Rosehip soap

by Julz
(Australia)

I made a soap tonight, I bought a cold process soap kit for a beginner from one of the supplier here in Australia. I followed all the instruction but didn't have any trace, what might be the wrong procedure that I made? The ingredients are as follows: 120 gm caustic soda, 300 distilled water, 400 gm olive oil(I used the extra virgin olive oil-396 gm only, that's all left at the can, 200 gm sustainable palm oil, 200 gm of coconut oil and 50 gm of rosehip. I mix all the oil, I used hot water because it's melted already and stirred it 3-5 mins, I mixed the lye solution which 34 degrees and the oil is 30-32 degrees and I used a hand blender to mix, but after several minutes in mixing I can't see any trace. Might be measuring the cause is discripancy in measuring scale or the temperature

Thanks in advnace for any advice.

JC Australia
(Beginner)

Answer:

I ran the recipe through SoapCalc and it seems fine.

Mixing can take some time. You mentioned that you did it for a few minutes. Reaching trace can typically take anywhere from 5 minutes to over an hour depending. Since you were using a stick blender and the olive oil amount was quite high, I would estimate that it should have taken around 15 - 20 minutes.

I just noticed that you also used extra virgin olive oil which will take more time than regular olive oil will so it might have taken a bit longer still.

High humidity can cause the soap batch to take much longer to trace as well.

Cathy