# First Time Soap Still Oily after Curing



## ErikaMay (Feb 28, 2013)

Hello! I finally managed to make my first soap. YAY! I uswed 64 oz olive oil and 28 oz coconut oil. My sheep milk was frozen solid even though it had sat out for over an hour when i added the lye....I eventually got the heat on the lye/milk up to 85-90 before I added it to the oil that was at 100. I got things to trace and it all looked good...but it was a little greasy feeling and rather soft.

3 weeks later I checked on its curing and it STILL feels greasy and is a bit soft. 

Why did it turn out so soft and what can i do next time to prevent it? if I cure it near a heat source will it harden a little faster?


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## shellmar (Apr 4, 2008)

I am not sure what went wrong. I do have a question though, how much lye did you use? I put your oils in The Sage lye calculator and it suggested for your recipe to use 23 -34 oz. of liquid and for 5% superfat that you use 13.04 oz. of lye. I am wondering if perhaps you may not have used enough lye or too much liquid.

Also, you have a large amount of olive oil, 69% in your recipe. Could this be a problem? I don't know, but I don't think it is, I use 62.50% olive oil in my recipe and my soaps are generally very firm in 1 to 2 days.

I think your temps for soaping were ok. I make goat's milk soap and I always use frozen milk and add my lye to that, so I soap in low temps.

Did you use a fragrance oil and if so how much?

Those are some of my thoughts on the matter. I hope someone else will reply and be able to help you find an answer to your problem.


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## linn (Jul 19, 2005)

Can you tell us how much milk and how much lye you used in the recipe? Next time try a one pound recipe and if it doesn't turn out you won't have lost so much. You might try cutting the soap up and doing a rebatch in an old crockpot. Here is where I learned to rebatch. Since your soap is soft, you won't need a lot of liquid.

http://www.pvsoap.com/instructions_for_rebatch.htm


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## ErikaMay (Feb 28, 2013)

I should say its not squishy soft anymore...but its most certainly not hard and dry. 

I used this recipe http://www.hobbyfarms.com/crafts-and-nature/how-to-make-soap-with-milk.aspx with 2/3 olive oil, and 1/3 coconut. 

Thus, 10 oz dry lye. seemed light compared to all the fat, but what do i know? I split the recipe at trace and left some unscented and added a frugal 1/4 oz of lemon oil to the other half. 

Its only been 3 weeks so it is still curing...but golly, seems like maybe it will be good soap in 3 months! 

I might rebatch.


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## linn (Jul 19, 2005)

I ran your recipe through SoapCalc and it looks like the recipe should have used 13.1 oz of lye instead of 10 oz. Always run any soap recipe through a lye calculator before using. SoapCalc is my favorite.

http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp


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