# Why Oh Why Is It Cracking?



## H Diamond Farms

*Why Oh Why Is It Cracking? *Update Pg. 3, Need More Help**

Can anyone tell me what is in this recipe or what I am doing wrong to cause cracks every time? 
8oz Olive Oil
7oz Palm Oil
7oz Coconut Oil
4oz Cocoa Butter
3oz. Shea Butter
2oz Avocado Oil
2oz. Castor Oil
4.65oz lye
10.9 oz liquid.

This cracks every time I make it, doesn't matter on the scent or additive, doesn't matter what temp my lye/oils are, doesn't matter if I use a wood or silicone mold or if I insulate it or put it in the freezer. Doesn't matter if it's 50 or 100 degrees in the house. What is causing the cracking, and what can I change to make it stop?

ETA: I forgot, this does not crack on my little bars that I make in silicone molds. Like little 2-3 oz bars with my leftover soap.


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## Anita Martin

It's possible that you are using too many hard oils/butters. You have twice as much hard butters as soft oils. Maybe try doing half/half or switching the percentages around to more soft than hard. I never get cracking. I use not quite three to one, soft to hard. I've used half and half with fine results too.


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## swgoats

That's what I was thinking too. What were you wanting to get with castor? Maybe cut that and increase olive?


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## informative

I would try replacing some of the fancy oils with basic crisco. If you've never tried it one of the best soaps I ever made was a mix of random used kitchen fry/vegetable oils and a goodly amount of crisco. The bars came out a nice golden white yellow and were perfect texture add lye simmer a while till thickened then poured it into empty pringle tubes cured 2 days sliced into these beautiful round pucks about an inch thick everyone said it was awesome (shrug)


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## 2Sticks

I think Anita & Angie are correct, too many hard oils.


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## hsmomof4

That recipe is ~81% hard oils (defining hard here as those solid at normal room temp, so in your recipe, coconut, cocoa butter, shea, palm). The Walmart recipe is about 85% hard oils. So I don't think that it is hard oils per se. What kind of cracks are you seeing? A long one (or a few shorter ones) down the center of the top of the loaf? That's usually an indication of overheating. The fact that it doesn't happen in your individual bar molds makes me think that's even more likely. I know that you said it happens when you put it in the freezer, but it's possible that it's already too hot by that point. So what is the rest of your methodology for making soap? Cocoa butter has to be pretty warm before it melts, so if you are melting all of your hard oils together until that happens, and then making soap right away with hot lye, for example, the whole thing is going to be very hot right from the get-go.


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## swgoats

I'm defining hard oils differently - certain oils make for harder soap. I think of palm, coconut, and castor as being hard oils, while olive and butters make softer soap. I've never used avocado, don't know much about it.


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## swgoats

There are descriptions of the properties of different oils in "The Natural Soap Book" by Susan Miller Cavitch. Probably online too, but that's what I mean by hard - they make hard soap.


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## H Diamond Farms

I was under the impression that castor makes soft soap? At any rate, I add it for bubbles. 
So, I mix my lye with 4.9-5oz water and leave it sit while I melt my hard (physically) oils in the microwave... cocoa, palm, coconut, shea. While those are melting I measure out my liquid at room temp oils, then add my melted butters/oils to them. 
By that time the water/lye has cooled enough to add my GM to it. I stir that in, and add it to the oils/butters. Stick blend to whatever degree of trace I need, add any colors and scent, then put it in the mold. 

I was thinking it was probably an overheating problem more than the recipe, but I'm not sure what to do to make it not get so hot? As a side note, I never get a full gel, even insulated. 
Just a crack straight down the middle than is about half the length of the mold. I guess I just need to start over with a new recipe. I was having problems with my bars being too soft, so that's why I've upped the hard oils/butters. 
I want to use cocoa and shea butter or at least one of the two. I want to use Olive Oil. I don't know if the avocado oil is real important.. I just had some I needed to use so started with it, lol. 
Coconut works well, or I could try something different... I dunno. Confused at this point, lol.


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## H Diamond Farms

The lovely thing about working the overnight shift... plenty of time to play with recipes, lol. 
I've been thinking about doing Palm free anyways, so I think I'm going to try a recipe like: 
40% OO, 30% CO, 10% Shea, 10% Cocoa, 5% Castor, 5% Avocado(or some other similar oil). 
Also thinking about dropping the Cocoa butter all together. 
Will also really pay attention to my temps and try to soap a little cooler. 
Is it your butters that cause your recipe to heat up (is that possible), or is it the fact you have to heat them up to get them to melt?


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## Anita Martin

Rachel, whenever I've soaped with my lye that hot, I've had issues. One hour is not enough for my lye water to cool, I've had to go to making it hours ahead of time and it not being even a little bit warm. I think it being still hot then adding goats milk to it just makes it heat up all the more, from my experience, and then adding it in to hot oils makes the problem worse. Before you change your recipe, I'd mix up a lye solution at night and then soap with it the next morning, or whenever you get the chance and see if you still have the problem. And for melting butters, try melting the cocoa butter first because it takes the longest, then melt your other butters with it and see if you can get a cooler temp on them that way. 

I hear about people mixing up their lye and pouring it hot right over the butters to melt them but in my experience I end up with a mess this way.


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## MF-Alpines

I'd say it is because you have to heat some of the hard oils higher to get them to melt. Do you measure and melt your oils at the same time or individually? Because some melt quicker than others, I melt mine individually.

Unless you want the avocado for label appeal, I'd sub a cheaper oil like sunflower.


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## H Diamond Farms

I usually sit my lye in cold water, but when I add the GM it does heat back up some. 
I heat my cocoa butter up first, then add the shea to it. It's usually warm enough to melt the shea. The coconut and palm are in 1lb bottle than need warmed for a minute also before adding. 

It has to be a heat issue, I dunno what else it would be. Going to try and make sure things are cooler the next time around and see what happens.


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## hsmomof4

Olive oil does not make a soft soap. It takes a little longer to firm up, but eventually, it is very hard. And yes, castor (by itself) would make a soft, sticky soap. But it is nice for bubblage at about 5-10% of your recipe. One way to keep things cooler would be to use frozen liquid to dissolve your lye and rather than adding the milk to the lye water, put it in with the oils. 

I have done what Anita talks about...thermal transfer soaping, where you use the heat of the lye solution to melt your solid fats, but I don't think that I would try to do that with cocoa butter because of its melt point. I have done it with the Walmart recipe and it worked fine, but you have to stir a lot (until the fats are mostly melted, you can't stick blend) and it works best to add the milk after everything is melted (otherwise, it burns) but it wasn't too bad. Slow going, though, somewhat. 

And yes, Cindy is right about what I meant...because you have to heat up the solid fats/oils/butters to melt them, you are starting at a higher temperature than if you were using oils that are liquid at room temperature. Obviously, you can let them cool back down somewhat, and if they are mixed with your liquid oils, the whole thing will remain liquid at a somewhat lower temperature than the solid oils by themselves. Even if they start to solidify a bit, it is still fine and they will melt again quickly once you add the lye. Just be sure to scrape the sides of the bucket well, because that's where they will be the coolest and solidify the most.


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## tlcnubians

I would suggest using a thermometer to check the temps of your lye solution and oils. I never mix my lye/water/milk solution into my oils until it has cooled to between 80-90 degrees (I add my lye to the water then float the bowl containing that in an ice water bath for 10-15 minutes before adding my milk to it, then let it stay there cooling while I prepare my hard oils (cocoa butter, vegetable shortening, coconut oil and palm oil) and melt them. After the lye solution has reached 80 degrees, I remove it from the ice water bath and put the pot containing the melted oils in the ice water bath and cool them until they're between 100-120 degrees. Then I mix everything together. Something else you might want to think about, although the measurement difference is pretty small, when I ran your recipe through the Brambleberry.com lye calculator and added a 5% superfat (a fairly average superfat level), it suggested using only 4.5 ounces of lye, so you might try that and see if you see any difference. Caroline


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## swgoats

Olive gets hard over time, but short term it is a softer soap. If you use alot of oils that get hard quickly, you can get a brittle soap that cracks. That's what I was thinking off. But cracking down the middle is overheating. I experienced that once cause I stacked my molds. The top and bottle mold where fine, but the middle mold cracked.


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## Anita Martin

And one last thing you might try is to add your milk to your oils/butter, not to your lye solution. Your lye should already be dissolved so you won't need the milk to do that. Mixing it with the lye solution might be giving you more heat than you want or need, plus it burns the milk. You can add the milk at emulsion or add it to the melted oils in the pot before you add the lye. I usually like to avoid shocking anything so on the rare occasions I don't use all milk, I add the milk to my oils before I add the lye mixture and it always works. I can use cold milk this way and don't get any reaction or changing color/burning, etc.


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## tlcnubians

Anita - if you wait until the chemical reaction between the water and lye settles down and you float your lye water in an ice water bath you won't have issues with burning your milk either. My soap has always been very light colored, especially my 50% olive oil soap. You can, as you say, add the milk at emulsion or to the melted oils in the pot (making sure they aren't so hot that they'll cook the milk), but adding milk to your lye/water solution isn't a problem just so long as it's not boiling hot when you do so. Caroline


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## Greylady

Love your goat!


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## tlcnubians

Thanks Betty! She's super quiet and easy going.


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## H Diamond Farms

***Update** Need More Advice*

SO today I made a new batch of soap. Just soap, no color, scent, or other additives. This is the recipe: 
11.5 oz OO
9.89 oz Coconut Oil
3.30 oz Shea Butter
3.30 oz Cocoa Butter
1.65 oz Castor Oil
3.30 oz Avocado Oil
4.67 oz Lye
10.9 oz Liquid (4.9 was water, 6 was GM)

Mixed my lye and water, set it in a cold water bath. 
Melted my Cocoa Butter, added my Shea Butter to it to melt the Shea. 
Warmed the Coconut oil just enough to get it out of the bottle, was still slushy. 
Measure my other oils, added, the Coconut oil to them, then added the Shea/Cocoa butter mix to them. 
While I Was working on my oils, I also added my GM to my cooled lye water. Left it in the cold water bath. GM never turned more than a pale yellow, so I know it wasn't hot. 
My CB/SB mix wasn't warm enough to finish melting the Coconut oil, so microwaved it all in short bursts until it was melted. It was barely warm to the touch. Added my lye mixture, stick blended to trace, poured into my molds, and sat it up on a cooling rack. ( So air could circulate) Came back tonight, and IT'S STILL CRACKED! Only about a 2 inch crack instead of like 6 inches, but right down the middle as always. I don't understand. Different recipe (upped the OO to 35% instead of like 24%, took out the palm, increased the Avocado oil and Coconut Oil to make up for the oils, soaped it very very cool... I just don't understand what I am doing wrong. It must be in technique right? Since this happened across 2 recipes? I think I might try to soap the Walmart recipe or something and see if it still cracks. That will tell me for sure if it's technique since I know that recipe works out well. I am just so frustrated right now.


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## hsmomof4

How warm is the room in which you are soaping? If my soaps start to crack a bit, I don't worry too much, as it's usually just on the very top and not far into the bar, but I will set up a fan to blow on them as they sit in the molds.


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## swgoats

What kind of mold is it? Could it be too insulating?


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## H Diamond Farms

It's just a wood mold we made from plywood. Like 1/2 inch plywood I think. This has been happening in my Brambleberry silicone loaf mold also. 
The room was between 65-75 yesterday. Had the house wide open and it never got above 75 outside.
As a side note, the soap was lovely. It unmolded this morning very nice. Even my little silicone mold bars just popped right out. 
Usually those have to sit another 12 hours, before they unstick. I unmolded and cut the loaf this morning ( so, about 15 hours after I made it) 
and the bars cut really nice. Not sticky or anything. 
Could this happen if I'm just getting a partial gel? Like the bottom/middle gels but the top is harder and cracks?


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## swgoats

I don't know about the gel part, but what is the percent super fat? Maybe if you used just a little less lye? Sounds like it is sponifying very quickly and completely.


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## H Diamond Farms

Yesterday's recipe was 4% SF according to the BB calculator. Let me run it through some others and see what they say.


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## H Diamond Farms

MMS recommends 4.71 at a 4% SF, SoapCalc recommends 4.71 with a 4% SF. :/


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## swgoats

I use a 5 or 6% superfat in the green range on MMS - but I guess you were already using a little less than what they say to use for 4%...


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## H Diamond Farms

Ya  I had been using the 5%, I don't know as how it makes much difference to just move a percent or two.

Could brand of lye affect this? I can't remember if this started when I changed to the lye I'm using right now or not, but I'm thinking it was around the same time.


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## swgoats

I'm so curious, but I'm out of ideas. Maybe you were right about the gel - maybe soap cool like you did, but insulate? Just an idea.

I need to get that science book. I feel like I get it, but I don't.... :/


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## tlcnubians

Have you ever used sodium lactate? You could try adding a bit (no more than 1/2 ounce) to your lye water and see if it helps. I find that adding sodium lactate to my recipe really helps the soap release from the molds. Not sure if that would cure your problem or not, but it might be worth a try.


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## H Diamond Farms

Angie, thanks for trying to help! I'm going to keep trying things, lol. Surely if I keep changing an element at a time one of them will fix the problem! The bad thing is, I have to make a regular size batch for it to happen. ( The small single bars don't do it) So, I'm using up resources, lol. 
Caroline, I haven't. I'll have to look into it.


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## Anita Martin

I still think your lye is reacting when you are adding it, even though it's cool because it's been in an ice bath, I think once you add it to the oils, it is getting too hot.  Try a batch next time making your lye water up 12 hours in advance. Just to see.


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## H Diamond Farms

I am willing to give it a try! Soon as I get some more lye in, I'll try that. 
It's frustrating, I never used to get cracks in my soap. Now... every stinkin' batch.


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## tlcnubians

Make sure the lye you're using doesn't have any additives in it. I've read a couple of blurbs on the internet about food grade versus tech grade lye and how the tech grade lye could contain impurities in it that might affect your soap. Also, I pour my lye/milk/water through a fine mesh strainer into my oils and it's amazing how much "stuff" ends up in the strainer . . . just a few more random thoughts for you to consider! Caroline


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## DRRD-LMANCHAS

I know nothing of soap making, and after helping my grandmother render putrid tallow as a young girl i have no desire to learn, but "Do you have any of this blend for sale?" I am not trying to be a smartellic but I would not even mind the cracks. It sounds like a wonderful combination of oils. I am so allergic to soy and it is so hard to find a soap maker that does not use soy. Please contact me if you have any of this recipe for sale.
Thank you,
Juanita


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## H Diamond Farms

Hey Jaunita, I tried to send you a PM, but it said you weren't accepting them. I'll send you an email here shortly.


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## hsmomof4

Really? I did not realize that most soapmakers use soybean oil. It is cheap, though, I'll grant you that!


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## NubianSoaps.com

Other than crisco folks, I don't really know many who use soybean oil either Stacey. Palm yes, it's part of the holy grail. Vicki


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## H Diamond Farms

I know oils change in saponification, but the thought of using a "crisco soap" is revolting to me, lol. 
I hate that stuff, how it's processed, etc.

I've been browsing a lot of soap websites lately, and you'd be surprised how often you see soy. However, there are a lot of soapers who don't use it.


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## hsmomof4

There's one at my market who uses soy as the main oil in her regular recipe, but she's the only one I know. I had a request for very cheap base to be re-melted by the purchaser, who did not care about what the ingredients were, as long as it was cheap, so I made commercial lard (my regular soaps generally have lard that I render myself from local small farmers) plus coconut plus soy, because it was the cheapest liquid oil at Restaurant Depot. But ordinarily, I don't use soybean oil. Sunflower, yes, because it's local.


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## tlcnubians

About 10 years ago I began my soapmaking journey using a Crisco-based recipe I reformulated from Casey Makela's "Milk Based Soaps" book. Today I've moved on to Columbus's soybean shortening as an ingredient in most of my soaps. It actually makes a very nice soap, so I wouldn't knock it if you haven't tried it. To me using lard as a soap ingredient is unappealing, so to each his (or her own). I also use palm oil, but only that which is sustainably harvested. Crisco, by the way, is a mixture of cottonseed and soybean oils. Caroline


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## H Diamond Farms

Lard kinda grosses me out too, lol. I know it's completely different in soap, but all I can see (crosco or lard) is taking a scoop and "lathering" up with it, lol.


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## hsmomof4

I don't think soybean oil in soap is a terrible thing, it's just not what I'm wanting to use (for a number of reasons...but if I could get local, organic soybean oil, I'd definitely be all over it).


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