When I first made soap, I used recipes from books I had (The Nerdy Farm wife’s natural soap making, Pure Soapmaking, Everything Soapmaking and Natural Soapmaking). Then when I felt ready to formulate my own recipe, I concentrated on making a bar that will be long lasting, hard and cleansing; which resulted in a soap batter that traces rather fast. This is why I usually prefer to decorate my soap with embeds, as my recipe does not lend itself to being good for intricate designs. I became interested in learning how to keep soap batter fluid when I participated in some of the soapchallengeclub.com challenges, a couple of years ago. As some attempts failed because my soap recipe traced quickly. In the challenges, there is access to recipes that stay fluid for longer periods of time. I did not want to change my recipe too much though, so I compared it to theirs and decided to increase my fluid oils to a percentage similar to Amy’s recipe. (Amy is the host for the challenges). Though this meant sacrificing the longevity of the bars some.
This worked, but it also meant I now had to make two master batches of oils, one for my regular soap and one for my “swirly” soaps; which was a bit extra work.
Then the ghost swirl technique challenge taught me that I could use the same regular recipe from before, and decrease the water amount instead to a 40% lye concentration equivalent, which sounds contrary to everything I had learned so far, yet it worked.
However, this only works if these conditions are met:
- The stick blender is used sparingly (and sometimes this meant 3-6 short bursts total) to bring the soap batter to emulsion only. When I stick blend more, because I want to make sure it has emulsified, things go wrong. I stir with the spatula mostly. Before and after using the stick blender.
- If I need the soap batter to be at light trace, I need to wait for it to happen naturally (sometimes wait up to 10 minutes or more), if I force trace with the stick blender, it will increasingly get thicker faster
- The lye solution is at room temperature and the oils are only warmed to the melting point of the hardest fat or butter.
- A decelerating or exceptionally well behaved fragrance is used.* List below.
I learned the above from comments in the Soap Making Forum (linked in the ghost swirl technique challenge). When the soap making forum hosted their monthly challenge last October, which is different and not affiliated to Amy’s challenge club, I participated and was able to make the tall and skinny shimmy soap technique with a 40% lye concentration (big water discount) and my regular recipe. As described in the video below.
In general though, this is what I have learned to consider, to keep the soap batter fluid:
- Recipe: The amount of slow moving oils in a recipe is very important, to help it stay fluid longer. For me, this meant increasing my olive oil volume to 40% instead of 30%. I would suggest even 45% for extra insurance. However, soapqueen suggest increasing your fluid oils to 60% instead. I personally do not want to trade the longevity of my bars that much.
- Oils Temperature: I warm up my oils to just above the melting temperature of the hardest fats. In my recipe, it is beef tallow, which needs to be at 108°F to melt (42°C), though some google results show a lower temperature, I guess it varies since beef tallow comes from different parts of the animal. As a rule I aim to have my oils at 110°F
- Lye water temperature: I keep it at room temperature, which in my area it means around 75°F or 25° C (the AC is running most of the time)
- Fragrance: This is perhaps the most crucial point. If the fragrance causes the soap to trace faster or to accelerate, everything else we have done will not matter. When I have a design in mind that requires the soap batter to stay fluid for a long time, I will only use a fragrance that is known to behave well with my recipe. I read fragrance reviews with a grain of salt, being fully aware that just because the fragrance behaved well for someone, it does not mean that it will behave well for me. Most reviewer‘s do not specify what their recipe is, how much they stick blended, if they used a water discount or the temperature of their oils. I do not believe most fragrance retailers fragrance behavior description either, because when I compare their recipe to mine, there are vast differences.
- Colorants: Titanium dioxide, ultramarine pigment, activated charcoal and black oxide will usually cause my soap batter to become thick. And so will any micas that contain large amounts of it. To find a blue mica that did not thicken my soap batter was a challenge, however Midnight blue from Nurture Soap does well, I think because the blue element comes from a different ingredient, it also has ultramarine pigment, but not as much. I use white or Black micas instead of titanium dioxide or black oxide when I need those colors in the design.
- Additives: in general I avoid them when I need a fluid/thin soap batter, as a lot of them tend to thicken it up. Specially, I avoid: colloidal oatmeal, kaolin clay, bentonite clay (most clays, really), honey, etc.
- Water substitutes: I also avoid substituting the water for soap designs that need longer working times. Beer, milk and wine have accelerated the trace for me.
Here is a list of fragrances that behave very well for me (as long as follow above guidelines):
(Some of the links are affiliate links, it will not cost you any more to purchase from them, but I would get a tiny commission from them)
Wholesale supplies Plus:
- Lemongrass Green Tea fragrance oil 425 (however it fades in cp)
- Bergamot and Mandarin Fragrance oil 190
- Satsuma Fragrance oil 612
Nature’s Garden and Candles:
- Apples and Oak
- Grapefruit Lemongrass energize
- Hot pink Lime
- Cucumber Melon type fragrance oil
- Mango Sorbet
Nurture Soap:
Elements Bath and Body:
- Please check the new usage rates of above fragrances, as with the 49th amendment by the IFRA, several fragrances usage rates have lowered
