Hardness question

[Buttsmom]

I have been experimenting with a few different recipes with HP and none of my bars seem very hard. Some have been around a week or more. They aren't super soft, but I can still make an impression when I press hard on them. And most of them want to crack right across the center of the bar when you give it a little bend. Here's the recipe I used I thought had the best #'s.

Hardness 44

Cleansing 19

Conditioning 51

Bubbly 24

Creamy 29

Iodine 54

INS 165

Coconut Oil 76 20%

Castor Oil 5%

Lard 50%

Olive Oil 25%

Superfat @ 7%

Goat Milk 12.1 oz

Lye 4.6 oz.

Any ideas?

Edited June 18, 2013 by Buttsmom

[ProudMarineMom]

Your Soapcalc numbers look good. The batch size isn't listed so can't verify the lye. Your lard percentage may be a bit high. That probably makes the soap fairly soft initially.

One thing to realize is the hardness number doesn't mean the physical hardness. It means how quickly the bar will dissolve in water. Pure castille will cure out to an extremely hard bar but doesn't last as long in the shower. I think the higher the Oleic content the quicker it dissolves.

It takes a good 4 to 6 weeks for a bar to cure. If you use full water, it can take even longer for the water to evaporate and the bar to harden. It's not like M&P that is rock hard the next day. You can add hard butters like cocoa, or palm oil or some sodium lactate to make the bar physically harder after unmolding. I haven't tried HP or CPOP, so not sure how hard those are initially.

Hopefully one of our more experienced soapers will weigh in. They will probably explain it better than I can. :smiley2:

Edited June 19, 2013 by ProudMarineMom

[Candybee]

Hi Michelle! You have a similar recipe to what I started with but my oil % were different. I got a really nice hard bar with ultra creamy lather using this basic recipe:

Olive Oil 45%

Coconut Oil 25%

Lard 25%

Castor 5%

If you want to try it just run it through soapcalc for your lye and water amounts. If you notice this recipe splits the hard and soft oils at 50/50% each. I learned to try to get a good 50/50 blend of hard/soft oils which is a good balance for a basic soap recipe. I use this basic rule of splitting the hard/soft oils for most of my recipes except for my castiles, salt bars, detergent/laundry soap, or other specialty bars.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Candybee

[chuck_35550]

Try 30% CO

10% Castor

30% Lard

30% OO

41 hardness

20 cleansing

53 conditioning

29 bubbly

30 creamy

54 iodine

160 ins