What to use to harden up soap??

[julie c]

I'm still learning and tweaking my recipe, I use coconut oil, but what else can I use to make a really hard bar?? I add about 16oz in my recipe maybe more, I can't remember for sure, Thanks everyone!!

[Carriegsxr6]

Replace some of your coconut oil with palm kernel oil, they create the same big cleansing bubbles. Using too much coconut oil with make your skin dry and sometimes itch. Higher than 15% is not recomended.

You can also use regular palm oil to harden up your soap, but it wont create big cleansing bubbles like palm kernel and coconut, regular palm will create a creamier lather. Also butter creates a creamy hard bar. Cocoa, shea or mango butters.

If worse comes to worse, you could just resort to crisco or lard, they act simular to regular palm oil.

[Guest MLS]

Deleted

[Rebecca_IA]

Julie, you only state you use about 16 oz of coconut oil in your recipe, you don't state the entire recipe nor the percentage of co that you are using.

To give you an educated answer, we'd need to see your recipe.

[julie c]

Thanks girls!! I thought I should have posted my recipe. This is my latest 4lb recipe.

2 oz shea butter

8.6 oz coconut oil

10.8 oz lard

10.8 oz olive

10.8 oz canola

My soap has cured for 3 weeks now, I would think it would be hard, still a bit soft for my liking. Maybe I'm being inpatient!!

Thanks!! Julie

[SoapySue]

Julie, you only state you use about 16 oz of coconut oil in your recipe, you don't state the entire recipe nor the percentage of co that you are using.

To give you an educated answer, we'd need to see your recipe.

I have to agree with Rebecca, because without seeing the whole recipe we cannot be of much help. Each oil has it's own properties, and the use of some oils will subtract certain qualities of other oils. All I can offer you at this momment would be to look for oils with high Myristic, Lauric, Palmitic, and Stearic acids. In addition, also look for oils with a lower Iodine levels. But making a bar only with these suggestions, would make a soap that would be drying to the skin.

If you would like to tinker with your recipe on your own, I suggest using the SoapCalc. It is a calculator that helps you to see the qualities of what your combined oils may be. There is a section on soap qualities and an oil list that I recommend reading to help you make the bar you want.

~Susan

* aww....ya posted the recipe before my reply went thru

[sudsy]

You could also add sodium lactate to give it that final push and harden it up.

[mbrown]

You could also add sodium lactate to give it that final push and harden it up.

when do you add this to the batch?

[smart tart]

If worse comes to worse, you could just resort to crisco or lard, they act simular to regular palm oil.

I have been making soap for a couple of years now and I have always used lard - never thought of it as a 'last resort' as it makes a beautiful bar of soap! If you have never tried it, I suggest that you do .... you may be pleasantly surprised.

[CareBear]

I love Lard in soap - I get nice hard bars when I use it, and despite what the numbers tell me (that it might be a bit drying) my skin seems to love animal fats (tallow too) in soaps.

Olive oil can take some time to cure hard, but a castile is super hard so that shouldn't be an issue in the long run anyway.

I find canola makes my bars a bit soft but I haven't played much with it so I cannot be sure. You might try playing with the level of that to see what happens.

And finally, we don't know how much lye you used (at least I don't think I saw that), so we don't know the level of "super fat" you have - higher residual (super) fats = softer.

[Meridith]

I've been experimenting with putting a bit of BW in my soaps. They have not finished curing yet so I'm not sure what it has added. I did 2 different batches with 3lbs of oils and added 1 oz of BW to the batches.

[Rebecca_IA]

Julie, thanks for posting your recipe. It makes it much easier to give you a specific answer.

You did not list the amount of water or lye you added to your batch, so I am making assumptions about those measurements.

For the water, according to MMS lye calculator, you should have used 11 to 16 oz of water. And for a 5% discount, 5.96 oz of lye.

The OO and canola are good for conditioning characteristics (in a bar of soap) but not a hard bar. The only oil/butter you added that makes a really hard bar is the CO, and it's only at 20% of the recipe. The lard has medium-ish hardness in a bar of soap, as does the shea (but it's a small amount).

With a good cure and/or a water discount (first try the 11 oz of water instead of 16 oz of water) the bar will harden up nicely. Even though the OO is considered a "soft" oil, with a good cure, it will harden up nicely even if the batch is 100% OO. I don't have enough experience with just canola to state if it does the same as OO in hardening with time.

If you are satisfied with how the bar works (not drying out the skin, cleaning and bubbles and lather), I would not change the oils/butters around. First try your next batch with more of a water discount (as stated above) and if that does not produce what you are looking for, you can try a steeper discount or try adding salt (1 T per pound of oils, not total weight of batch, just total weight of oils. For this batch it would be roughly 2.5 T of salt, don't use the salt with iodine in it). You could even try more of a discount and adding salt to your next batch and see if that gives you the result you are looking for.

If still not what you are looking for, buy and try some of the sodium lactate or consider changing your oils/butters around a bit. Keep in mind though, if you are happy with this recipe excepting for the hardness factor, keep the recipe (for now) and try the other suggestions.

When I am creating a new recipe, I try to keep the harder oils/butters to at least50% of the recipe, sometimes a higher percentage. And most of that 50% comes from CO, Palm Kernal Oil, Babassu, Cocoa Butter. Lard, Shea, Tallow and Palm are not has hard as those I just listed, so I will use less of these and more of the other ones. I do have several recipes that have approx 70-80% "hard" butters in them, but those recipes have a larger amt of lard, tallow or shea. I don't use Palm at all.

[julie c]

Hi Rebecca,

Thanks for your reply, my lye cal. said 18 oz water, with 5.96 lye. I will drop water to 11oz and try that.

If that doesn't do it, should I get palm oil and bump my recipe so coconut oil and palm oil equal 50% of the recipe?

Thanks again!!:highfive:

[shutterbugg]

I love my babassu oil for hardeness!!!

[Rebecca_IA]

Julie, just make sure when you drop the water amt to use an FO that works with no to little acceleration. If you're not sure, go to this site and see if there is a review for the FO you want to use. The less water/liquid you use, the faster the process goes and until you get experience under your belt, I wouldn't advise using much of a water discount when using an FO that accelerates.

http://scentreviewboard.obisoap.ca/

You'll need to sign up. If you have any trouble navigating the site, let me know.

Try the water discount first and see how hard the soap is after 2-4 weeks, esp if you like the recipe (except for the hardness).

If that's not enough and you don't want to consider using the salt, then change your recipe.

I'd personally try PKO or babassu (say 15% CO, 15% PKO, 5% CB, 15% lard as hard oils or 15% CO, 5-10% babassu, 5-10% CB and 15% lard as hard oils) before resorting to palm, but that's just me. I subbed out my lard for palm for a short time and did not like it at all, but like I said, that's me, not everyone else. Babassu tends to be more expensive than CO or PKO, but Columbus Oils sells it in bulk and it's less expensive from there. Or tallow, if you can get your hands on local tallow, throw some of that in the batch and cut out some of the canola.

BTW, using the 11 oz of water, you have a 35% lye/water solution, which is mostly what I use and regardless of what recipe I use, it's pretty hard after a 2 week cure and really hard after a 4 week cure. I think you'll be fine.

[julie c]

Thank you Rebecca for all your time!!! I really appreciate it!!

Julie;)

[CareBear]

Rebecca, not to hijack but I have a question about the statement you made regarding OO. My castile (ok bastile since it is 10% castor oil) is the hardest soap I have ever seen. The edges are so hard they are actually sharp! Granted it took a good 8 weeks to get hard but the resulting soap (now 12 weeks old) is like a rock. Is this not typical of OO? I haven't made another batch since so don't have a lot of experience with high levels of OO.

[julie c]

Ok girls, how much babassu oil or sodium lactate do you add to your recipe for hardness.?Out of all the recipes out there, I have never seen this!!

I'm going to try the non-iodine salt first to see if that does the trick has Rebecca suggested.

Thanks again!! Julie:D

[shutterbugg]

5 % of babassu oil is a great start!

[Scented]

You could also add sodium lactate to give it that final push and harden it up.

I've been doing this and finding my bars are harder sooner, quicker. When I forget, it seems to take forever lol.

[Meridith]

When I use babassu, I use it at 5% and in a 3lb recipe, I use 1.5 oz. of sodium lactate.

My castille soaps are always rock hard too. This has been true with my 100% oo soap and one with 90% 00 and 10% castor.

[Rebecca_IA]

Rebecca, not to hijack but I have a question about the statement you made regarding OO. My castile (ok bastile since it is 10% castor oil) is the hardest soap I have ever seen. The edges are so hard they are actually sharp! Granted it took a good 8 weeks to get hard but the resulting soap (now 12 weeks old) is like a rock. Is this not typical of OO? I haven't made another batch since so don't have a lot of experience with high levels of OO.

Even though the OO is considered a "soft" oil, with a good cure, it will harden up nicely even if the batch is 100% OO.

This is from a previous response (in this thread) regarding OO. What you are experiencing is typical of OO, as I stated with a good cure, it will harden up nicely. I never said it stays soft forever, it just simply takes longer than CO or PKO or Babassu.

[CareBear]

Thanks for clarifying