It is always hard to know for sure, but my guess is in your substituting apricot for palm oil. Palm and coconut oil are your oils that will give you a good, hard bar of soap in hot process soap. When you are first starting out in hot process it is best to stick with recipes that are entirely or almost entirely palm, coconut or, if you are not opposed to it, lard.
Oil chemistry can actually get pretty fascinating. The book the Soapmakers Companion does a good job explaining it, although it is dense material to get through.
Oils like apricot, olive, hemp, etc., all give great characteristics to soap but jsut don't saponify easily.
Did you get your soap to a nice noticeable firm change while heating and mixing before you poured? Learning to recognize that stage is critical.
