Too much oil?

by Hilde Waterloo
(Leksvik, Norway)

Hi,Cathy!

Yesterday I made a new batch of soap, and was SO happy with the end result when I put the lids on the two moulds...

The soap did not come out too good, though.

I used 610 g. coconut oil, 670 g. sunflower oil, 670 g. olive oil, 240 g. lye and 930 ml water/fruit juice mix. Mixed at app. 55 celcius degrees. At trace I added 20 grams of calendula oil, 2 teaspoons of essential oils. I decorated with dried, thin slices of orange. I stacked the two boxes on top of each other and insulated.

Today, the soap is still soft, there was a thin layer of oil (?) on top, and the orange slices were of course soft and wet again... The soap toppings flattened as well.

Have I overfatted too much? Did the soap overheat? Or is it important to heat the overfatting oils (which I did not do)? What about the fruit slices, do you think? Did I spoil my soap?

Thank you for answering :-)

Answer:

I notice that you have volume measured your water/juice in milliliters rather than weighing it in grams like the rest of the recipe.

When I ran the recipe through SoapCalc, I found that your liquid measure should be around 741 grams or less. Since the mass of 1 milliliter of water equals 1 gram of water, I would say that you have too much liquid in this recipe. Also bear in mind that a milliliter of juice will likely have a different weight than water.

It is important to always weigh the water/juice/milk portion of the recipe as well and to not use volume measures.

I also noticed that your superfat is around 18% - 19% which is quite high.

It's hard to tell if it will be ok or not. You may want to give it a week or so to see if it starts to harden up before deciding to keep it or throw it out.

Cathy