Reg

some fragrance oils have essential oils in them, and some of us blend essential oils and fragrance oils together

So it must be a blend of essential oil with fragrance oil. (that's what the ingredients red on the bottle "essential oil fragrance")

I know what essential oils are, and I know that fragrance oils are pretty much synthetic oils that can be made to smell like anything. Today I ran across "essential oil fragrance", now I am confused.

I'm using the term hardness kind of loosely. Most properly saponified soaps will get pretty hard once they dry (using less water when you make them will speed that up). However, a straight olive oil soap will soften up faster once you start to use it and won't last as long as a "harder" recipe.

Incidentally, high-oleic soaps also get pretty slimy when wet. You can make mixed-oil soaps and harder recipes that are also gentle but have better overall properties.

I suppose it's been long enough since I made that OO soap, I should try using it, so I could see and understand all this stuff myself. Tomorrow will be exactly one month since I made my first soap, I think I am going to lock myself in the bathroom and try out my soaps (others are HP and CPOP, so I can try them all).

Hydrogenated oil makes different soap than the same oil unhydrogenated. However, knowing that there's hydrogenated oil in a shortening (there usually is at least some) doesn't help us that much. Knowing whether the shortening is good for soaping and what kind of soap it'll make requires knowing the fatty acid composition. We know that for regular oils but not always for shortening products.

Initially there's not that much to know. Olive oil makes soft soap. Palm oil (or lard or tallow) makes hard soap. Coconut (or palm kernel oil) makes bubbly soap. Balance those three categories and you know more or less what you'll get.

Besides butters, the only other oils you should use need to be equivalent to the ones I mentioned. I posted a little more about that in

http://www.craftserver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92582.

Individual oils don't have any unique properties that are significant for soap. Different fatty acids have certain properties when they're saponified, but it doesn't matter what oil they come from. All the traditional soaping oils have a useful fatty acid composition. What you should avoid is very polyunsaturated oils. You can identify those from the label at the store, or check SoapCalc. When you click on an oil in the list, what you want to see is low numbers in those bottom two boxes labeled "linoleic" and "linolenic."

I'll have to try your 40-PO/30-OO/30-CO soap. I just made a batch with these oils a couple of days ago, but in a different proportion 20-PO/50-OO/30-CO (I think I got the recipe from millersoap), waiting for it to cure.

Now, you say olive oil makes soft soap. I did make one batch of CP out of 100% olive oil (extra virgin, if it matters), it's been a little over 3 weeks, and this soap is hard as rock! Am I missing something?

After 4 plain unscented uncolored batches, I am ready to try something new. Of course ordering fragrance and dyes online will take forever, and I am too impatient to try something new. Would colors and scents designed for melt and pour soap work for CP soap (the ones you can buy at Michael's). Can I use food vanilla flavoring for scent (I have natural and colorless versions)? Any other suggestions on colors and scents?

I wanted to buy some cocoa butter and shea butter, but realized there were 2 versions of each (refined and natural). Is one preferred over the other?

As long as it says 100% lye, you should be fine. What brand did you buy and where did you get it from? If you have an Ace Hardware near by, they sell Rooto 100% lye for $3 a bottle. That's what I have been using.

Same brand, same store, except mine was almost 6 bucks for 16 oz.

I've used parchment paper sucessfully in the past as well, just fyi for anyone else

does it stick to the soap more then the freezer paper?

It came out fine for me.

You hit the nail on the head. Soybean is a linoleic oil and doesn't make good soap. You should stick with soaping oils such as olive, palm/lard/tallow, coconut/pko, and oils with fatty acid profiles similar to those.

Unless you get more information from the manufacturer, there isn't really a way. You could just guestimate a SAP value of 0.138 though. It probably won't be that far off unless it's an unusual product. There's some uncertainty with every oil, which is why you use a lye discount.

In the case of Crisco, we have the info for the latest no-trans-fat version. In fact, the numbers from the manufacturer match up perfectly to a blend of 75% soybean oil and 25% palm oil. Predictably, too much polyunsaturated fat and not so good for soaping.

Really, why even worry about how to use a product that's just a blend of oils? You can blend your own oils and get any result you want with no guessing or uncertainty.

Does the fact that some oils are hydrogenated in the shortening, make any difference in the soap versus regular oils?

Also I have no understanding of properties of oils, like "linoleic oil doesn't make good soap", is there info somewhere on here, or some website that explain that kind of stuff? I only have 4 batches of soap under my belt, and, my cp soap is not even cured yet.

shortening doesn't exactly specify how much of each oil is used, so what would be be best way to calculate lye?

It feels oily when I press on it, hope that will change in a day or two. I had my oven preheated to 170 degrees, put the soap in for one hour, then shut it off, and let the soap sit there overnight (I was following these instructions: http://www.soapcrafters.com/recipes_cpop_soap_making )

and so I cut it...

Sorry, I was reading soybean but thinking canola... Soybean oil or vegetable shortening is very commonly used, as it is an inexpensive oil that is available just about everywhere. Just make sure to combine it with some other, harder oils, and try to keep the soy under 40% or so.

If you go the shortening route (Crisco), make sure you check the ingredients as the Crisco ingredients vary from place to place...

What would be the favorable ingredients in shortening? The can I have lists these: soybean oil, fully hydrogenated palm oil, partially hydrogenated palm and soybean oils, mono and diglycerides, TBHQ and citric asid. I haven't made soap from it yet (not sure how to calculate lye for it either since it's both soybean and palm oils). I have seen one soap calc that had "old crisco" and "new crisco", but I don't know if what I have is considered old or new.

I did my first batch of CPOP, and my mold started pulling away on one side. The final product looks like monkey brains, and it does have some tiny bubbles (like somebody in another thread had too). It's been 24 hours since the soap has been poured in the mold. If I press lightly on the soap (to test for hardness), my finger gets oily from the soap. So is this how it all supposed to look like? Comments, suggestions, anything...

(the soap is 50% olive, 30% coconut, 20% palm)

Thanks!

I want to make a batch of CPOP soap, but was not sure if it's OK to line the wooden mold with freezer paper. I know you are not supposed to bake with it, but I am using lower temperature then regular baking (170 for 1 hour, then shut off, and let cool for 10-12 hours). So am I safe, or should I use something else for lining the mold?

I am new to soapmaking (only made 3 batches), so I keep thinking up new questions every minute. I have seen a lot of soap recipes in the books that had soybean oil as an ingredient, so it seemed like a widely used oil. But if it doesn't make that great of a soap, I won't even bother with it at all.

Is anybody concerned about use of non organically grown soybean oil? As far as I know pretty much all soybeans are genetically engineered to withstand a spray of roundup. Which means it is sprayed with roundup. Buying orgranic obviously a lot spendier then buying regular oil. Just wondering what does everybody think?

Cottonseed oil is of a question to me too. I don't know much about it, but basically cotton is grown to collect the fibers (not for food), oil is just a byproduct of the industry, so it is probably sprayed with pretty potent stuff too.

Thank you everybody for posting your replies, keep them coming, this is all good info (at lest for me ).

Reg- 'gel' is just one of the stages your soap goes through as it saponifies. It speeds up the saponification process. As the oils and lye chemically react with each other, the reaction causes a build-up of heat, which in turn propels your soap batter to go into a soft, transluscent or gel-like state. Don't worry, this is only a temporary stage. Once the gel stage reaches its peak, the soap starts to cool back down and then it hardens up quite nicely.

It's actually not absolutely necessary to let your soap go through the gel stage if you don't want it to. The soap will saponify without going the gel stage, but it'll do so at a much slower rate. For instance, my ungelled soaps take a few weeks longer to cure than my gelled soaps. I personally prefer that my soaps go through the gel stage because I like to be able to unmold, cut, and use quicker, but there are other soapers who prefer to skip the gel stage for different reasons. Ungelled soaps tend to be much lighter in color, for example. In the end they are all good soaps, though. It just comes down to personal preference, such as the look you are trying to achieve in your soap, etc.. To skip gel, just pop your mold into your fridge for 12 to 24 hours after pouring.

As an aside, my ungelled soaps remain caustic (they zap when the zap test is applied to them) for up to 7 days sometimes. But then they mellow out nicely and cease to zap during week 2. On the other hand, my soaps that go through gel might zap for a day or 2, but it's actually a very rare thing for me. 99.9% of the time my gelled soaps don't zap at all.

As for making CP or HP- I actually do both. Mostly, I CP, but I HP now ang again whenever I'm using an ornery FO that doesn't behave very well in CP.

I use sodium lactate and sugar @ 1 tbsp. ppo each in my HP to get a smooth pour. I used to have to glop my HP into my molds before discovering the sodium lactate/sugar trick, but since adding them to my HP batches, I get a nice liquidy pour. It's not as creamy-smooth of a pour as CP, mind you, but I no longer have to glop. The best way I can describe it is that it's the difference between pouring liquidy jam or scooping stiffened mashed potatoes.

MarieJeanette

Thank you for such detailed explanation! I needed that.

I'm pretty sure the CPOP soap is as ready to use as HP soap. This is the only kind I make cause it's easier and is done overnight. Never had a problem with getting zapped or it being too harsh. It's also the way I make salt soap but only leave in the oven for one hour and cut almost as soon as I take it out.

Here are a few sites that explain.

http://www.soapcrafters.com/recipes_cpop_soap_making

http://www.thedishforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1193&hl=

Did you ever do swirling with CPOP? I just wonder if the clolors bleed together?

Thanks for the links, off to read now...

the slippery stuff is the lye saponifying the oils in your skin - ick. it's on your fingers, not on the items. wear gloves while washing them.

I did wear gloves. But when I ran my gloved finger inside the glass, it would squeek at the top, and feel slippery and not squeek toward the bottom.

No need to be concerned. I wash mine then I rinse with a vinegar and water solution. It solved my problem with that. I use glass to weigh my lye.

Thanks!

As I was washing the mesuring cup that I used for lye, as well as the thermometer, they all felt slippery where they were in cotact with lye. After washing it repeatedly with dish soap, they still felt slippery (the rest of the glass was "squeeky" clean). Why is that, and do I need to be concerned about it?

Sopanification should be complete within a day or two. The curing is just needed to allow any water evaoprate off for your bars to harden up. I usually try a small piece of soap straight out of the mold and its fine but it gets better with time (better lather, etc.).

Kat

I was reading "soapmakers companion" book this morning, and it said,"Cold-process soaps lose their caustic properties only after weeks of curing..." I thought caustic meant corrosive enough to eat throug things. Maybe she means the lye still keeps reacting with oil over time, even though not much of it is left after a couple of days?

I had a coupon to Borders so I got the "Natural Soap Book" by Susan Cavitch; then I went to Half Price Books today, and got "Soapmakers Companion" for $6.98, and it's brand new - score!