fluid HP soap?

[LauraD]

I've been watching soaping videos on youtube, and the fluid HP soap ones fascinate me. I would love to be able to do CP-type things with HP soap. Has anyone used either the Sharon Johnson method or another one? If so, what were your experiences with it?

[Muller's Lane Farm]

LauraD,

The fluid hot process method has been around for decades. Sharon popularized the method a few years ago.

I do have a question ... why do you want to do HP over CP though? Both HP & CP soaps are safe to use once saponification is complete. With HP, that is after the cook. With CP, if you allow the soap to completely gel in the mold, that is when the soap cools. If you retard the gel in CP soaps, it could take a few days. (FWIW, I gel my milk soaps and still maintain a very light colored soap.)

After saponification is complete, both HP & CP need to cure not only to evaporate excess water but to develop the soap's crystalline structure. This usually takes much longer in an HP soap where more liquid is needed in the lye solution.

Here is more information about that: Curing Soap

[LauraD]

I'm interested for two reasons: complications such as "soap on a stick" when adding fragrance or essential oils, and color fastness. HP helps avoid both problems, as color and scent can be added after all the lye has reacted. Fluid HP would allow me to do fancy coloring designs as well.

Of note, I am a newbie soapmaker and have yet to take a water discount when making CP soap, so my cure time should be about the same regardless of method used.

[Muller's Lane Farm]

From what I've observed there are 2 ways of doing fluid HP, the addition of sodium lactate or increasing your liquid (or both which gives the best result).

I've experienced soap on a stick from floral fragrance oils and some 'hot' essential oils. The work around for me has been (1) not taking a water discount, (2) warming the fragrance oils before adding to the soap batch at a light trace, and (3) using lard in my recipe which is slow to trace.

I make only milk soaps, using whole cow milk as my only liquid for the lye solution. My lye solution is 33% lye to 67% milk (about 28% of the oils I use).

I've not known colors to fade more quickly using the HP method. Is that what you mean by 'color fastness'? CP soaps that are allowed to gel have a more vibrant color than CP soaps that do not go through gel. The types of colorants you use are what determines how 'fast' they are. Your herbs & spices are not color fast, however your oxides, ultra marines, FD&C dyes and micas are.

To me, the benefits of HP soap is being able to absolutely certain of what your superfat oil is in your recipe and being able to use less fragrance or essential oil, although you must take care not to add them when your soap is too hot!

In a few months I can say that I've been making soap for 20 years ... not counting the time I experimented with making soap from wood ash. I spent 2 years researching oils and their fatty acids and putting together various recipes. I made my own lye calculator in Excel that broke out the fatty acid make-up within a soap recipe and published it on my yahoo group (it later became SoapCalc thanks to Ken, one of the members of the group). I've seen old methods discarded and become 'new' again. I've seen people shunned for using animal oils in their recipes only to have them gain popularity again. I love seeing the artistic qualities abound in the soap making craft (they blow my mind!!) I love learning new tricks of the trade and I love, love, love helping soap makers with this craft!

Welcome to the soap pot!!

[LauraD]

Thank you so much for your input, Muller's Lane Farm! I'm still in the early learning phase and am having to weed through all the misinformation out there. I only recently learned that soap never goes "neutral" as claimed in my soapmaking book. Little wonder the pH never got down below 8.2 on my soaps...but I cured the bars for 10 weeks as a result, which definitely helped the final product.

When I talk about colorfastness I am referring to a color not reacting with the lye, so it actually stays the same through the cold process. I know a lot of colors are not good for CP soapmaking because they do react, giving you either a different color or a lighter shade of the same.

I had an interesting experience with that a couple of batches ago. I hadn't purchased any colors for soapmaking yet, and wanted to try adding a little color and doing an in-the-pot swirl. I decided to use some blue food coloring for my color. Imagine my surprise when it turned red in the raw soap! The resulting soap was purple in the middle and sort of pink/mauve on the outside. Really pretty, but also a good lesson on what can happen if you add the wrong coloring to lye.

Question: my last two batches have had a thin layer on the outside that ended up being a different color--the aforementioned batch and a batch of coffee soap I made this week, which was light brown on the outside and considerably darker on the inside. The coffee soap color difference was very distinctive, with a well-defined outer layer on all sides of the soap, around 1 mm thick. What would be causing this? Is the soap getting too hot as it goes through gel, or is it something else?

[Muller's Lane Farm]

LauraD,

color not reacting with the lye, so it actually stays the same through the cold process

Gotcha. Blues and purples are notorious for some strange color changes due to pH. I've had great success using Ultra Marines for my blues & purples with CP. I combine the UM powder with glycerin before adding a little bit of emulsified soap to it, then adding it to my pot. Even then, I use blues and purples only as swirls since if I don't use enough, they go grey.

Another thing to be aware of with colorants is the actual color of the oils you are using. Some oils have more of a yellow/green cast to them and will mess with your colorants. (Just one of the many reasons I prefer lard & tallow over palm oil.)

a thin layer on the outside that ended up being a different color

That is partial gel. The inner most gelled and the outside did not. Are you using a log or slab mold? Do you insulate your mold?

For me, it can happen when I use my vertical log mold. (It doesn't always happen.) I don't like insulating my log mold heavily (only using a light towel) because if I do, then over heating occurs and the soap develops tunnels (which mean rebatching ... ugh!) I only use my vertical log mold for special order log soap and don't like to rebatch so I embrace partial gel when it occurs.

When I use my slab molds, I always insulate very heavy using heavy wool blankets or a sleeping bag. Slab molds are very prone to partial gel but they aren't prone to over heating and tunneling.

Some pics of my insulated soaps in slab molds (revealed to show gelling stage)

Going into gel stage: (top 'Castile', bottom ' Cotton Blossom' ... both milk soaps)



Full gel stage: (top 'Dragon's Blood', bottom 'Stress Relief')



Stack of insulated slab molds:




After 48-72 hours, the color change is purely cosmetic. Sometimes the color change goes away after a full cure, sometimes it doesn't.

Another phenomenon you may not be aware of (but is really cool!) is fragrances that contain vanilla will start off light colored but will darken as they are exposed to air. That means when you cut your log of soap, the outside will be brown and the inside will be a creamy color but over the next few days it will darken.

[Muller's Lane Farm]

OH!! And since I have your attention!!

Lye Safety!!

If you get lye on you ... please use WATER to dilute and wash it away!! Do NOT use vinegar!!!

Water both dilutes and washes the lye away. With vinegar you will have a chemical reaction.

Lye is a base, vinegar is an acid. There will be an exothermic (heat producing) reaction.

If vinegar was the safest course of action, it would be listed in the Material Safety Data Sheet ... it is not! What is listed is WATER!!

[LauraD]

Gotcha on the lye!

Here's a photo of the soap. It was only a 1-lb batch in a 2-lb log mold, but the previous 2-lb batch did the same thing.

I insulate the mold like crazy. I wrap it in a towel, then I put the whole thing in a styrofoam cooler. I cut this bar after two days, but it was still really soft; I could have easily waited another day or two.

I only took this batch to light trace; would going to a heavier trace before pouring in the mold help?

Formula:

Olive oil:          11.0 oz

Coconut oil:       5.0 oz

Castor oil:         0.5 oz

Coffee:             5.0 oz

Lye:                 2.4 oz

Coffee grounds:  1 T

[Muller's Lane Farm]

Nice looking soap!

My best guess would be the soap went into full gel and the outer edges have started the drying & curing process. I'm thinking you will see the soap continue to lighten.

The softness is probably because of the percentage of olive oil. Taking it to a heavier trace would only make it harder to pour.

Even though you thought you weren't taking a water discount in your recipes, you really are! Water for soap recipes start at a 38% of oil amount ... your recipe is using water calculated at 30% of oil amount! For more intricate swirls/designs in your soap, you just need to adjust your water amount higher to make it more fluid. This will also help with tricky FOs/EOs.


According to the Soapee.com and SoapCalc.net lye calculators, your soap is superfatted at 3%. Which lye calculator are you using? I know a lot of people use Brambleberry but I've found there are some oils with a higher SAP value on their lye calculator.

[LauraD]

I'm actually using my own calculator; I can't remember if I got the saponification values from my book or from an internet site. This particular recipe has a lye discount of 2% (superfatting of 2.7%). A recipe that I have also used had a much higher superfatting percentage - around 11%. I'm trying to get a feel for how much superfatting I like.

Interesting about the water discount; that would explain why my soap traces in 2 minutes flat once I start with the stick blender. I'll keep that in mind when I go for the fancy coloring schemes.

[themotherhen]

Hi everyone, I enjoy reading about soap making, I am just a bit scared of doing it yet (mostly related to having lye in the house with little kids). I just wanted to say how beautiful the soaps are, especially the swirly ones. They look so pretty.

[LauraD]

Thanks, themotherhen! I agree that having little kids around when making soap would be a bad idea. Perhaps you could make soap when they're out of the house for an activity?

[Maura]

Here is another question. When is the best time to remove soap from the mold? As soon as it sets, say after a couple of days, or longer?

Is there a difference between lard or all vegetable as for setting up?

[feather]

Lard soap sets up fast, remove it the next day. Vegetable oil/olive oil soap takes longer and it is softer and it melts easier. I've had olive oil soap take days to set, then I froze it to get it to release from the forms.

[themotherhen]

LauraD, that's a good idea. I definitely wouldn't want to learn to make soap with them in the house! The first time I canned anything my Mom watched them so that I could concentrate and they would be safe.

[LauraD]

themotherhen, that sounds like a good plan. The first couple of times can be stressful.