# Hardening soap.



## WildWisc

Does anyone have any tricks for making soap harder? We made a batch of simple olive oil soap, which turned out great, but it's a little soft. We have had it sitting in a cardboard box with holes in it, in the basement, for several months. We've used some but we go through the bars pretty quickly as it gets real soft and squishy as you use it. Is there any way we can get them to harden more? (I've thought about putting a jar of salt in the box with them to try and absorb more moisture from them.) Also we are going to be handmilling them to add scents to some of them, will the get harder afterwards? Thanks!


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## halfpint

I'm not sure of any way to harden them after they are made, other than time and being in a dry environment. Is your basement damp? This may be inhibiting the process.

I'm also curious, my pure olive oil bars were always hard as a rock within a few days after pouring (it's probably been 6-7 years since I made a pure olive oil bar though so I might be remembering something else), is it possible that it was not stirred to full trace? 

Some of my typically 'softer' soap bars I have made harder by using some hard ingredients like shea butter, cocoa butter or beeswax in the recipe. 

Dawn


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## Carolyn

I understand that an all olive oil soap is softer ---- but I dont' have any experience with the olive oil soaps, maybe depends on the quality of the olive oil. Carolyn


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## WildWisc

We purchased the olive oil from a local soap making supply store. If I remember correctly the ingredients were mostly olive oil, coconut oil, lye, and a small ammount of castor oil.


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## Shenandoah

Pure olive oil soaps (castile) are always soft. Coconut and Castor oil are usually added in such small amounts that it won't help the hardness of the soap. You would have to add quite a bit of castor oil to make a nice hard bar, you can up the coconut oil a bit too although some people claim it dries their skin. I've never had that problem though.


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## linn

Some people use stearic acid to make a harder bar of soap.


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## swamp_deb

Soap needs to drain between uses so that it dries or it will soak up water and get squishy. If it is too soft in the storage box then I would suspect either your olive wasn't really all olive or maybe your scales are off a little.

If you post your recipe it would help.


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## MullersLaneFarm

Would you please post your recipe?

I suspect that:

1. your OO was not 100% (there are "OO" out ther that are really 85% canola or soy & 15% OO).

2. you used too little lye

3. you used too much liquid in your lye solution

OO soaps get hard as a rock. I make a 100% OO soap with DWCP that is solid when I unmold and super hard in 2 weeks. I always cure my 100% OO a minimum of 6 months before I sell. By this time, the lather is abundant (and not slimy) and the soaps last longer in the shower.


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## Beltane

MullersLaneFarm said:


> I always cure my 100% OO a minimum of 6 months before I sell.


I don't think I could EVER wait that long to try one my bars of soap!:sing: I'm just always so excited about it...smelling it, touching it, looking at it...I think the longest I've made it is a month!


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## MullersLaneFarm

Well, when you have a few hundred pounds of soap bars sitting around, there are always some that are well cured to wash up with!


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## WildWisc

Here is the recipe we used:
6oz water
2.25oz lye
10oz oilve oil
6oz coconut oil
1Tablespoon castor oil


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## MullersLaneFarm

I don't know how much castor oil weighs, but 1 TBL wouldn't affect the lye amount too much. I added it into the calculator at .5 oz

You're good for your lye amount.

I would decrease the water amount to about 5 oz to help it evaporate excess liquid faster.

As long as you weighed your ingredients, all you need now is a good 6 week cure


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## WildWisc

Thanks, I'll try decreasing the water next time. Sorry for the delayed response, I've been out of town for the past week.


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