# "Room temperature" method



## delicious (May 16, 2011)

I've been reading about making soap for a while already. It had always seemed quite complicated to juggle the temperatures and have the lye/water solutions and oils at the same temperature at the same time. I don't cook (we eat a raw diet in the house, so we don't even have a stove!) so it seems even more scary.
But the other day, while picking up the soap making subject again, I stumbled upon an article explaning the so called "room temperature" method.

So now this got me wondering: do some of you not heat your oils (even solid ones) and ignore temperatures in general?
Is it easier/harder for a newcomer (more troubleshooting)?
Does that make the soap a different quality?
Does the soap go up higher in temperatures? If so, how much higher? And do you need to insulate less because the temperatures are higher?

Any opinions on this way of doing it?


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## soapbuddy (May 16, 2011)

This method is harder for a newbie. If you get a false trace, you could end up with lye pockets. If you use beeswax, you do need to melt it along with oils or butters.


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## judymoody (May 16, 2011)

Do you have a microwave or a hot plate?

As soapbuddy mentioned, beeswax and hard or brittle oils like palm kernel oil or cocoa butter really should be melted down.

But I'm not too fussy about temperatures.  As long as my oils are liquid and the container is warm to the touch (ditto for the lye), I go for it.  When I started I drove myself crazy trying to get them to exactly the same temperature.

ETA: I've heard of people melting their hard oils in their cars in the summertime.


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## Fyrja (May 16, 2011)

I've found that if I keep the oil and lye within 10 degrees of each other there are no problems.  Of course I try to soap at as cool a temperature as I can without the oils starting to re-solidify.  Usually in the 90 to 100 range.  This causes me less grief with overheating as I live in a really really hot and humid area of the country.


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## delicious (May 16, 2011)

judymoody said:
			
		

> Do you have a microwave or a hot plate?
> 
> As soapbuddy mentioned, beeswax and hard or brittle oils like palm kernel oil or cocoa butter really should be melted down.
> 
> ...



=> I don't have a car  and it's chilly autumn now where I am
=> I'll be using liquid oils anyway. I don't plan on using beeswax and I don't have access to palm oil or cocoa or shea butter. So the hardest oil I'll have will be coconut which melts at a really low temperature. I could pre melt it in a double boiler with hot tap water and add the other oils to warm them up a little and keep the coconut oil liquid.



			
				soapbuddy said:
			
		

> This method is harder for a newbie. If you get a false trace, you could end up with lye pockets. If you use beeswax, you do need to melt it along with oils or butters.



=> a false trace is when the hard oils solidify, right? So if I don't use hard oils it should work... right?


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## soapbuddy (May 16, 2011)

False trace can happen with any oils, not just the so called hard oils. Can you put your soap pot in the sink and fill the sink with very warm to hot water? That should get the oils to a higher then room temp.


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## delicious (May 16, 2011)

soapbuddy said:
			
		

> False trace can happen with any oils, not just the so called hard oils. Can you put your soap pot in the sink and fill the sink with very warm to hot water? That should get the oils to a higher then room temp.


Yes, I guess I'll do that.


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## cp chick (May 16, 2011)

I did one batch of room temp soap.  I poured the lye mixture over the hard oils and once fully melted added the soft oils.  It traced fine and things went well until I tried to unmold the next day, when I found out that it took longer to set than my regular CP.  It was frustrating (for someone who hates waiting), though I think if I'd left them another day they would have been fine.  I'd be open to trying it again sometime.


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## chrisnkelley (May 16, 2011)

I worried about this at first too.  Now, as recommended in Smart Soapmaking (Anne Watson), I just get my oils and lye to somewhere between 90 and 110 degrees.  The lye might be 110 and the fats might be 90 - it works.  You don't have to be exact in my experience.  I find that if I put my fats in the micro and melt them, then mix my lye into my cold water, they both get down to temp aprox the same time, in about 10ish minutes.


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## JackiK (May 16, 2011)

I didn't start using the room temp method until my first floral FO seized up on me.  Now, I do it most of the time for convenience.  I'll melt my oils and mix my lye/water before I go to work.  When I return, they get mixed together.

Yes, it does take longer to set up and be ready for cutting.  I guess my patience level is increasing in my old age, so that doesn't bother me.


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## delicious (May 16, 2011)

JackiK said:
			
		

> I'll melt my oils and mix my lye/water before I go to work.  When I return, they get mixed together..


What? You let them sit all day?!


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## JackiK (May 16, 2011)

delicious said:
			
		

> JackiK said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes.


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## gettinaclue (May 16, 2011)

I've only made one batch of Castile soap, and I did it at room temperature.  I mixed my lye and water and let it sit for a few hours.  Both the lye and oil were at room temp when I soaped.  

It took a long time for it to set up, but from what I understand, it was because I used a PVC tube for a mold, and also the general nature of the type of soap I made.   (traditional Castile with nothing but lye water and olive oil)


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## ToniD (May 16, 2011)

I've never used the room temp method where I melted my solid oils with the warm lye solution,   but I never heat my olive when I do castile.    I don't worry about if my lye and oils are the same temp.


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## delicious (May 16, 2011)

gettinaclue said:
			
		

> I've only made one batch of Castile soap, and I did it at room temperature.  I mixed my lye and water and let it sit for a few hours.  Both the lye and oil were at room temp when I soaped.



Oh, I get it: it's not only that you can ignore the temperature, but they also do not need to be hot at all, not even the lye (as long as everything is liquid). Sounds stupid, but I hadn't realized what it actually meant!
I thought that you just leave everything as it comes (no added heat), but you can also let everything sit until it is actually ROOM TEMP.
Yep, I got it (I think. - I'll probably look back in a few years after making loads of soap and think that I really didn't get anything at the time! lol ).


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## busymakinsoap! (May 16, 2011)

delicious - just to clarify - there seem to be two types of 'room temps' mentioned here

That recipe is referred to is called as RTM or RTP?? sorry cant remember, its something like that anyway - this is where you poor your scalding hot lye water onto the UNMELTED oils to melt them.  some people love it - I havnt tried it, but i wouldnt, from what I have heard there are a lot of things that can go wrong.

Combining your oils and lye water at room temp is a different story, this is where you combine your water and lye, melt your oils and then let sit.  There are also things that can go wrong with this, its great for if your have tricky addidtives such as milk and fragrance - but it can cause problems too.  Such as steric and false trace.

I think if you are new to soaping, soaping at 110 degrees with both lye and oils is the best way to go.  If you have problems with an additive, then take it down to room temp.


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## delicious (May 17, 2011)

Thank you for clarifying. I kind of had the impression that there were two different ways.


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## jennikate (May 17, 2011)

If i understand correctly you dont have stove microwave ect but fact that you are going to use mostly liquid oils makes it less tricky if you put cocunut oil in sink with  hot water that should get it melted than add lye water to oils . Good luck and let us know how it goes.


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## delicious (May 24, 2011)

Ok, so I got the blender and scale and I just couldn't see myself waiting another week or more until I go in town to get the coconut oil, so I decided to do a first go with 100% olive oil to make castile soap.

I placed the oil in my jug and set that in a bucket of hot tap water for a while (10min?).
The temp of the oil rose from 17°C (62.6 °F) to 33°C (91,4°F).

I didn't measure the temperature of the water and lye solution, but I guess it was in the right range.

While mixing the soap, around the begining of trace I checked the soap's temperature and it was at 43°C (109.4°F).

By the way, as I'm not used to the fahrenheit system, each time I read the temperatures in explanations, I imagine really hot stuff (100°C=212°F), and it gets me confused. I know I have to wrap my head aroud it, but it just keeps coming back at me. It isn't that hot and it's not hard to get the temperatures right after all.

About the soap now: I used a PVC tube as a mold, wraped it in a newspaper first and then in a towel but the soap just doesn't seem to heat at.
My house is pretty cold now (17°C=62.6°F), I wonder if that plays a part.
Will the saponification take place regardless?


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## busymakinsoap! (May 26, 2011)

If your soaping at low temps and its cold, and your soap doesnt gell the saponification process will take longer.

You can put your batch in the freezer to prevent gell and it will still saponify.

As long as your measurements are correct it will happen   Just might take a few days before you can unmold


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## delicious (May 26, 2011)

Yeah... it's frustrating! But oh well, I just have to try to forget about it until next week.
In the event that it would gel in the PVC mold, I put a small amount of the soap in a small silicone mold (muffin type) to try to avoid gel with that one and be able to see the difference. But neither of the molds seem to gel.

Yet, I can see that it is progressing. Today the soap seemed thicker/more dense if you know what I mean. I guess it's just starting to set.


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## delicious (Jun 5, 2011)

I posted a new topic about my third batch using the room temp method.
It's a new topic, but then I thought I'd post the link to it here so whoever's following this thread could get the update.

It's about false trace.
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/forum/vi ... hp?t=25331


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## Guest (Jun 9, 2011)

Recently I have been doing my oils at room temp. and it has been working great. First I prepare the lye (I put my lye/water mix cup in a bowl of ice). Once the lye has cooled, here's what I do for the oils. I put my hard oils in a plastic mixing bowl and pop them in the microwave just until melted. Then I add my liquid oils straight from the containers into my plastic bowl. The liquid oils at room temperature will cool down the heated oils and it is ready for mixing immediately. If there are no hard oils in my recipe, I just skip the microwave step all together and mix my room temperature oils and add the cooled lye. Quick and easy. 

I also take about a tbsp. of my batch oil (before adding the lye) and mix in a seperate container with my fragrance oils. Then when I add the oil/fragrance mixure at trace, no seize problems.


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## JackiK (Jun 10, 2011)

Bergamot & Bubbles said:
			
		

> Recently I have been doing my oils at room temp. and it has been working great. First I prepare the lye (I put my lye/water mix cup in a bowl of ice). Once the lye has cooled, here's what I do for the oils. I put my hard oils in a plastic mixing bowl and pop them in the microwave just until melted. Then I add my liquid oils straight from the containers into my plastic bowl. The liquid oils at room temperature will cool down the heated oils and it is ready for mixing immediately. If there are no hard oils in my recipe, I just skip the microwave step all together and mix my room temperature oils and add the cooled lye. Quick and easy.
> 
> I also take about a tbsp. of my batch oil (before adding the lye) and mix in a seperate container with my fragrance oils. Then when I add the oil/fragrance mixure at trace, no seize problems.



Great idea.  I'll give it a go on my next batch.  Thanks!


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## adoptapitbull (Jun 10, 2011)

I try to soap as cool as possible with my GM soaps that I want to not gel and stay light in color. The other day I made a Pink Grapefruit soap that I wanted to be able to toss into the freezer to prevent gel. Made sure everything was almost room temp so that I wouldn't get a partial gel in the freezer. It worked, and I'm very happy with it!

I think this method is better if you have all day to wait. Melt the oils and let them cool for a few hours. They'll still be liquid for awhile till you are ready. If you only have an hour or so to make a batch, then it's probably not going to work.


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## JackiK (Jun 10, 2011)

I posted on another thread that I'll make my lye water and melt my oils first thing in the morning, go to work, come home and all is ready.  I find myself getting impatient if I'm at home waiting on it.  Or, the water and oils could be readied in the evening and soaped in the morning.


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## Guest (Jun 10, 2011)

Here are the room temp. batches I made yesterday.   





Uploaded with ImageShack.us


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## delicious (Jun 10, 2011)

Bergamot & Bubbles said:
			
		

> Here are the room temp. batches I made yesterday.


Off topic, but I just love bottle end soaps. Don't know what's with it, but I really like the shape.


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## Guest (Jun 10, 2011)

Me too as you can see above. I used M&P on a couple of small ones and a big one in the picture above. They make great massaging type bars.


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## honor435 (Jun 10, 2011)

why not make your soap in a crock pot. I do. I make both hp and cp in it. My oils/water are anywhere between 90-110, no need to make them the same temps.


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## Soapfromthehip (Aug 13, 2016)

Has anyone noticed if their oh us a bit high in this method? I super fat at at least 10% and employ a water discount of no more than 10%; i do the zap test and while it doesn't zap, per se, but I get something.... There but not a zap! And it goes away in a day... Yet I wonder if my ph is high and all the ph strips I can find are for fish tanks and pond water and I can't find the liquid stuff at all... I actually dig this process and then crock it for hp, I'm one of the impatient ones, lol! However I also do a two to three week cure time, despite that it's hp. I even insulate. I reeeeaaally don't want a high ph!!!


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Aug 13, 2016)

Soapfromthehip said:


> Has anyone noticed if their oh us a bit high in this method? I super fat at at least 10% and employ a water discount of no more than 10%; i do the zap test and while it doesn't zap, per se, but I get something.... There but not a zap! And it goes away in a day... Yet I wonder if my ph is high and all the ph strips I can find are for fish tanks and pond water and I can't find the liquid stuff at all... I actually dig this process and then crock it for hp, I'm one of the impatient ones, lol! However I also do a two to three week cure time, despite that it's hp. I even insulate. I reeeeaaally don't want a high ph!!!



HP needs as long, if not longer, cure than CP for me - while the "performance" is better in that it lathers and is not so harsh as a younger CP soap, the bars are much softer and are used up too quickly.  6 weeks is good for HP to get a harder, lasting bar.

The pH of each bar depends on the oils used to make it.  I don't see how using the heat of the lye solution to melt the oils and/or then cooking the soap would have much of affect it all that much.  You're still using x grams of lye and y grams of oils.

But two important questions are - what do you consider a high pH and why don't you want it?


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## Soapfromthehip (Aug 13, 2016)

Hi and thanks for the info!! To answer, I am new to soaping (have done two rebatches, four cp and six hp and two shampoo bars...that's all so far) and my understanding is that while a ph of 7-10 is great for soap, the higher the ph, the harder it can be on your skin and hair. I've done a lot of reading and gotten books and everything but there are so many opinions back and forth that I felt a ph of 9-10 may be not so friendly? I typically have a dry hide and hair so this ph thing is something I think about a lot, lol!


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## Soapfromthehip (Aug 13, 2016)

Also, and I apologize for this question being so ot, but I cannot seem to find how to start a new post or thread. Yup, I'm a doof. Could you point me where to do that here?


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## DeeAnna (Aug 13, 2016)

You will never find a lye-based soap with a pH under 8.5 to 9. The normal pH for properly made soap can go as high as 10.5 to 11, give or take, depending on the fatty acids that the soap is made from. It's ~normal~ for lye-based soap to be decidedly alkaline, and most people's skin most of the time is just fine with that. 

Also, there is a huge amount of misinformation about soap pH on the internet that is based on pH measurements that are incorrectly done. These incorrect pH measurements typically show a lower pH than what would be measured if the pH test was done properly. In other words what someone thinks is a soap with a pH of 7 or 8 might really be a soap with a pH of 9 or 10 if correctly measured.

If you have dry skin, formulate your recipe to be mild by choosing suitable fats, use a sensible superfat for your recipe, give your soaps a decently long cure time, and see what you think. If that doesn't work, then there are other options to consider, but why not see first if the soap you're making works for your skin or not before deciding whether you have a problem?

As far as using lye-based soap to wash your hair ... well, that's another and totally different story.

Edit -- To start a new thread, go to the forum you want to post in. Click on NEW THREAD at the top of the forum page. You can't start a new thread while reading an existing thread -- you can only reply to that thread.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Aug 13, 2016)

I read something interesting today which pointed out that using an alkaline product on the skin does indeed strip the acid mantle...........but that is a good thing.  A regular complete refresh of the acid mantle is healthy and the mantle will be effective within a short time and fully recovered after a couple of hours.

Also to remember that many people here use soaps with a pH around 10-12 and have great, very healthy skin.  The whole "high pH is bad" idea is not the complete picture by any means, but has been touted by marketeers to play on our fears for so many years.


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## Soapfromthehip (Aug 13, 2016)

Thank you for that! I understood ph would be as high as ten but I didn't know it could be even more! I feel much better! Also I have been choosing oils and additives that were suitable for my dry self but the ph thing still gave me pause...! Plus I'm all about the superfat! I will be leaving a longer cure time, for sure. At least 6-8 weeks for cp unless it's Castile or something, and 4-6 for hot process. So far they've all felt great tho I have one that's a shade drying and another that's super soft, so I've adjusted those two and will see how that pans out next run. And thanks for the posting info, I was feeling like a dolt and getting frustrated..


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## makemineirish (Aug 13, 2016)

The Efficacious Gentleman said:


> I read something interesting today which pointed out that using an alkaline product on the skin does indeed strip the acid mantle...........but that is a good thing.  A regular complete refresh of the acid mantle is healthy and the mantle will be effective within a short time and fully recovered after a couple of hours.



Would you mind citing the source or providing a link. I would be very interested to read the article. Thanks


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Aug 14, 2016)

I can't find it at the moment - it certainly was not a scientific look at it, rather a "mommy" blogger quasi interviewing a cosmetic producer. It's food for thought and worth further reading, I think


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## cmzaha (Aug 14, 2016)

Soapfromthehip said:


> Hi and thanks for the info!! To answer, I am new to soaping (have done two rebatches, four cp and six hp and two shampoo bars...that's all so far) and my understanding is that while a ph of 7-10 is great for soap, the higher the ph, the harder it can be on your skin and hair. I've done a lot of reading and gotten books and everything but there are so many opinions back and forth that I felt a ph of 9-10 may be not so friendly? I typically have a dry hide and hair so this ph thing is something I think about a lot, lol!


Shampoo is not Soap. Soap ruins hair no matter what superfat you use. Also why do you want a lot of free oil going down your drains?


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## penelopejane (Aug 14, 2016)

delicious said:


> => I don't have a car  and it's chilly autumn now where I am
> => I'll be using liquid oils anyway. I don't plan on using beeswax and I don't have access to palm oil or cocoa or shea butter. So the hardest oil I'll have will be coconut which melts at a really low temperature. I could pre melt it in a double boiler with hot tap water and add the other oils to warm them up a little and keep the coconut oil liquid.
> 
> 
> ...



If you get white spots in your finished soap it will be because your coconut oil wasn't hot enough when you mixed it.


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## penelopejane (Aug 14, 2016)

> Here are the room temp. batches I made yesterday.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Only people with imageshack can see those photos. If you upload them using the "manage attachments" button at the bottom a the page when you open quote or new post everyone will be able to see them.


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## Susie (Aug 14, 2016)

Please remember that skin is made up of many, many layers of dead skin cells that we naturally slough all day long.  So the brief exposure of skin to a "high" (9-12) pH product will have very little long term effects.  What is more of a worry, though, is "free" lye that will damage the skin.  Hence the need to zap test.


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## topofmurrayhill (Aug 14, 2016)

Soapfromthehip said:


> Thank you for that! I understood ph would be as high as ten but I didn't know it could be even more! I feel much better! Also I have been choosing oils and additives that were suitable for my dry self but the ph thing still gave me pause...! Plus I'm all about the superfat! I will be leaving a longer cure time, for sure. At least 6-8 weeks for cp unless it's Castile or something, and 4-6 for hot process. So far they've all felt great tho I have one that's a shade drying and another that's super soft, so I've adjusted those two and will see how that pans out next run. And thanks for the posting info, I was feeling like a dolt and getting frustrated..



Generally you don't need to worry about pH when making soap. Most people will get more mileage out of focusing on recipe formulation and good technique.

It appears to be well established that the pH of a skin cleansing product has an affect on how irritating that product can be. Lower pH is generally better, and even slightly acidic might be the best. Because of its alkalinity, soap can do more than strip oil from the skin.

However, it's not simple. A higher pH product isn't always more irritating. It depends on what's in it and what you're sensitive to. Some might do better with non-soap surfactants while other might do better to avoid them. A soap recipe could possibly be more alkaline, but not strip your skin or penetrate as much. Another might be less alkaline but perhaps it strips oils more. So pH is just one piece of the puzzle, and not the one you should usually focus on.

That said, it's common in the industry to acidify soap a bit to lower the pH and increase the fatty acids, which act as a superfat. One of the reasons well-aged soap is mild is that this acidification also happens gradually and naturally as your soap interacts with the atmosphere over time.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Aug 14, 2016)

topofmurrayhill said:


> ..........That said, it's common in the industry to acidify soap a bit to lower the pH and increase the fatty acids, which act as a superfat. One of the reasons well-aged soap is mild is that this acidification also happens gradually and naturally as your soap interacts with the atmosphere over time.



Thinking out load, if I make a soap with a 0% SF (or as far as a calc can get it) and then neutralise it down to essentially a 5% SF which would be made up of FFAs, would that be a lower pH and/or better in general than making it with a straight 5% SF?  An added benefit being that the extra 5% glycerine is also now "free".


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## topofmurrayhill (Aug 14, 2016)

The Efficacious Gentleman said:


> Thinking out load, if I make a soap with a 0% SF (or as far as a calc can get it) and then neutralise it down to essentially a 5% SF which would be made up of FFAs, would that be a lower pH and/or better in general than making it with a straight 5% SF?  An added benefit being that the extra 5% glycerine is also now "free".



It would definitely be a slightly lower pH and theoretically could be better than the superfatting we normally do, but there are some problems with doing that in home soapmaking -- and one in particular that I ran into.

Experiments have gone on hold for the past few weeks, which is why I haven't posted results. What I was finding out, I think, it that methods like this work in commercial soaps because they don't contain glycerin. There seems to be an interaction between fatty acid and glycerol that makes the soap soft. I believe that galaxymlp was getting similar results in her comparable experiments. She was neutralizing whereas I was directly superfatting with FFA.

I made HP coconut oil soap. 100% CO 0% discount makes a hard soap. 100% CO 20% discount makes a hard soap. 80% CO 0% discount with 20% stearic acid makes a soft soap. 90% CO 0% discount with 10% stearic acid makes a soft soap. It's interesting and maybe a bit weird.

I was planning to try this with lauric or myristic acid too, both of which are hard flakes. Haven't gotten to that but I'm not overly optimistic about getting different results.

It seems that Failor may have unwittingly been doing this with liquid soap. Everyone thinks she was intentionally making lye heavy soap. If you look at her numbers, it seems she was making LS exactly the way everyone does it, with approximately 0% lye discount, and then superfatting it by neutralizing to a lower pH.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Aug 14, 2016)

Well that is annoying. I look forward to the full results when you have the time for it, as it sounds jolly interesting


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