I don't know what I'm doing

21 | she/her | bi | I learn how to make soap (+hopefully other stuff eventually), expect long posts. Reblog blog: @ysawhatnow

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Soap #8 and #9

Tried making another dish soap with 100% coconut oil (500g of oil and 88g of lye to 160g water)

So, I messed this one up, I mixed the oils and lye while they were too hot. They volcanoed and turned translucent once it finally calmed down. Nothing spilled, the container was tall enough so luckily nothing got on me or got anywhere.

It cooled really quickly so i had to scrape it out of the container and i stuffed it into the mold and added some water to melt everything together - it worked out - somehow.

Note: Do not do this, it heats up like crazy and as the name for it implies, it volcanoes and expands. Not to mention it's got lye.

Soap #9

Tried to make soap for my friend again, but I'm not sure what went wrong this time.

Scaled up the recipe properly this time.

I took my time to add colors to everything and to scoop it into the mold. I stick blended too much again and I had to scoop it rather than pour it in.

For some reason it came out really brittle, and I'm not exactly sure why. The pH (after a couple weeks of laying around and lack of motivation, was slightly basic and zap test didn't really do much, so I assume the lye amount I measured was correct. (I measured in two batches cause I was using some paper shot glasses to measure, so I thought I might've messed it up somehow) Maybe it was cause i blended it for too long.

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Rebatching Soap #7

So... I messed up my soap. Accidentally didn't scale up the lye when I scaled up the oils. So... ended up with a 40% SF, which was extremely soft.

These two links were especially helpful for this process:

How to fix soap with too much or not enough lye

How to rebatch soap

I used the oven bag method in the second link to rebatch my soap. I couldn't grate my soap so I mushed it as much as I could and put it into a heat proof zip lock bag.

I heated up the water and put the bag in. Every once in a while I took it out and massaged it with a towel to make sure it all melted properly.

I calculated the remaining lye and water I needed to add (it's been a while, I don't remember how much it was) and when the soap had all melted I added it.

At the end, I cut a corner of the bag and poured it into a silicone mold I had for burger buns.

They cooled down really quickly while I scraped the rest of the soap from the bag into the molds.

This is how they came out in the end:

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Soap #6 and #7

These are basically the same as #5, I only made a change to #6 by making the olive oil 40% and coconut oil 20%. This was mostly to try if it would make a gentler soap and to just see the difference to the previous soap.

Soap #6

Stick blended too much and got the trace too heavy, but I wanted to try out a skewer swirl and was determined to do it, so I did it anyway.

Fragrance: green is peppermint, brown is vanilla

I broke my knife while cutting these, and straight cuts are something I need work on,

Soap #7

I was making a birthday gift for a friend, but i scaled the recipe up to 500g of oils, but i forgot to scale up the lye as well, so it had a wonderful 40% SF. I did rebatch it and I'm going to do that in a separate post. Also the trace was too thin as well (prob due to the lack of lye) and so some of the colors started mixing and it became more of a grey.

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Soap #5 (and Body Butter Bars)

I got all the new oils and tools I wanted/needed. (Including an accurate scale! Yay!)

So this is my new recipe:

30% olive oil

5% castor oil

5% almond oil

30% coconut oil

15% shea butter

15% cocoa butter

300g of oils + 42.30g of lye to 101g of water

5% SF cause I actually have an accurate scale

I still haven't gotten a feel for what light trace is tbh, I blended too much again with the stick blender. In my hurry to then put it into the mold, I forgot to add fragrance.

I had the mold in a box lined with foam and towels to try to get to gelphase, but I guess my soaping temp wasn't high enough to start it, as it looked the same in the end as the one I had put into the fridge with the body butter bars.

On the topic of the body butter bars: I just followed this recipe I found. I'm not sure what the difference between body butter bar and lotion bar is supposed to be, but since it says body butter bar I am just calling it that. Perfect Body Butter Bars

The next day the soaps were still decently soft, but they were hard enough that I could unmold them. I also unmolded and tested the other bars the previous day.

The body butter bars feel really nice on the skin, as could be expected. I added some peppermint to the smaller one, accidentally poured more than I wanted, but it doesn't seem to have any adverse effects noticeable at first use.

Soap test results: I tested the smallest one about 2.5 days after I made it. It feels pretty good, tho not too different from the 20%SF coconut oil soap. I'm gonna wait a couple more weeks until my final judgement however.

I am also now able to measure the weight/water loss of the bars, so I'm keeping track of that on the post it note underneath the soaps.

I'm not sure what I'm going to be changing next time yet, apart from adding fragrance oil and soaping at a higher temperature. Again, I'll have to do a better test of what I think of the bars in a couple weeks before I decide on how to tweak the recipe.

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CP Soap #3(Dish Soap) and #4

I'm gonna summarise these two into a single post, as its basically just Soap #2 all over again.

The Dish Soap #3 was only very slightly different to my last bar, with only a 4%SF. I could technically go down to 0%, but I don't have enough confidence in my scale or myself to not make it lye heavy.

57g coconut oil (I just used the rest of a pack I had)

10g NaOH and 19g water

I already started using it 2-3 days later and it is nice and bubbly.

Left: Dishsoap Right: 20%SF Soap Bars

#4 was the same thing as #2, 100% coconut oil and 20%SF.

250g coconut oil

36g NaOH for 76g of water

I mixed this one too long with the stick blender, the first two bars poured out alright, for the last one I decided to add some color, and it was way to thick and I had to essentially scoop it out, but it worked. (Bottom right is just a bit of what remained)

I did cover it with parchment paper and some towels to see if I could get gelphase going, but because of how uneven the towels were and the fact that it sets up very quickly I got a partial gel phase. Just wanted to try it out, I prob won't care much for it until I'm focusing on designs tho.

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100% Coconut Oil Soap [20% SF]

(Attempt #2 at Cold Process Soap)

Made more soap again, this time actually following a recipe. I still need to get some supplies to do with a different thing I have planned, but I haven't gotten around to that yet.

100% Coconut oil

14g of NaOH for 37g of water - 20%SF

This is a 20% superfat soap, so the massive superfat counteracts the "drying" effect of the coconut oil. Mot to mention coconut oil has a long shelf life, so it shouldn't cause any issues.

I actually used a stick blender as opposed to hand mixing this time. Scary at first but worked like a charm. I wasn't quite sure when to stop mixing, as it seemed so liquid in the container, but I'll get a better feel for it eventually.

Anyway, I put it into the mold, tried to get the rest out with a spatula and made a bit of a mess, but I'm just gonna leave it like that.

Just a couple hours later, I unmolded it, and here's the result:

Went surprisingly smooth, tho I'll have to wait a while to let it cure before testing it.

I wanted to make this after seeing Soap & Clay make it, and this other resource was generally also really informative.

I'll get some new supplies and oils soon, so once exam time is done I can experiment more with different oils. I can't wait.

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First attempt at soap making

Been really wanting to get into making cold process soap recently, and I recently managed to get my hands on everything I needed. (I'm still waiting on some stuff in the mail but I couldn't wait to get started.) I wasn't sure if I should post this here, had quite a few mishaps, but I shouldn't be afraid to show my mistakes, it's all part of the process.

I didn't really wanna use palm oil so I substituted cocoa butter for it. (Tho I accidentally used too much, I think.)

So my recipe was kinda just thrown together by me, based on what I could get and what was relatively cheap. I could have and probably should have done a bit more research and planning but you know, hindsight is 20/20.

I'm not posting it here for anyone to follow, I just feel like I should so I (and maybe other people) can learn from it.

Recipe

30% Olive oil - 90g

30% Coconut oil - 90g

30% Cocoa butter - 90g

10% Almond oil - 30g

39-40% Lye solution - 40-41g for 101g water

20 drops of vanilla perfume oil

I had problems getting the lye out of the container (my spoon didn't fit), and I had to try my best to tip it slowly into the cap. My scale is also quite inaccurate, so for my next batch I have ordered a new, more accurate scale. I did get some on my arms, but as soon as I noticed any itching I immediately rinsed it as well as I could.

Please say hello to my wonderful setup:

I weighed everything out as best I could, microwaved the cocoa butter and coconut oil, and added it all to one big beaker.

Glass and Lye Safety Note:

This is borosilicate glass, so it's much more resistant that conventional glass. However, this doesn't mean that it is completely inert when put up against high concentrations of NaOH. I am going to switch to a Polyethylene container to mix everything in the future.

Anyway, I hand mixed everything for about an hour I believe. I probably could have stopped earlier, I was just paranoid about whether or not everything was incorporated. I am going to use a stick blender next time.

I actually made a little more than needed for the mold it turns out. I tried mixing in some pigment while it's in the mold, but that wasn't such a great idea, as it would turn out later.

The next day

I unmolded it two days later, I probably should've given it some more time, I'm not sure. Evidently, I immediately started messing around with one of them like play dough, forgot to take a pic before doing so tho.

I also need to get another container to mix the soap and the pigment, so that it isn't as uneven as it is here.

For some reason the backs were also really... crumbly, idk. Was it cause I forgot to take it out of direct sunlight? I read that you should take soap out of direct sunlight but nothing on the internet ever really said what direct sunlight would do. Or maybe it's cause of the large cocoa butter content?

I was unhappy with the green bar as well so I continued messing around with the two play dough bars, pressing them into the mold and just generally messing around with them. I tried adding pigment as well, to see how well it would incorporate.

This is where I'm leaving them now.(I cover them up to protect them from any sunlight, this is just to take a pic) I'm not sure what the discoloration in the bars is about, especially the one on the right, but oh well.

I'll post a final update in a couple weeks on how the soaps turned out. The soap that got onto my hand was honestly quite good, very bubbly and my hands didn't feel extremely dry afterward.

While researching what might've gone wrong I figured out that my 30% cocoa butter was too much and that it would prob make the soap brittle. I'll hold off final thoughts until its done curing though.

Long post, so thank you if you made it this far, I just really wanted to start documenting my soap making journey.

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January 2022, baby!