It may take several weeks but it should harden eventually. Did you use enough lye? How did the crayon work for colorant? I'd be interested in seeing a pic. I would never use a crayon!

I use coloring oxides in my glazes, I'm a potter and the coloring agents in crayons are quite harmless. I would guess they would have to be kids eat them all the time. Also the idea came from our friend Google and they said it was Ok , they never had a problem and hay you have to believe google.

It sounds soft to me, although I don't remember me ever using shortening.

I usually use more known hard oils/fats than soft, IE, tallo, PKO, Palm, Coconut, lard, etc..

Olive oil I consider to hold it's own as far as hardening a recipe goes.

The only "hard" oil you are using is the coconut oil.

Give it a week and see.

If it turns out to be too soft, you could rebatch it, which I hate doing, it's not worth the bother to me.

I don't know about using a crayon. Is the colourant skin safe? It might be if it's made in north America, China, maybe not so much.
If the kids can eat it, then, ...

People do use wax to harden a recipe.

It shouldn't take a couple of weeks for most processes, especially hot, a couple of days.

The wallmart shortening is half animal fat. It has got a little harder after 4-5 days. but it may be soft. beautiful lather and scent. We also made a turmeric soap. I used a calculator and by the numbers it should have been high and it also had a high Lodine number. Of course I really don't know how accurate the calculators are.

If it's half animal fat, at 45% you should be okay; if not, to your feel, then next time just up the animal fat or use one of the fats I've mentioned in my previous post.

I've use turmeric before, and I didn't have any probls with the colour transferring to a towel.

Steeping calendula in olive oil gives a nice colour, if you want to give it a try?
(Caution, use enough calendula, or you will get a grey, instead of mauve)

I've also used parsley, which I wouldn't use again, in the older soap (say 6 months) the green bits turn to a dull yellow.

Stevia (the green, not the white) is good for sage green; green clay gives another green.

If you haven't done it before swirling another colour in a recipe is good as well.

What scent did you use?

I used two scents mixtures in the two different soaps. Like I said in the past I'm a potter and along with selling the pottery I made and sold essential oils . so I have a lot of Scents . I don't have it in front of me but I used about 3/4 of a ounce per lb and the Crayon green had 1/2 lavender 1/4 bergamot and 1/4 marigold. The turmeric soap was sandalwood, rosewood, bergamot and jasmine 1/4 each.
What part of the calendula do you use and is the color from the steeping itself or just the flower transferrer its color to the oil.
The calculator gave me high numbers for hardness and also lodine.
I won't have to rebatch, it's fine now, but by the numbers it should be harder.
I have all colors of clays but there you are really dealing with oxides that you should avoid.

Sorry JBander,

I meant Alkanet root , vice calendula.

If you like the Sandalwood, where did you get it from?

We had a good Sandalwood once, and re-ordered a different one from Brambleberry (smells more like clove), and forget where we got the one we did like.

Happy soaping

Sorry for being late to the fair on this one.

That's a fine mix of oils; my personal preference is 70-80% olive, and even that hardens up in a few days. Shortening's softer oils are partially hydrogenated, which hardens those up nicely and results in a more solid bar of soap. Plus that much coconut will harden almost anything!

One question is how much water you used. My high olive soap, done CP, gets a pretty sharp water discount to set it up faster. Last night's batch was 24% water to oil weight and traced fast, set up fast, and is almost ready for unmolding this afternoon...but not quite.

If you used more than (say) 35% water by oil weight, it's likely to be a little soft at first. No worries, it'll cure nice and hard in a few weeks.

Re crayons: They're harmless, work fine, and I have no objection for home usage of the soap. Of course you couldn't sell the bars, but they won't hurt you a bit. Some colors may warp in high-pH environments, and the paraffin the crayon's made from won't saponify. That also helps add a bit of hardness to the soap.

I'm editing to note (for those not aware of the "hot" process) that the op is using hot processing, so the amount of water discount doesn't matter in the op's question.

I find for most recipes that the 33% water discount is a comfortable % to cp.

I usually split the 10 lb recipe into 4 and 6 lb portions, so scent dependent I don't want the sitting half)?) to turn to soap-on- a- stick; so the 33% water discount works for me.

I just stay away from Chinese products if at all possible, and colouring soap is one that I can easily avoid.

It does depend on the recipe. For a standard mix--like the recipe jbander is asking about--even 38% water is going to work out. And certainly for a fragrance I know accelerates trace I increase water (plumeria, I'm looking at you here, but alas, my mother loves it).

For recipes with very high percentages of soft oils, water discounting can really reduce your frustration with the soap.

I'm classing olive oil as soft, even though it eventually produces a rock hard bar of soap. But you know what I mean. :-)

Chinese products: I hear you. I certainly don't need extra lead in my soap. I tend to try to stick with American or Canadian made products for coloration and fragrance where natural can't or won't produce what I'm looking for in a soap.