First CPOP???

[gloworm]

I did my first cpop soap tpday. Cinnamon oatmeal. Hope it is doing what it should. It looked great when I poured it, then I put it in oven at 170 for 2 hours covered with freezer paper. I've peeked (maybe I shouldn't have opened oven?). I did 2 pringles cans and the soap grew. It overflowed the can. The flat molds look kind of mushy and bubbly on top. Is this how it looks till it cures up? Recipe had crisco, rice bran (subbed this for olive),safflower,lard and castor as main ingredients. Any ideas if I have soap or a mess? At least what is on the oven floor will be put to good use!!

Connie

[eugenia]

Sounds odd. Never had my soap "grow". I cover mine with saran wrap and I've never peeked! Not once, so I can't say for sure about the bubbly one. Can't advise on you recipe without the percentages.

e

[gloworm]

I unmolded the "soap". Its quite soft, not mushy just very oily and soft. No lather to speak of. The side not touching the mold is kind of bubbly looking. Had a definite "boil over' in the pringles cans. Looks like lava rolling down a volcano. I put the lids back on maybe that had something to do with that?? Thought it would work instead of saran as I had seen someone say their saran had melted. Used freezer paper on the rest. I used a few silicone molds sprayed with a little PAM.I'm bummed, it looked so good before I put it in the oven. I haven't tried to get it out of the pringles cans yet. Do you just try to open the bottom and push it out?? I'm hoping it will improve a little if I cure it a while. Don't suppose the lather will improve though right?? Here is the recipe I used-from MMS:

Oatmeal Cinnamon Soap:

7.8 Castor Oil

12.4 OO(subbed Rice Bran-saw that Robin used it).

12 Safflower

38 Hyd. Soybean(crisco)

9.2 lard

30 H2O

10.08 Lye

8 ground oatmeal

1T cinnamon

I don't have a scale for the.00's I'm usually pretty good at approximating.

Left 1/2 soap as is and added OMH about 1/2 oz to the remainder(from WSP).

I wanted to do coffee soap today-maybe I should skip the CPOP part??

Any advise greatly appreciated.

Connie

[Sara]

Ahh, could be the can and not the soap. They have that alum. liner that can react to the soap. Funny thing is some people line, some don't and not all have problems.

Here's a pic of one of my Pringles creepers -

[eugenia]

Gloworm, not sounding too good, huh? Few things, Crisco is not hydrogenated soybean oil, it's also got cottonseed. I ran your recipe through http://www.soapcalc.com, that calculator does list crisco.

This is what it returned:

Hardness 22

Cleansing 0

Conditioning 74

Fluffy 9

Stable 22

Iodine 99

First, the recipe has 0 cleansing qualities. The cleansing oils I use are coconut, palm kernal and babassu. The iodone of 91 is a bad sign. The higher the number, the softer the soap. Ideal numbers are 60's to low 70's.

Your water and lye are correct. Could the "slime" that you are seeing be FO? I've had that happen, where it oozes out. I left it for a few days and it absorbed back in. I've gotten the bubbles too, I just trim them off after the cure.

I just don't think that this was a good recipe for you to start with (I don't think it's a good recipe period). I'd also start with a smaller batch, perhaps 2 lbs. (no less).

e

[gloworm]

Yep, except for the color and my soap is very oily we have a matching pair. I thought about taking a pic but was too ashamed. LOL. Any ideas of why my perfectly traced batch went haywire during CPOP? Wish I'd have CPOPED half and cured half for a comparison. Maybe I tried a sucko recipe or my subbing RBO sucked??? Guess everyone is working today, I was beginning to think I have another of my boring problems and no one was going to talk to me. Seems I rarely get many replies to my posts. I feel unloved:( Oh well I went ahead and tried coffee soap anyway, so far so good. Looks like a nice thick beef gravy with lots of black pepper right now. Time will tell.

[gloworm]

I was beginning to wonder about the recipe myself. I used to make a very basic soap years ago and never had a flopped batch like this one. I wondered as soon as I washed my hands from cleaning up and got no lather about the lack of coconut oil in recipe. I'm just beginning again so definitely consider myself a newbie to this type of soapmaking. This was my second batch(diff recipe). I didn't realize crisco wasn't soybean. I read somewhere else that it was, checked my label and just as you said SB & CS. Would the cottonseed cause some problems? What exactly is hydrogenated soybean then? A supermarket item? I just did a LONNNGGG round trip to WSP and didn't get soybean. Not sure about the slime only used small amt Fo in 1/2 the batch, all seems oily. May have to check out how to rebatch-haven't tried that yet. Can I add new oils like coconut in a rebatch?

I used crisco in first batch of soap, it did call for veg shortnening.

I also realized small batches would be better till I find out how the recipes turn out. Can you halve recipes?

Sorry for the book and thank you all for you wonderful suggestions.

Connie

[eugenia]

Glo-hydronenated soybean is not available locally for me. I've never used it, but I've seen others that have, I'm thinking from MMS. Sure, you can halve a recipe. You can sub, but you have to run every recipe through a lye calculator. Do not trust the amounts of lye and water given in a recipe, run it yourself. I like this one http://www.soapcalc.com since it gives you the qualities of the finished soap. As you change the oils and amounts, the properties will change. Play around with it a bit.

See if you can get coconut oil, try 15% on that one. Your hard oils should be 45-50% of your recipe. Aim for the conditioning to be around 50%. If you see a recipe you're interested in, post it first for a review.

Why not try a castille? Very simple, 90% olive oil and 10% castor oil. Although the iodine is high, it does get hard (rock hard over time, espcecially with CPOP). Since you have the castor, you'll just need olive. I use the cheap stuff.

e

[ebcandles]

Did you leave some room at the top of the pringles can? I made the same mistake last night. I overfilled the can and i got a volcano in the middle of the can. Thank goodness it didnt erupt!

[gloworm]

Trying to figure out SOOZ. Got the oils in but running into trouble with water. Did recipe as I repeated to you Eugenia. Oils= 79.4 ounces. Is the diff the water? How do I add the water to calculator? Or am I to figure the % of the oils rather than put in the ounces (hope not-mathmatically challenged at times).Brain dead today:) The instructions are not helpful to me for some reason.

GLO

[gloworm]

No I didn't leave any room in can. I'm feeling more and more soap challenged as this day goes on. Sooz has me stumped:confused: I'm not usually this dumb. Must have been the soap fumes as the volcano cooked on the oven floor.LOL

[eugenia]

What's stumping you? I'll try to help!

e

[gloworm]

Trying to figure out SOOZ. Got the oils in but running into trouble with water. Did recipe as I repeated to you Eugenia. Oils= 79.4 ounces. Is the diff the water? How do I add the water to calculator? Or am I to figure the % of the oils rather than put in the ounces (hope not-mathmatically challenged at times).Brain dead today:) The instructions are not helpful to me for some reason.

GLO

Pretty much what I said above. When you put in oils are you putting in amount in ounces of each oil used or do you need to figure percent of each oil from of the total oils in recipe? How do you put the water in? Is it part of the total ounces in recipe along with the oil or is it separate? Water as % of oils:confused: ???? Am I to put in lye amt or does it figure for me? I total my oils to 79.4 and when I compute it says I need 20.6% more. I understand 79.4 and 20.6=100%, but I don't know where I'm to get 20.6% more. % of lye of water & lye, water lye ratio? Do I figure these? This is based on my crappy recipe in previous post. Just trying to see if I can plug in #'s an get same answers as you Eugenia. Then I'll know I'm using calculator correctly. I think I'm rambling, sorry- having a bad day here. Should be baking cookies for son's wedding in 2 1/2 weeks but I'm a major procrastinator and the stress is going to get me!!! Didn't really feel like baking so I played with soap instead and the evil fairies were here to put me in my place. Who will they visit next!!!!

Thanks for your patience.

[eugenia]

OK. chill out girlie. It's really pretty simple. You put the total size of your batch at the top, then the % of each oil you want to use. When you hit calculate, it gives you the water and lye amounts.

If you already have the recipe and it's in ounces, just work it backwards. For example, add the weights in the recipe to get the total, let's say the total was 32 ounces and the castor was 3.2 ounces. 3.2 divided by 32 = .10 or 10%.

I really don't play around with the water as % of oils, superfat, etc. The recommended water is right around the middle of the MMS water. I generally use full water amount for CPOP but lye x 2.5 is OK.

A good general rule is lye x 2.5 for water and lye x 2.1. Sooz gives you lye x 2.73,just a bit more.

What I like about Sooz is playing with the percentages to get the properties I want. It's a little soft, up one of the hard oils, etc.

e

[gloworm]

Thanks much,

I'll play with it later in week. Gotta go back to work tomorrow. Chill out may begin in 2 1/2 weeks and one day. LOL. First kiddo to get married and he's doing it 2 1/2 hours away. Worried how to transport my cookie cakes when & if I get them done. We're usually packed like sardines when we go to his place as it is.

[gloworm]

Ok,

Stress of wedding is over and I figured out SOOZ. No problem. Nice to find out I'm not as dumb as I thought!! Is there any where that lists the perfect numbers to shoot for in a recipe? Found a few posts that address a couple of #'s (iodine mainly) but haven't found the ideal for most #'s.

Glo