oil and some dried herbs (1 oz coconut oil and a pinch each of dried peppermint and dried rosemary)...after an hour and a half of stirring, I got impatient and used my blender. It traced to a wonderful creamy light green soap with green specks...after 4 hours, the soap was setting up beautifully. 24 hours later, my wonderful soap turned into a semi-transparent soup with floating waxy substance all over. and the container turned really hot...it has been a week now from the time my soap turned hideous and I still can't bear to throw it away...
Is there anyway I can fix this mess? Thanks in advance.
I recently bought a handmade oatmeal soap from our local organic market. The first few times I used it the soap was great, but last night when I used it I felt so itchy all over. I decided to test the soap by licking it and wow, the stuff almost burned my tongue off...So my question is, is it possible that a soap can have a nice mild ph on the outside but be very caustic on the inside? How can I prevent my soap from being like that?
My last issue is, have you had any other mails from the Philippines about soapmaking? I would love to meet other Filipinos who are into soapmaking (Anyone out there? Please drop her an email at the address above)...I've had a terrible time trying to source inexpensive imported oils here to no avail...I can easily make my own coconut oil from coconut milk, but palm oil and vegetable ghee? nah...Cocoa butter is sold here for a minimum of 25 kilos...same with the essential oils...and all the companies I've talked to regarding essential oils said that their carrier is alcohol.
Anyway, thank you so much for your time and attention. I hope to hear from you soon. More power to you and best regards.
God Bless,
-Rica Alabado-Ty-
Hi! You're welcome! I'm glad it has helped get you started. It's useful and LOTS of fun!
>my wonderful soap turned into a semi-transparent soup with floating waxy substance all over. and the container turned >really hot...
That sounds like the "gel" stage which is actually a good thing. It means the saponification is happening and that process creates heat. The soap will nearly melt itself sometimes (which is why it gets sort of transparent looking) but gradually cools back down.
Your pieces of herb will probably turn dark (brown), but that's just what happens with mint and rosemary in soap. They will still add texture and some scent. How does this soap look now? Did it separate or stay mixed in the mold? If it stayed mixed and set up, you should be able to cut it (if it needs cutting...don't know what kind of mold you used) and let it cure for a few weeks...3 to 4. I see no reason why you can't use it. If you used a green colored olive oil, your soap will probably still have a light green cast after setting...otherwise, it will probably be creamy whitish colored with brown flecks in it.
On the purchased soap that burned on the inside... I haven't encountered that, but wonder if they had some lye pockets in it or maybe it was lye heavy. If your soap has been properly measured, mixed and aged, you should not have that problem. I've not had one that was okay at first and then strong, but you see something NEW every day! :-)
The great thing about soap is that you can make it out of so many kinds of oils and fats. Look around for what you can find locally that is not so expensive and you can design a recipe of your own using available ingredients, and maybe a few imported things in very small quantities or for superfatting, only if you want. I take it you can get olive oil and coconut? That's a good start. What else is easily purchased in the Philippines? If you give me an idea of what oils you can get, I might be able to suggest some percentages of fats for you to try and you can make up your own recipe (the size you want) on the Majestic Mountain Sage Lye Calculator.
Let me know what you have to work with and I'll try to help you if you like. There must be some kinds of oils you can use for fragrance that don't have alcohol in them. You could also try making some infusions of fragrant stuff yourself by mixing herbs into a light oil and letting them sit for a couple of weeks (or some people heat it slightly in the microwave oven or however to speed up the process). Then you strain out the herbs and put more in. There are directions for stuff like this on the Toiletries Page. I have a link for them on my links page as well, and also where it says on the main page (toward the bottom)... "Do You Still Have Questions?"
Good luck! Let me know how that soap looks now that you already made. I'm curious! :-)
I've written to you before and you helped me out immensely. I have another problem, however. I melt down my basic soap (tallow & veg oil mixture) to mill it and after it melts, remove it from the heat and add my lavender or chamomile or whatever, along with essential oils. I pour it into me molds and wait. The soap sets, but becomes a dark color. The lavender, for example, became an extremely deep purple, almost dark brown. The chamomile became a dark green instead of yellow. To each I just added the proper flowers and then lavender essential oil and lemon verbena essential oil, respectively. My recipes' amounts are 12 oz. of soap, 9 oz. of water, 3/4 to 1 cup of flowers chopped, and 3-5 drops of essential oils.
I cut off the outer layers of the lavender soap and it revealed a very light purple soap. The next day the soap was once again a dark brown. I let all the soaps air dry. I don't know what could be causing this problem. If you have any idea, please get back to me.
Thank you so much.
--Duppy
Hi! Sometimes your oils can have some color to them (fragrance or essential), but you are not using that much and I don't think that's the problem. I'm more inclined to think it's because you are using a LOT of dry material in your soap for the amount of soap you have. I would probably add that many flowers to a whole batch using 6# of fats, but some people might put in more. Still...it's a lot for the amount of soap you are remilling and all that organic matter will usually turn brown in the end (but I hope not). The purple color is probably from the lavender flowers and since you rebatched, maybe you'll be lucky and that color will stay and not go brown with time.
Why not try cutting back on the amount of organic material you add the next time and see how it goes. You're probably going to ask me how much and I don't really know. For a batch that small, I would probably only go with 1-2 tablespoons (chopped stuff...fairly fine but not powdery).
Let me know how it goes. I'm guessing here. You realize I hate rebatching and avoid it whenever possible! :-)
Hi! I made my first batch of Favorite Castile Soap two days ago. Just this AM, 48 hrs. after mixing, the soap started to trace. It is now, still, veeery soft. I added 2 1/2 oz. of essential oils ( sweet orange, eucalyptus, lavender, and lemon) after 24 hrs. and poured the soap into molds, even though it had not traced. Will this soap harden? The recipe was 78 oz. olive oil, 6 oz. coconut oil, 6 oz. palm oil, 12 oz. lye, 32 oz. water. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Did I not stir vigorously or fast enough? By the way, the lye solution was110* and the oils were 140*. Thanks, Jerry
First of all...I would say that if you want to make castile soaps, you might want to invest in a stick blender! You can get one for about $12 and it will save your hours in trace time. Honestly, I didn't make this soap by hand stirring so mine traced in a matter of a couple of minutes. What you describe sounds common for castile soap though. Is there oil separating on the top or is it staying homogeneous (he responded back that it was homogeneous)? If so, it should harden up with more time. Don't try to unmold it before it gets firmer and starts to pull away at the sides, unless this is a larger piece that will need cutting into bars.
Let me know how this turns out for you. I've just made a note next to those castile recipes that my trace times were based on stick blending.
One other thing I didn't mention in my email response...I originally used 24 oz. of water in this recipe. It can be done with 32 oz. but will be softer and take a bit longer to cure. Eventually the bars should get very hard.
I would like to thank you for your website. It has been quite helpful to me in my quest to make the perfect soap. I would like to thank you for all of the attention that you have given to the problem of ash since my last email to you. I must admit, however, that I am a stoic Swede, and am convinced that if I just try slightly different proportions of oil to lye that my Castile soap will turn out fine without the bee's wax. Unfortunately, that has not yet worked, and I will have to break down and use bee's wax in my next recipe.
I have another question for you, and I am afraid that you will think I am a terrible soap hack. In truth, I am quite simply an experimenter.Theoretically, I would like to believe that fresh ingredients make excellent additives to soap and recently I have tried to use fresh aloe from a plant that I bought specifically for the purpose of harvesting it for use in my soaps. I have used the aloe only in remilling so that the lye is no longer so caustic and will not damage the aloe. I blend a combination of water and aloe together in the blender for the liquid in the remilling process. When remelting this combination I am aware that I am almost cooking the aloe and that there is the possibility of it turning brown. However, during this process it only turns a slightly darker shade of green and then when I unmold it the soap has actually turned a lovely shade of delicate green. At this point it is the perfect color. As the air reaches the soap and it cures it then gradually turns light tan. This is also quite a lovely color, but not the color I would like, and certainly not the color of fresh aloe. During my most recent attempt I even used a small amount fruit pectin and some lemon juice, as one would when canning. If my memory serves me correctly, these are the ingredients used in canning to help jellies, jams and preserves retain their natural color. However, not even hour after I unmolded the soaps, they had begun to turn tan again.
Is there a way to use fresh green ingredients in remilled soaps and have them retain their color? Am I experimenting in vain and working against nature? I have not tried any other fresh ingredients yet, but I am interested in using fresh produce in my soaps if it is possible. Do you have any ideas? Thanks again for your prompt response and attention to my ash question from this summer, and thank you in advance for your insight on this matter.
-Liz Knuppel-
Hi! Nice to hear you are still enjoying soapmaking. On the ash thing...putting a piece of plastic wrap, freezer paper, or mylar plastic over the top of the soap (after it gets thick enough to lay it on without making a big mess) will keep the air away from the surface and do a pretty good job of preventing ash. I also read somewhere of putting the freshly poured soap in a warmed oven (low heat and then off) with a pan of water inside and leaving it for a day until cutting...works for some people. Just be sure to put a BIG sign on the oven so that no one turns it on. What a mess that would be! :-)
I have not used tons of fresh stuff in the soap because I worry about it getting weird over time, but using some dried herbs at trace can be nice. As far as green goes, there are about three things I've been reading that will retain their green color (at least I hope they do since I'm passing this along...seaweed would make it four, but I don't care for the smell). The first is to use some spinach. A small jar of baby food spinach that is creamed or pureed will do the job and keep a nice soft green color in a batch of soap. I've also read that for bits of green herb in soap, dried ground parsley and dried dill weed will retain some color after cure. I'd like to try one of these in the future. The person who wrote this put a bit of dried green parsley in a soap that was scented with mint oils. I don't think the parsley had enough of its own smell to ruin the insinuation that it was mint!
If you try these out, I would be interested in the results you get. Good luck!
Good day! Firstly, just let us say that we love your webpage and have learned a lot from your comments (and those of others you have printed). It's nice to know that there is someone out there who listens to our frustrations!
Our problem is: We make (what we think) is beautiful soap - texture, tracing, consistency, etc. We pour it into molds; check in about 1 1/2 hours to see if it is setting but the temperature seems to have risen from the time that it was poured. The mixture seems to be "thinner" than when we poured it - the soap appears to be "setting" on the outside. It is the centre(s) of our mold that has become very hot and thin. We cover our molds with a cardboard box lid and a blanket (single layer). We have moved the molds to different places in the basement to try and establish what we are doing wrong! Some batches are turning out OK, most are not. If I hadn't made many, many batches of soap successfully (albeit in a different location), I wouldn't be so concerned but this is driving me (and my partner) crazy! PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN.
Your help and any thoughts you have on our problem would be much appreciated. Our thanks in advance,
-Theresa (the soapmaker) and Gaynor (her partner)-
Thank you so much for your nice remarks about the web page! Glad it has been helpful to you.
If I understand correctly...this is not a problem at all, but a desirable thing called the "gel" stage. If people don't ever look after covering or pour the soap into a shallow mold, they might not ever see this. Also...it seems more common if you are mixing with a stick blender or similar blending tool. Anyway...the soap actually heats up as the saponification is taking place (or continuing after trace) and it will nearly get to the melting stage before it cools back down and sets up. If you think it's getting WAY too hot, you can let out a bit of heat when it gets to gel and then cover it enough as it's cooling back down to retain some heat but not go overboard (it sounds like you're already insulating moderately).
What do you mean by not turning out okay? Are you saying that the soap has problems after 24 hours when you cut it? If that's true, send me back a message and describe what's wrong with the finished product. Then we'll try to figure that out. So far...it sounds like normal stuff that you only get alarmed over when you peek! I just discovered this when I started using the stick blender and changed my mold to a deeper one. I thought something was wrong at first.
I tried my first batch of soap and it was a big fat failure. It was a sunflower soap recipe that I used corn oil and shortening in. It said to put it in the oven (200 degrees) for and hour and 15 minutes. Then it would trace in another 30 minutes. Well, everything went ok, until I checked it at the last 15 minutes in the oven. It had exploded all over my oven! What happened? Did it trace and then boil over in that last 15 minutes? (Every time I stirred it at 15 minuted intervals, it was fine). I tried my best I could to stir the clumpy mess and to pour it into molds, but now it's just a clumpy brownish- greyish matter. Yuck! Where did I go wrong? My temps were accurate (lye-water at 160 and the oils at 100). Help! Did I waste my money trying to make soap? Should I switch to tallow recipes? If so, where do I get it? Would a regular super market have it, and is it ready to use, or do I have to do all that heating and cleaning?
Thanks for your help.
This is one of the responses that just bounced back to me because of a block on the AOL account. I hope you read my response here:
Hi! Sounds like a soapmaking nightmare! Sorry your first attempt was so depressing...but I have to ask you WHERE did you find that recipe? I've never heard of mixing lye solution at 160 degrees and putting a batch of cold processed soap in the oven is news to me. That's usually what you do when a CP batch fails in the first place, for reclaiming it...not at the beginning. I would guess it did finally reach saponification and then started to simmer and bubble all over your oven. Maybe this is just a hot process method that I haven't encountered.
If you prefer vegetable, you don't need to bail just yet, but tallow makes good soap also (better if mixed with olive and coconut oils for lathering, etc.). If you are going to be remelting your soaps in order to make smaller batches with different scents, etc., soap with tallow in it seems to work better for that. I don't like rebatching at all and like to do cold processed soap that is cut into bars after 24 hours. If you decide to try tallow, you can buy beef kidney fat from a butcher (sometimes upon request...some people say it's called "suet") and render that. Kind of smelly, but not too bad since the fat that way is so crumbly, white and pretty clean. There is very little waste.
If you don't want to render, lard is usually an easier animal fat to come by in the grocery store. You will normally find it in one pound packages. I would try another good recipe with vegetable oils if you like, but do it differently. I usually mix my fats and lye solution in the 90-110 degree range. I love using a stick blender for much of the mixing time (but have to turn it off and just stir by hand periodically if it's taking too long, or just because that works better). This gives you a quick trace and soap with a nice texture at cutting time.
Have you read through the information on the rest of this web page about making soap? Hopefully, it will help you and not be too confusing. You will get the feel of a different method of mixing that is widely accepted and seems to work most of the time (but I've had my share of failed batches in the beginning also!). There are also lots of good links on the soaplinks page that direct you to other sites with helpful information.
If you have other questions, let me know (after you load my address into your account info!). Good luck! -Kathy Miller
I just made my second batch of soap last night and I think it had some kind of disgusting malfunction I found a recipe for goat's milk, honey and oatmeal soap that looked really easy (ha). As soon as I added 2/3 can of lye to 6 cups goat's milk at room temp, it started this process of first becoming yellow, then brown and gelatinous with this gross crusty layer on top. I can't believe it was supposed to do that, but I followed the directions exactly so I went ahead with it. I added honey and oatmeal to the lye mix after it cooled to 85, then added the 2 lbs. of lard to that and stirred.It seemed to thicken up really fast since the lye mix was already disgustingly thick. The finished product looks and smells absolutely disgusting so far. What do you think went wrong? I don't know anyone who can answer this, so I hope you can! Thanks so much, I love your site!
-Bonnie Lacey-
Maybe this soap will turn out in the end after curing...let me know. The directions are different than ones I've read before. Most people who use milk at the beginning in which to dissolve their lye have it very COLD or even partially frozen (slushy) because it heats up so much. The heating process browns and sometimes curdles the milk. Adding the oatmeal at the beginning would make it kind of yucky, I would think, and I've never heard of adding the fat to the lye, but it is done the other way around. I think if you do goat's milk again, you should use different instructions! :-)
Some folks use part water and part milk for milk recipes and dissolve their lye into less water at the front and add the rest of the liquid as goat's milk after mixing the fat and lye water together well. The milk always turns color, but the darkness varies probably depending on how hot it gets, etc. Wish I had more personal experience with this to share with you, but have only tried one recipe with milk and it didn't go so well for me either. I added a can of evaporated milk and honey after mixing lye water and oils together and for some reason the whole mess separated. I had to reclaim it in the oven and it's still curing. It had cinnamon and clove oils in it for fragrance. It sure stunk when it was separated (an ammonia smell came off it), but smells like gingersnap cookie dough now.
Let me know what happens with this batch after it cures. I'd be interested.Thanks for the nice comments about the site! :-)
I sure enjoy your Site! It was so neat to read about all of the things that I have experienced. I even tried many of the hints and with great success. I do have one question though. My rebatched soaps that I have molded, cave in on the underneath side when they are drying. I know others are having this problem too, but we have no answers as to why and how to prevent it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. They look great on the top molded sides but underneath, UGH!!! Thanks!
Oh, one more thing. If I don't freeze my rebatches how do I get them out of the molds? Do I have to wait forever until they dry enough to drop out? Thanks again.
-Diane Stange-
Hi! Nice to hear from you. I suspect what you are experiencing is much like what happens when people pour candles...they develop a depression in the middle when they cool? All I could say is maybe you could heap it up slightly in the center (assuming the soap is thick enough to do that) so that when it contracts with cooling it won't make a depression. If it's a little too high, it could be trimmed after the fact. I hope I'm understanding this okay.
I've always been reluctant about freezing soap, but yeah... if you don't want to do that, you would let it sit for a matter of days until it contracts a bit at the sides. Then they will usually pop out. I suppose it's not as touchy freezing rebatched soap as it might with cold process...the saponification process is nearly completed by heating it up and you won't disrupt that too much with the cold temps.
Happy soaping!
I just made my first batch of soap. The recipe I used was the olive oil recipe. Olive oil, lye and water. It's been over a week and it still is not hard enough to come out if the primary mold, which is plastic container approx. 11"x 14". The soap is about 1 inch thick. The book I have showed a container like this. Any suggestions? Should I dig it out? I was going to use it for what she calls hand-milled soaps where I have to grate and remelt with water before putting in molds. Thanks for any help you can give me.
want-to-be soapmaker,
-Kathy Kouwe -
I have not actually made ALL olive oil soap, but it is notorious for having a long trace and cure time. I'm not sure how to advise you. If it saponified and traced before pouring, it should harden up with some more time. If it's separated and not traced yet, it might be weird. You might want to take a small corner (or maybe a couple of inches in from the corner) and dig down to the bottom and see if there's any separated liquid there. If it's homogeneous and not greasy to the touch, but just soft, it will probably set up with some more time.
I would recommend next time you make a castile recipe that has some other fats in it that will speed trace and cure times. The favorite castile one I posted on my All-Vegetable page was great. It used 6 oz. each of palm and coconut oils in addition to 78 ounces of olive and the original recipe had only 3 cups of water instead of 4. I'm going to try it again with just coconut oil added to the olive, since palm is hard to find locally, and see if it still sets up nicely. I'll have to adjust the recipe a bit for the difference in SAP values of coconut and the palm it would replace. When I do this, I'll probably post it with a report on the web page.
I'm going to forward your original question to a seasoned soapmaker who lives north of me and see if she has any other recommendations for you. She hates olive oil soaps, but has a lot of experience and might have a suggestion I hadn't thought of.
Here's what Rachael had to say: "Too much liquid in the recipe would be my first thought. If it hasn't separated, it WILL harden. If you think it is hard enough to keep its shape once it's out of the mold, I would suggest you get it out of there, and it will dry out and start curing faster than if left in a mold. You put the thing in the freezer for a couple of hours, then pop the frozen slab out. Don't start cutting on it at all, but put it on a tray and let it sit for a few weeks. It will dry out ... I've had some huge messes on my hands, and they all eventually did."
"A fellow soaper buddy of mine, Jeff, suggests cutting the recipe enough to allow the addition of 1-3 oz. of cocoa butter per pound of olive to assist in trace, and other characteristics. Use the 1 oz. number in larger recipes due to the compounding effect... and I would think that any solid fat would help, if cocoa butter is beyond reach."
"If you're intent on 100% castile soap, I think getting the stuff to the fullest trace you can before you mold it will be the best thing you can do for it--that means using less water to pound of fats, higher temps and using a stick blender too."
"-And that's my fifty cents." -Rachael-
Hello Kathy...
I was going to write to tell you of my recent successes, but two new failures lead me to believe I might be premature in declaring my soapmaking foolproof. First, the successes:
I love to experiment. I was standing there, contemplating the pitcher of hot lye and the pot of cold olive oil. I was just about to turn the burner on under the oil and place the lye pitcher in a pan of ice water when I changed my mind and placed the pitcher of lye into the pot of oil. I kept feeling the outside of the oil pot. Yes, it started to heat up as the lye was losing its heat to the oil. Eventually, the oil was no longer going up in temperature (about a half-hour) but had started to cool back down. I knew at that point both oil and lye were at about the same temperature. I carefully transported both to the sink, carefully lifted the lye pitcher up and let it drip for a moment, then carefully combined lye and oil as usual. This time I used your suggestion of an electric mixer, which I ran for 20 minutes. It seemed to be trailing after five, but I kept on going. I kept it in the primary mold wrapped in a towel and placed on top of my refrigerator for two days, then uncovered it for another two, then unmolded it onto a towel and cut it into bars. The result is perfect pure olive oil soap.
Another success: I have been interested in using less water in re-milling (you can't use none - see failures below - so I have been re-melting in the oven. I grate the various ingredients, in this case, basic soap plus shavings from trimmed bars, plus finely chopped dried rosemary leaves into a pot, add a little water (about a half cup to a pound of grated soap) cover it and place the pot in the oven set at 170 degrees. In 1 1/2 to two hours, it's ready to add fragrance (tea tree and lavender) and pour into the loaf pan. When it's cool, I place it in the freezer for a couple of hours so it's easier to get out of the loaf pan. Then I let it thaw and cut it into bars. I thought I had this perfected.
Failures: I made a basic soap using 8 ounces of rendered tallow, 12 ounces of coconut oil and the rest of the six pounds was olive oil. Five cups of water for a can of lye. Melted the fat, when the fat pot was same outside temperature to touch as the lye pitcher, I turned off the electric burner and waited about 20 minutes for cooling to "toasty warm." Incidentally, I have never used a thermometer after the first batch. Carefully combined the lye and fat and stirred with a plastic spoon for a half hour. It was getting pretty cloudy, so I poured it into the primary mold at that point. Wrapped it and checked it in two days. There was an inch of oil over an inch of white glug which would not stir together. So I put all of what was in the primary mold into a large pot, covered it and placed it in the oven at 170 for two hours.
This has re-claimed a number of separated batches in the past. Turned it back out into the primary mold after stirring it. This time it all hardened. There was some marbling. You could see small swirls and chunks of soap which were the original color of the coconut oil and some tinier swirls and chunks which more closely resembled the yellow of the rendered tallow. The primary soap smells good, lathers extremely well (almost too many bubbles) but it is still soft a month later. It is dry on the surface, but you can squeeze it out of shape with not a lot of strength. When you grate it to re-melt it, the inside is soft and gummy on the grater. I don't know if I used too much coconut oil or what.
Another failure was on re-milling. I've used some of the above soap with other olive oil and tallow soap successfully for some nice re-milled bars of various kinds. This week, I tried using no water in the re-melting. I never could get the soap melted enough to pour. It came out as a paste, which I packed into the loaf pan. On trying to cut one piece broke. On drying a couple of days, there were fissures, like when you make homemade bread and the layers of the rolled dough come apart. So I put it back in at 170 for two hours, but this time with about 4 ounces of water. Beautiful result. So that's a lesson for me - you absolutely can't get away with adding no water when re-milling soap.
Yesterday, a bad result with the same basic ingredients re-milled as above, one half cup water, and about a quarter cup red Rit Dye. The soap won't cut without crumbling. Crumbles like goat cheese. Tried re-melting again - same result. Have you ever had Rit Dye do this before (presume it was the dye because all else is the same except freesia oil instead of tea tree and lavender for the scent)?
So I guess my two questions are: Did I add too much coconut oil to make that batch feel dry on the surface but be like it was in a Ziploc on the inside? and: Did the Rit Dye cause the re-melted soap to be crumbly?
-Howard Lang-
Good to hear from you. Your emails are always informative and interesting! I have not used Rit dye in soapmaking and can't address that question. I would suggest you visit the Latherings Soap Forum and post that question. They have a lot of real serious soapmakers there who are wonderful sources of information. You will love just spending hours reading all the posts!
As far as the first batch which was soft in the middle...again, I would be guessing, but I have had soap do this (after recrafting). It is probably a matter of not enough lye for the amount of fats/oils used. When you start using all vegetable ingredients or plugging different fats into the main soap recipe, it doesn't necessarily work so well. The amounts need adjusting since their saponification values are different. I recently linked to the Majestic Mountain Sage site where you can calculate the needed proportions for the amount of lye you are using and make sure it comes out right. You will find that link right under the saponification chart on the main soap page and the all-vegetable page.
Another thing I just "discovered" (not first, of course!) is that using the stick blender totally speeds up trace and tends to produce soap that is not as prone to separate. You just have to be really careful to turn off the thing before the soap gets too thick to pour! For some types, it happens REALLY quick! If you're not already familiar with this, read the little block I added on using the stick blender. It's on both the main soap page and the all-vegetable one.
Hi! I've been making soap for a few months and have learned some interesting things (mostly by mistake!!!). I have a question about using spirulina in soap for green coloring. The soap I made smells great, but the spirulina is oxidizing with the lye I guess because it is turning a golden color with the air. I trimmed it to start with and it looked pretty - but overnight it started looking golden speckled again. What's up with that? Would adding the grapefruit seed extract prevent that from happening?
I made a batch of soap with no coloring and added the grapefruit seed extract and some vanilla oil. It's turning an ugly brown color as it ages...what do you think is causing that? I thought it would be a pretty natural looking bar of soap.
Do you age your soap in the air? I stand mine on end and it seems like I have to trim all sides of the soap and when I'm done my bars are about half the size of what they were. Is there any way to prevent that?
Funny story: I made coffee soap but didn't think it looked or smelled like coffee enough, even though it worked well as a deodorizer! So, I bought a jar of Folger's crystals, mixed it with super strong coffee and added the sludge to my soap with a half a cup of cinnamon for the fun of it!! Well, it's a gorgeous dark dark brown soap with a great cinnamony smell. However, when you wash with it it temporarily dyes everything brown!! It exudes brown!! It rinses off the hands but not out of washcloths very well. Not for sale for sure!!
Thanks again,
-Sincerely, Donna Rager-
First of all, I don't know what spirulina is, but I'm guessing it is some sort of leafy green thing you added. Grapefruit seed extract is supposed to help, but I haven't experienced this stuff first hand yet and can't share my own experience. When adding organic materials to cold-pour soap, it is best to put them in as late as possible (trace) just before pouring. They will tend to react with the free lye in the soap and often turn brown after a day or two. If the green materials were dried before adding, they might hold their color a bit better also, but again, I haven't tried this myself.
I can answer this one! Most vanilla oils turn soap brown as it ages. Sweet Cakes sells a fragrance oil called "White Vanilla" which is not supposed to do this. It's not necessarily unattractive, but when you are hoping for light colored soap and watch it change, it is probably disappointing!
>Do you age your soap in the air?....
I air dry my soap and usually it doesn't shrink too much (unless it was reclaimed with water added). The latest soaps I've been making this week are all-vegetable and the tops of the a couple of the batches ended up kind of puckered and ridged instead of smooth. I decided to just leave the tops looking that way...it's kind of different but gives them texture. I didn't want to shave off that much soap just to make them flat. When I do trim the sides of the soap, if it's necessary, I just use a potato peeler that doesn't take a very big bite when used. It just shaves enough to smooth things out. Maybe you need to use something that doesn't take off so much when you trim.
The coffee/cinnamon story is funny. I guess that's how we learn. Some of the greatest ideas end up with a downside!
Happy soaping!
Thanks for your reply. I poured the soap into molds. The top is soft like lard is after it is rendered and cooled down. It seems as if I used too much lard. The recipe called for 5 1/2 lbs. This weekend I'm going to try the basic soap recipe and see if it comes out better. Also the lye that I used was sot of clumpy when I poured it into the goats milk but at the time I thought that maybe it was the curdling of the milk due to the high temp of the lye. Please let me know what you think.
Thanks
-Jan (Fencegirl)-
It doesn't sound like your recipe is bad (she used 5 1/2 lbs. lard for a can of lye) but you may need to reclaim this if it actually feels greasy on the top. The saponification process may not have been complete enough. Also...as I mentioned before, the adding of dairy products can make your soap softer. See what the character of it is (the stuff on top). If it's just soft but sudses a bit when you rub a little under the faucet, it probably just needs more time to firm up. If it's greasy and kind of yucky, then I'd turn it out and reclaim it.
You might try one of the methods used by people who have contributed to the Soapy Success page (on the one about Reclaiming). Howard Lang puts his in a covered pan in the oven (very slow) for an hour or two and last time I don't think he even added water. You might want to add one cup of water to the soap that you shave or cut up into a covered pan and try that. Once it all melted and was stirred together it set up great for him. If you used an essential oil the first time, you might lose much of that fragrance when reheating it, but could put a bit in at the end before pouring it into molds. I think he let it cool a bit but poured it before it got too thick.
I am attempting to make soap for the first time - rendering beef suet. The first try I used 5 lbs. & I did not use salt (even tho it called for it in the recipe). It came out with a nice white color & texture (as in the color of lard). The second batch I used salt & I also accidentally boiled the water out & slightly burned it. - I‚ve tried cleaning it 2 times but the color is still much darker and it still has a strong smell to it. Any suggestions? I goofed on 15 pounds using 12 Tbls salt - did I over do it? - is salt even needed? The text I read from is called, The Complete Soapmaker by Norma Coney.
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR HELP!!!!!!
I just bought the book you mentioned (I've gone 20 years with no soapmaking books and finally just got three!). I have never used salt when rendering tallow and I don't prefer the water method because it's so icky when you take the scraps out...blah! It works okay, but not my favorite.
I usually render in small quantities in the microwave using a covered Pyrex casserole dish. Sometimes I can get a bit of overcook in that fat also. You said you cleaned the fat...which method did you use?
There is an instruction from the lye company for cleaning rancid or cooking fats on my main page. I would do that. If you've already done it, try it one more time using that method and call it good (unless you think further washing will improve things even more). It will probably always have a darker color, but you don't want it to have a strong burned smell. When you use it for soap, I would use a strong kind of fragrance rather than something delicate and floral, in case there's a hint of burn left. I suspect most of it will be gone, but I don't know how strong it is to begin with. By the way...I have NEVER used salt while rendering and don't know that it's at all necessary. I wonder why she puts it in. I just scanned that chapter and I didn't see her mention a reason.
Good luck! I certainly wouldn't throw out 15 pounds of beef tallow. Even if you have to wash it a couple more times, I would salvage it.
Hi, I have made my second batch of all vegetable soap and noticed after a few hours in the molds that small beads of liquid were forming on the top. Is this what the dreaded separation looks like or is it the wonderful sign of a soap with lots of glycerine?
I'm more inclined to think that you have glycerine coming off the soap or maybe a bit of condensation if it's been covered (but probably the former). Usually a severe separation will leave the liquid at the bottom of the mold, or there will be large pockets of lye solution throughout the soap. If you put some of the liquid on your finger and rub it, you will know it is glycerine by the silky feel (no odor). If it's lye solution, it will be a bit irritating and leave your fingers feeling slippery while you are rinsing it off. I don't get panicky about touching lye solution briefly, but you want to wash it off thoroughly and not leave it on the skin for any length of time.
Dear Kathy,
I made a batch of soap last weekend from lard. It is soft & brittle but when I wash with it it suds well. What in the world did I do wrong??? The measurements were correct. The only thing I can think of is the temperature was wrong. I think I should have heated it 20 degrees higher. Could that be why? The olive oil batch I made the day before is wonderful. HELP! This was just my second batch. I have no experience to draw from. Maybe it is that I didn't let it trace correctly? Please, Please, please give me a good description of what tracing looks like. Does it mean the soap is thickening or is it a chemical reaction? How can a novice, who knows no one who makes soap locally, figure this out????
Frustrated,
-Gaye-
Soft and brittle I interpret to mean that it breaks easily when you try to cut it but has a mealy texture? You can either remelt this in the oven and repour, or just cut it as best you can with dental floss or wire (it will break with a knife) and let the bars age longer. There are probably pockets of free lye in the soap that will absorb with some time and it should suds fine. It will likely form more ash as it ages though. If you'd rather try remelting with his method (as low a temp as you can in the oven and COVER it while doing it so keep in the moisture. With all lard, I'd probably add a slight amount of water to start), you can do that and the texture might be better the next time around. Either way, you should be able to use it eventually, but if you just cut it and let it age, it might not look as pretty as if you remelted and poured it and got a better mix. You're right...the temperature might have done it. Lard is not very hot when you mix it, but the side of the container should be warm to your hand.
>Maybe it is that I didn't let it trace correctly? Please, Please, please give me a good description of what tracing looks like. Does it mean the soap is thickening or is it a chemical reaction? How can a novice, who knows no one who makes soap locally, figure this out????<
I made lots of batches of soap with no one to explain this to me either! I know what you mean. Trace is both a chemical change AND a thickening (they go hand in hand). As the saponification process progresses, the soap will look thicker and kind of silky on top when you stir it. "Trace" means you can pull the spoon through it and it will leave a slight line in the wake of where the spoon handle has been. If you drop some soap from the spoon onto the rest of the soap, it will tend to bead up and rest or make a pattern on top instead of flattening out. It will look kind of honey-like, or soft pudding-like. You don't want it to be too stiff before pouring because sometimes it will set up quickly and you will have trouble getting it into your molds! Once it is at "trace" you add the fragrance or essential oils and any organic material you are planning to add, like pulverized oatmeal, whatever...if you are using those.
Don't be too discouraged. If I were you, as an experiment, I'd save a few of the most decent bars you cut and just let them age until they firm up to be smoothed out with a peeler or cheese cutter...whichever... and reclaim the rest. The only thing that would be a problem with this is if taking a few bars out makes the soap too thin to repour into your container. You be the judge of that.
I followed the directions meticulously, measuring accurately and did everything according to Hoyle. The soap never set up. I stirred for an hour and never saw trailings. I used a "Homesteaders Soap" recipe calling for 106 oz. rendered lard, 41 oz. water, and 14 oz. lye. Can I reheat the soupy mess and re-stir to get it to set up? Right now it is in the mold wrapped in a blanket. The recipe said the soap would be warm when I poured it into the mold. It was barely warm. This is my first attempt at soap making. What do I try now? -CP-
According to your measurements, it should have worked okay, but with all tallow soap, it should have been toasty warm to the touch but not hot (the sides of the containers) when you combined the lye solution and melted tallow. You didn't try to rush the cooling of your tallow by putting the container in cold water, did you? Someone else did that one time and it could start your fat setting up on the edges. Anyway...I would try reheating (gently!) the whole thing and stir to see if you can get it to saponify. You might end up adding a few cups of water to do this, but try it the way it is first...maybe just a half cup to start to allow for the fact that it's been sitting and might have lost some moisture. Don't overheat it, but warm it until the tallow completely melts and you can start mixing the whole thing. It should look somewhat honey-like when it is saponifying and with all tallow, it should be pretty hard in 24 hours after pouring. You will be getting it warmer to melt than you might have when you mixed the solutions the first time so it might take longer to trace and be ready to pour. I would mix it with a hand held electric mixer during melting to make sure it really gets well blended. If it needs periodic stirring after it appears to have combined, you can switch to a spoon.
Of course, it could just decide to suddenly get saponified in a BIG way and you will be scrambling to scrape the stuff into the mold. Soap is funny that way!
Good luck with this! Let me know how it comes out.
P.S.
>I followed the directions meticulously, measuring accurately and did everything according to Hoyle.<
That was your first mistake! :-)
I've had better luck since I stopped using thermometers and just used my hand to feel the sides of the containers. Everyone is different though.
I wonder if you could help me out here. I have just made my second batch of Vegetable Soap. The first batch turned out great, although it never did trace and I just poured it crossing my fingers. It is a bit soft but hardening with curing. For the second batch I had make some notes from a book I had picked up at the library - it was the same recipe as I had used previously but with added herbs and essential oils. I thought the peppermint soap looked great so I bought some mint and essential Peppermint. This batch didn't trace either so after an hour of stirring I threw in the peppermint and oil and put it in to molds. (Have you ever tried using 1 litre milk cartons, they come off easily, and the soap can be cut up into nice square bars) Anyway, it looked and smelled great the next day, but 48 hours later there are brown spots all through the soap. I am guessing the lye is reacting with the peppermint herbs. Reading through your FAQ's, am I suppose to rebatch before adding herbs or oils.?? I must have tried to read that book too fast!! I'm so disappointed 'cause it looked so great the first day.
Thanks for your answer - just so I don't do it again.
-Marleen Caswell, Distressed in B.C.-
I would be guessing, but I think your theory is probably right. Was this mint fresh or dried and pulverized? If it were dried, it probably would have looked kind of brown anyway, but if it was fresh it might get kind of icky when put into cold method soap. The soap might still be nice when it's done, but it will have those brown blotches in it. It just isn't going to look like you'd expected!
In general, the results are probably more predictable if you add organics and oils to rebatched cured soap than in the cold process, but some people have good luck with adding stuff to the latter...like pulverized oatmeal.
Next time, if your soap doesn't trace, just leave it in the pot or bowl and stir it about every fifteen minutes until trace happens. This might take a few hours and sometimes people have had soap take a couple of days! That is the rare case and I think for all-vegetable soap, an hour and half is not unusual. That's when the trace time is so long...when it's all-vegetable. If you are using lard and tallow, your soap should trace in about 20-30 minutes and I usually mix it the whole time (or keep stirring slowly toward the end).
Also, when adding oils and other materials to soap (the cold method...and things like honey, oatmeal, essential or fragrance oil, etc.) it is always suggested to put them in at trace so that the free lye in the soap doesn't ruin them ... your soap hadn't traced yet so there would be even more free lye present to react with the organic material you put in.
Addendum, from Marleen: I am relieved to hear my soap can still be used (if only by my own family). I thought it was a throw out. : ( I am currently reading some more.The more I understand the more I get hooked. Yesterday I found out there is a soap making supply store just in the next community! Wow! I won't have salespeople looking at me as if I have two heads!! A common soapmakers ailment I think. Why is it when you're on the Internet it seems like the whole world is making soap but when you go out looking for ingredients no one knows what you're talking about?! Life is funny! That is hilarious and SO true!
Thanks, Kathy for the fast reply. I thought that's what you would say. (He mixed all tallow soap when the tallow had cooled too much and it set up too quickly...result was some separation.) Actually, I cut and printed the basic soap recipe before I read down to the temperature chart. My friend's olive oil batch needed stirring several times over several weeks before the oil all incorporated. Then it was all white and like jello. Finally, it was like cheese when unmolded and cut into bars for milling. The unmilled soap was as creamy as Dove soap and really nice to use, but she wanted to try milling. She made two milled batches; fresh rosemary from her garden and rose petals with rose water made by boiling petals (from her garden). The soap is in its second week of shrinking. The rose petal is brown and faintly scented. The rosemary is white with green sprinkles throughout and smells great. We used margarine tubs, cheese wedge containers and tuna cans as well as a loaf pan for molds. Are using some of it soft but will appreciate it when it dries (boy is shrinks a lot!). Thanks again for the advice and for your nice web page which, by the way, I found by typing "soap" at the Yahoo search screen.
-Howard Lang-
Kathy... I re-read your web page again. First, I did the following: I placed all the "bars" of separated soap in a large enamel pot. I was going to re-melt it in the oven, so I added a cup of water (my mother always added a cup of water to something she re-heated in the oven). Then I set the temperature to a low setting (probably 150 F) and waited. After a couple of hours, half of it had melted down and the contents of the pot smelled like the livestock barn at the Humboldt County Fair. I stirred it a bit with a stainless steel serving spoon, put it back in and increased the temperature to around 200 F. An hour later it was like honey. The pot smelled less like livestock. I stirred the contents and turned it out into the primary mold, covered it and wrapped it. The spoon and pot were not difficult to clean. The solidified soap smelled like butter. The next day, I unmolded the reclaimed soap and cut it into bars. Not a trace of lye. Placed it on white paper in a cardboard box, bars on their sides next to each other but not touching. They smelled like a barn. After three more days, the smell was almost gone and they had become more yellow. To touch, they were smooth, not dry, but not gummy. Last night, I smelled them - almost no smell at all, so I used one to bathe with. The lather was creamy. At first, the smell reminded me of leather. Then, yes, it was, it was, butter!!! I was bathing with butter! What a sweet smell of success. I am going to call my first batch Howard's Butter Bars.
Hi! Thanks for your webpage. I am new to the Internet as well as soap making, so it was a great first experience. I have a question about a problem that I have with my first batch of soap. You had mentioned something about "ash" and some batches having more of a problem than others with it. I think that this batch, which is now curing, has this problem. I have not seen anything in any of the troubleshooting sections of the soap making books I have read that even addresses the type of problem that I am having. Perhaps you have a suggestion for me.
I made Castile soap. It showed trailings nicely and set up just as I would have hoped. When I unmolded it it came out fine and looked just like the pictures in the books. I didn't seem to have any lye or fat bubbles floating around, but as it dried for the next few days, it began to get this white almost flaky layer to it. It looks almost like brie or camembert cheese when you cut it open and there's that rind on the outside before you get to the good stuff. The layer is only about 1/16" thick, and if I take a vegetable peeler to remove it, it does not come back as it cures. (What a great description!) When you mentioned "ash," that was the closest thing I had seen that might describe what I was seeing. The soap underneath is smooth and hard, and lathers pretty well (I tried it to see if it was quite done curing). If you have any ideas about what it is, what causes it or how to prevent it, please let me know. (Removing it from the wide flat surface of the bar is difficult. My vegetable peeler keeps gouging the bar, and that doesn't look very nice).
-Liz Knuppel-
Yep! That's ash! I hate it when I have a batch develop very much of it, but haven't figured out how to keep it from happening. I've suspected that it occurs when the saponification hasn't progressed quite as far when it's poured for whatever reason, but don't know for sure.
You can try scraping it off with a knife instead of using the peeler, but I do better with the peeler alone...it just takes some practice shaving it on each edge of the top and then trying to get the center section to be smooth without gouging it, like you said. The kind of potato peeler can make a difference. I'd be sure to have one of the slightly longer ones that doesn't have any serrations on it anywhere (I have one like that which works better...it had a plastic orange handle and doesn't cut as deeply as some of the other peelers we have). You can get pretty good with a knife as well...shaving the top like someone would shave their face. When you first use the bar, the ash that's left comes off really quickly and is no longer noticeable.
Hopefully, your next batch will not do this. Wish I had a cure-all for the problem. I'd use it myself! Does anyone else out there have any suggestions?
Addendum: After posting this response, I was browsing some web pages and Elaine White stated on her soapmaking page that soap made with wax in it (beeswax) doesn't ash like this. It might be worth trying. I have not done this yet, but would suggest substituting approximately 4 ounces of beeswax for 2 ounces of the fat in the recipe (we're talking about a full batch of soap that uses anywhere from 5-6 pounds of fat). For suggestions on where to buy beeswax, see the section on "Where to Find Ingredients" on the soap page and look for "Beeswax."
Another suggestion for preventing ash was covering the soap after pouring with Saran Wrap. I would be sure the soap is past the pudding consistency before placing the wrap (maybe it doesn't matter, but sounds like a good idea to me!). You can work out air bubbles by pricking them with a needle. After 24 hours when you are turning out the soap for cutting, you can easily peel the plastic off the top. I'm definitely going to try this next time I make soap and see how well it works.
I have just unmolded my first batch of soap using Norma Coney's recipe for basic white soap. This is a mixture of tallow,vegetable oil and cocoa butter. I followed the directions very carefully but when I unmolded the soap after leaving it wrapped in blankets ,undisturbed for 48 hours it is as hard as a brick. What is wrong? Will I be able to use it?
I am a beginning soap maker at batch number five. My latest batch came out caky. It crumbles when I touch it. What could have caused this problem?
-Diana in north Dallas-
From what you've said, I would guess you started with vegetable fat sources so the soap would be soft anyway. Regardless, I've had this happen and it's really frustrating. It usually occurs when the saponification process is less progressed for some reason (not enough mixing, temperatures not quite right, etc.) and there are little lye pockets in the soap. If you were to take a piece and cut through it with a knife, you would get watery fluid on the knife blade instead of just leaving a soap film. The best thing to do is leave it a bit longer before handling it very much. It WILL get harder with more time and suds just fine after it completes the aging process. With crumbly soap like this, I always cut it with a piece of dental floss (I give directions on the page). If it's so soft and crumbly that you can't even do that without breakage, let it rest for another day or maybe two before cutting the bars. They usually look just awful because they can crack and crumble easily. After they sit long enough to get really firm (anywhere up to a week) you can make the bars look a bit better by tidying them up with a potato peeler. Sometimes, batches like this have actually lathered better after aging than ones that came out really smooth in the first place. It will probably make more ash on the outside during the aging process and that can be pared off when you bevel and clean them up with the peeler.
I was hoping for some help or information. I made my first batch of soap and don't know if it will be usable. I used the following recipe:
The fat and lye were both 95 degrees. As soon as the lye was added it became very thick ... like medium runny mashed potatoes. I beat it hard (this could contribute to separation...it should be mixed gently or use an electric mixer...even though that seems to be hard, it does a better job of blending the whole mess together) for approx. 10 min. It was then poured (glopped) into plastic shoe boxes and small molds. I unmolded after 24 hours. It didn't look very nice so I tried to make balls and it burned the living daylights out of my hands! Has it not cured long enough? Is that what caused the burning? Also, it leaked olive oil when I tried to smoosh it into balls. Is there any help for my maiden batch?
-Lora Poynter-
You have my sympathies and understanding! :-) All shouldn't be lost, but depending on how much oil was separating when you worked with the soap, it sounds like a good candidate for "reclaiming" or "recrafting." The reason your hands burned was that the saponification process was incomplete and there's still tons of free lye in your soap. It takes usually a full month or maybe 6 weeks for soap to cure enough that it is mild to use.
You might try leaving some of your soap balls as they are (if there wasn't too much oil coming out of them) and with time they will saponify and be "soap." I find that when this kind of batch happens, there is usually more ash that forms on the outside as that process is completed. With the other half of your soap, you might try "recrafting" (remelting) it using the instructions on the bottom of my page (did I supply them or refer you to Soapcrafters Company?). She has you melt some soap with milk, add oils if wanted and mold. The stuff I did was so thick I could hardly smoosh it into molds, so I pressed it into bread pans lined with saran wrap. If you do the remelting thing, I personally would just use water instead of milk. I don't think the milk has magic properties and what it does is turn your soap a brown color. You already have stuff in it to provide texture and I wouldn't add the brown, but if you want that effect you can do the milk thing if you like.
You said that both your fats and lye solution were 95 degrees. The fats should have been a bit warmer than that and maybe that's why the soap started setting up too fast. If you let the fats get too cool before blending (no matter what kind of fat you're using...temperatures can vary depending on the particular fat used) this can be the result. If this happens in the future, you could try heating it from the bottom gently while stirring it. I usually have mine in a stainless steel pan on the stove and can do this if I need to. Not too much heat and not for too long. Sometimes it helps and sometimes, the stuff is going to get thick no matter what and you just have to scramble to "pour" (hee-hee) it!
Let me know how it goes. You should be able
to use this stuff after it ages for awhile and the next batch will be
better because you will have more experience.
This page last updated September 3, 1999.
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