Common Hot Process Soap Questions

Although hot process soap recipes have some things in common with the cold process soap recipes, there are a few new steps that can be confusing. So, we at Natures Garden felt it would be useful to answer some common hot process soap questions that our customers have asked us. This way we can equip you with all the soap making supplies and information that you need to make all kinds of wonderful homemade soaps!

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: What are the Hot Process Stages?

First, melt your oils and butters in a crock pot. Then, create your lye solution and add it to your crock pot. Use a stick blend to mix to trace and cover the crock pot. After about 15 minutes, stir the batter and replace the lip. Continue to stir every 15 minutes until the soap batter has the consistency of mashed potatoes. Then, place the soap in a mold and allow it to set up for 24 hours. After, remove from mold, cut, and allow it to cure for about 1-2 weeks. Although the bar may technically be safe to use, allowing it to cure will provide a harder, better quality bar of soap.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: Can I Use the Pan or Crockpot I Used for Soapmaking for Food?

No, you should never return your soaping equipment to the kitchen. So, make sure that you use a pan or crock pot that you aren’t overly fond of for your hot process soap recipes. Hopefully, you can find a pan or crock pot that is cheap or old to use for soap. Once anything in your kitchen is used for soapmaking, it should be moved into your soap making supplies permanently.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: Do I Have to Use a Crock Pot for Hot Process Soap?

No, you don’t have to use a crock pot to be successful in making hot process soap. Many people like to use an old crock pot, but if you aren’t able to dedicate one to soap making it is okay to use something different. In fact, you can use a stove top and it works just as well. Honestly, your hot process soap will work just fine as long as your soap has a constant heat source.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: What Are The Hot Process Soap Benefits?

Since hot process soap has some similar steps to cold process soap, hp soap has many of the same benefits. Of course, for both methods, you can control all of the ingredients to avoid ingredient that may trigger allergies or irritate skin conditions. But, the biggest thing that sets the hp soap making method apart from the cold process soap is the cure time. Since hot process soap uses a heat source, like a crock pot or pan, that keeps the soap batter at higher temperatures. These higher temperatures will speed up the saponification process. So, your hot process soaps won’t need to cure as long as they would if they were made using the cp soap method.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: Does Natures Garden Offer Hot Process Soap Recipes?

Natures Garden offers a few different recipes for hot process soap that you can choose between. We have regular hp soap recipes, laundry soap recipes, and even a beard soap recipe. So, there are a lot of fun ideas for making hot process soaps! You can find all of our recipes under Hot Process Soap Recipes on the Free Recipes and Classes page.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: When Do I Color Hot Process Soap?

You will want to add your soap colorant after the batch is done cooking. So, mix in the coloring once the soap is a mashed potato consistency. Also, you can still do multiple colors with this method. Just split your cooked soap into different bowls and mix in color to each. Once the soap is colored, you can add more ingredients or scoop the soap to the mold.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: When Do I Add Fragrance to Hot Process Soap?

Again, you will want to add your fragrance oil after the soap has fully cooked and before you stick the soap in the mold. So, you can add your scent right after you add your colorant.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: How Long Do I Need to Cook Hot Process Soap?

The cooking time can vary depending on both the individual hot process soap recipe and the soaping ingredients used. Also, the crock pot or pan that you are using can affect the time, too. Some cases take about an hour and other instances may take a few hours. However, you can tell that your soap is done based on consistency. As your soap heats it will begin to get thicker, which you will notice as you are periodically checking the batter. At one point the soap batter will go through a gel phase, which gives a gel-like appearance. Right after this, the soap will get a mashed potato consistency. At this point, you are ready to scoop the soap into your soap mold.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: Why is My Hot Process Soap Changing Color?

There are a few reasons why a soap would discolor. Most often, this kind of change is due to the vanillin content in a fragrance oil. This ingredient is what gives scented oils its vanilla notes. So, this type of discoloration can be minimized by using vanilla white color stabilizer. basically, all of the brown discoloration caused by vanillin and oxidation. Vanilla White Color Stabilizer will slow the oxidation of vanillin. However, there are many other ingredients in fragrance oils that can cause discoloration that we can’t reduce or control. This means that it is possible that this additive won’t solve discoloration if the vanillin content isn’t very high. You can find out whether a fragrance discolors and if its maintainable by looking in the description for that scented oil. Another reason that your soaps could change color is herbs, which can oxide over time. This will fade the initial color of the herb and likely become a dull color or change color.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: Why Is My Hot Process Soap Separating In My Mold?

If your hp soap is separating in the soap mold, then it is a sign that the soap needed to cook longer. No need to rebatch. All you have to do is scoop the soap back into the crock pot or the pan and cook for a bit longer. It could also be caused by a recipe that wasn’t formulated properly or was not weighed out properly.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: How Long Do You Have to Wait to Use Hot Process Soap?

While hot process soap shortens the cure time, you still have a bit of waiting left to do. You will want to let your soap bars set for about 1-2 weeks, depending on your batch this could vary.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: Why Is My Hot Process Soap Cracking?

Overheating can cause your hot process soap to crack in some places or develop strange patterns. Occasionally, it will just be a simple crack in the soap and other times you can end up with soap with peaks and craters. Sometimes soap can even get an appearance referred to as alien brains, which is kind of looks like a brain pattern.  Also, certain ingredients can lead to an increase in heating, like additives with natural sugars. So, you are more likely to overheat with milk, wine, honey, or fruit and veggie purees. Not only can these ingredients heat you soap, but they have the potential to cause a volcano effect in your soap. So, be sure to use caution for those ingredients with sugars.  

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: Does Natures Garden Offer Any Hot Process Soap Recipes with Shea Butter?

Yes, we do! We have quite a few free soap recipes for hot process soap, which includes the Beard Soap Recipe, the Game On HP Soap Recipe, and the Apricotie Hottie Soap Recipe. If you would like to see more of these types of soap-making recipes, then you can check out our Free Recipes and Classes page under the Hot Process Soap Recipes section.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: Why is My Hot Process Soap Hard and Crumbly?

If you have soap that is too hard and crumbly, then stick around to learn about why your hot process soap would be this way and how you can fix it. Also, anyone that wants to learn how to make their hot process soap more fluid may want to start here. First, your soap batter could be over cooked, which makes the soap dry and hard. Alternatively, the recipe could contain too many hard oils, which could be saved by re-batching with more soft oils. Or, it could be that you didn’t add enough water. Also, it could be that an ingredient was forgotten or the recipe wasn’t formulated correctly. Another possibility is that there is too much of a soap additive, like sodium lactate, that increased the hardness too much. Often, you can simply fix the mistake and rebatch your soap.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: How Do I Rebatch Hot Process Soap?

Have you ever wondered can you melt a bar of soap and remold? It can be tempting to just scrap a failed batch of soap and start over. If you feel the same, then you will definitely want to hear about rebatching soap. Whether you forgot an ingredient, a hot process soap rebatch is a great idea for you to try. Plus, rebatching your old soap is a fairly simple process. First, grate your old soap and put these pieces in a crock pot. Then, you will need to melt this down with water and whatever you wanted to include in these soaps. If you want a more detailed set of instructions, then you can look at a previous blog on How to Rebatch soap.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: Why Is My Hot Process Soap Soft and Crumbly?

Also, there are a few reasons why your soap could turn out soft and crumbly. One reason could be that you have too many soft oils and need more hard oils added to the recipe. Also, it could be an issue of not having enough lye for the amount of liquid added. So, it is possible that you may need to formulate the recipe again, which can be made easier with the help of SoapCalc. If your recipe is fine, then you may just need to cook your soap a bit longer. Another option is that you could’ve accidentally added a soap ingredient twice. While you may have a missing ingredient or need to add some different ingredients, it is okay because you should be able to rebatch and save the soap.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: Why Is My Hot Process Soap So Soft? I Did Everything Right and It Is Still Soft.

When you first unmold and cut your hp soap, it may be softer than you like. It is common to be a little soft initially for hot process soaps. However, the soap will harden as it cures. Although the soap is safe to use, the bars after about a week, they may still be too soft. For hard soaps, we suggest allowing your soap to cure for 3-4 weeks.

Common Hot Process Soap Questions: Just Ask Us!

We hope that you were able to learn something interesting about hot process soap making! If you have any other questions or concerns about the hp soap-making method, then reach out and ask us. We are available in the Natures Garden store, on the phone, and on social media. You can reach out to us on the NG Facebook page, Twitter (@ngscents), or Instagram (@ngscents). Have fun soaping and we wish you the very best!