# 2 unsuccessful batches of liquid Castile soap from scratch...HELP!!!



## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

I want to cry. I've blown so much money trying to make my own soap and all I end up with is a watery and milky dark yellow like fluid. I want to make clear shower gel like body wash. When I use my immersion blender for 15 minutes like the recipe says, I have a chunky mashed potatoes like substance, and then I stir it every 20 minutes, and end up with a yellow paste. The distilled water gets poured over it, I mix it again, and I still do not have a clear soap and it forms layers. I'm ready to give up. Please help!


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## doriettefarm (Sep 21, 2015)

Before you waste any more supplies, read this thread on liquid soapmaking using the glycerin method (http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=46114).  Yes it's 50 pages long but well worth the time.  You really shouldn't need to stickblend for 15 mins or cook the paste to death.

Just for reference this is my diluted paste using the above method and this recipe (http://soapee.com/recipes/178):


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

I do not want glycerine soap. I want all natural Castile soap for my body washes.

I just need to know where I'm going wrong is all

Plus I only have one day off a week to do this. It has become stressful.


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## galaxyMLP (Sep 21, 2015)

Carreiram said:


> I do not want glycerine soap. I want all natural Castile soap for my body washes.



The link she gave you is for liquid soap and is very helpful for liquid soap makers. 

There is no need to stress and no need to make assumptions without reading links that are provided. That can come off as disrespectful to someone who is trying to help. 

There could be a multitude of issues with your liquid soap. Providing a recipe with the weights of everything used and pictures will allow us to better answer your questions.


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## doriettefarm (Sep 21, 2015)

If you don't use glycerin, I'm afraid you'll be forced to actually cook your paste.  Can you post the recipe you've been using?  That might help us troubleshoot better.  

If it's watery maybe you're just diluting too much or may need to add a thickener.  Not sure about the milkiness if you're using 100% olive oil . . . could be your superfat % but without a recipe I'm just guessing.

ETA:  good points made by galaxyMLP, if you could post a pic of your diluted paste that might provide some clues as well


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## Obsidian (Sep 21, 2015)

The glycerin method does make liquid soap, its a simplified process that uses vegetable glycerin in place of some of the water.

Trouble shooting your soap isn't as simple as saying you ___ wrong. We need your recipe including oils, liquids and lye amounts. We need to know how much distilled water you used to dilute your paste. I picture of your finished soap would help too.
If you don't want to read the 50 page thread, at least watch this video. This is formula I used for my first LS and it worked great.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VUGV_H7bZU[/ame]


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## kumudini (Sep 21, 2015)

If you have only one day, please use it to read that thread. Not only will you know the easiest method of making a great liquid soap, you will actually be able to whip one up on a week night and dilute the next day in no time. There really is no use trying to make soap without understanding the process, as you should have realized already.


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

Galaxymlp, I was not putting anyone down or disrespecting them. Quite frankly, the manner in which you have responded to me comes off as a mother disciplining their child, therefore, this has just gotten worse. So yeah, thanks.

And thank you to all who have given advice. If I could please ask you all to show a bit more mercy on me considering I work two jobs and just stayed up until 5am trying to perfect this, therefore going into a bit of a hazed and sleepy panic, that would be appreciated. I am beginning and pressed for time.


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## doriettefarm (Sep 21, 2015)

Guess I'm not understanding your issue with glycerin since all handmade soap contains it whether you explicitly add it or not.  The method I posted is a big time saver since you're in such a rush and having trouble with the thickness of your diluted paste I thought it might help.


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## galaxyMLP (Sep 21, 2015)

I'm sorry I came off that way. However, I was sincerely trying to help. When we try to communicate through a forum we are sometimes unaware that people  may be from other cultures or have a disconnect through written word. 

I am not trying to mother you; I was just trying to help. Soap making should be a stress reliever and not stressful especially when you are just beginning. I am sorry you have not slept very much and I hope you get the rest you need and come back ready to solve your soapy dilemma.


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## JayJay (Sep 21, 2015)

I rarely have any wisdom to share because I am fairly new and unsure about many things. But here is what I can speak about confidently:

1.  Making soap under pressure  or when tired for me is a recipe for mistakes. All of my oops batches happened because I was not able to focus and take the time to get thorough directions, prep thoroughly, take notes, and double check my work. 

2. Reading crazy long threads have been more helpful in terms of providing current and solid information than ANY material that I found prior to this group.  Sometimes I learned things that changed my goals of soapmaking because my prior goals were based on incomplete or misdirected information.

3. Soaping is not a hobby that no one can successfully do without a full understanding of the process.  It can be frustrating to not get a simple answer, but sometimes engaging in the conversation and taking the time to read will save you lots of time and money ... And frustration. 

4.  I just realized that I am assuming that you are new to soapmaking. If I am wrong about that then I apologize. You never said that you were new.  If you are new, having improper tools could be the culprit. I did my first batch with an imprecise kitchen scale. I ended up with a stinky soupy mess instead  of soap. Making good soap is all about good technique and good precision. There are more freehand ways of making  soap but you have to have good experience and understanding to make on the spot corrections.


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## kumudini (Sep 21, 2015)

Carreiram said:


> And thank you to all who have given advice. If I could please ask you all to show a bit more mercy on me considering I work two jobs and just stayed up until 5am trying to perfect this, therefore going into a bit of a hazed and sleepy panic, that would be appreciated. I am beginning and pressed for time.



I'm sticking with my previous post C, I feel that IS the most helpful advise you need right now. No matter how pressed you are for time, you do have to learn something before you go about doing it. I don't think anyone is being hard on you. I only see kind people trying to help you. Also, please know that you'll get some wrist slaps if there's a need for that. Please get some rest and come back here, read that thread, at least the first 50 posts, there's a recipe in there somewhere or you could make up your own Castile recipe but use the method outlined. Your time will be better spent that way.


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## DeeAnna (Sep 21, 2015)

We all sometimes feel the way you do -- you aren't the only one with a stressful life!  

The posters who have responded so far are indeed trying to help you and they're offering advice out of the goodness of their hearts with no expectation of payment or other reward. You are understandably frustrated, but honestly you're not providing much useful information that can be used for troubleshooting. Please take a calming breath, and let's try again --

Please post your recipe. Provide ALL ingredients in WEIGHTS. 
Explain in detail the process of how you made the soap.

With more specific information, perhaps we can figure out where you're going wrong.


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## not_ally (Sep 21, 2015)

Carreiram said:


> Galaxymlp, I was not putting anyone down or disrespecting them. Quite frankly, the manner in which you have responded to me comes off as a mother disciplining their child, therefore, this has just gotten worse. So yeah, thanks.



Galaxy was just telling you how your posts sounded, you may not have meant them that way, but they did.  And I found the post above somewhat disrespectful, frankly.  

You may be tired/overworked/stressed out (not a good time to make soap, as JJ pointed out), but that is true for many posters here, so it is hard to make allowances for that when someone seems to think that it a good reason to be testy, especially when they are new posters.  We don't have a very good basis on which to judge whether this is typical of you, or if you are having a very, very bad day.

I agree with the others regarding the long thread.  I am planning on making a shaving soap, the go-to thread on that is even longer.  It is taking a long time to plow through it and take notes, but when I am done I think I will have a much better idea of how to do it, and it will be worth it.

Also, people have told you that they can't really help w/o you posting your recipe/process, you should do that ASAP.


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

this is my paste thus far

And I must say that this thread takes offense to people quite easily. I'm quite hesitant on asking for help from this form now, but will do so anyway in hopes that I will come across someone who does not take the stress of another to heart.


And this is the link to my recipe

http://m.wikihow.com/Make-Liquid-Castile-Soap



By the way, in the process of being informed of how much information I
Did not provide to this thread, I was waiting on the page in which
I retrieved the recipe to load, considering my phone has become haywire, and attempting to pay one of my bills over the phone, so I apologize for not uploading in a timely manner. My phone is the devil himself lately


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## doriettefarm (Sep 21, 2015)

JayJay - Even though you are fairly new to the forum you give some great advice!  I have made some of my most spectacular blunders when tired or when I haven't taken enough time to research and prep.  Doing your homework is essential!  I feel the time invested reading a 50+ page post on making liquid soap with the glycerin method or an even longer post on shaving soap paid off in a big way.  Because I invested that time up front, both of my first batches were successful so if I can do it anyone can!

Carreiram - please don't feel like we're being harsh with you . . . we're really a bunch of soap nerds that want to help!  I'm so glad you posted your recipe because I already see some potential issues.  Your recipe calls for lye very generically . . . did you use NaOH (sodium hydroxide) or KOH (potassium hydroxide)?


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

Potassium hydroxide was the substance I used and it seemed to be going well at first. Until
The dreaded paste...


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## doriettefarm (Sep 21, 2015)

Good deal, I was worried you had used sodium hydroxide instead but your soap paste actually looks okay to me.  Got any pics of the diluted paste?  I've never used soybean oil in liquid soap but know some oils require a different dilution ratio.


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

I actually used safflower oil, extra virgin olive and coconut oil. I have a picture of finished Castile soap that I am less than satisfied. But, here it is...


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## galaxyMLP (Sep 21, 2015)

I have a thought on what might be wrong. I ran that recipe through a lye calculator. Specifically www.soapee.com 
I played around with the super fat and the lye concentration. This soap recipe is 5% superfated when you assume a 100% purity of KOH. Most KOH is 90% pure (it really loves to absorb water/ react with the air).

That means with a 90% purity which is likely what you have, you acually have a 15% superfat. Thats probably what you see separating out. You will want to run this recipe through a lye calculator with 90% purity (unless you have the certificate of analysis for the KOH stating otherwise) and a 3% superfat.

This is because the excess fats/oils are not soluble in your liquid soap when you dilute it and the fat will float to the top.

I hope this will help you.

ETA: I used the original recipe and not the substituted safflower. Let me go check that.

When you make substitutions in soap making, things must be re-run through a lye calculator. This is because all oils have what is called a saponification value. That value is what tells us how much lye is "eaten up" by that oil when they are combined. If you don't do that, the soap can come out lye heavy or highly superfated. 

In your case, substituting the safflower oil upped the superfat just a little bit more (less than one percent).


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

Is there a way to break this down without the percentiles? I'm not sure I have the proper tools to do so. I have my scale, but I don't think that helps much.

P.s.- I'm not the greatest with math either


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## doriettefarm (Sep 21, 2015)

galaxy beat me to it . . . I think your superfat is way high at almost 15%!  I use 3% SF for my liquid soaps and never have trouble with them being cloudy after diluting.


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## not_ally (Sep 21, 2015)

Carreiram said:


> P.s.- I'm not the greatest with math either



Me either.  That is one of the biggest pains in soapmaking for me.  Sometimes I spend a bunch of time trying to figure things out, can't do it, and then just give up and come here and ask DeeAnna, Galaxy or one of our other math-y types


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## galaxyMLP (Sep 21, 2015)

Sorry, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. Do you want the amount of lye amounts in ounces?

Your recipe called for 9.39 oz KOH. You substituted safflower. The numbers below reflect that.

with 100% pure lye and 5% superfat, you need 9.41 oz of lye

with 90% pure lye and 0% superfat, you need 11.0 oz of lye. 

Remember, these are all in weights.

ETA: 11.0-9.41/11.0 x 100% =14.5% less lye than what you needed to get 100% saponification


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

Yes, the exact measurements are what I'm looking for. Thank you so much


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## kumudini (Sep 21, 2015)

Carreiram said:


> Is there a way to break this down without the percentiles? I'm not sure I have the proper tools to do so. I have my scale, but I don't think that helps much.



You obviously don't know the soaper's language and its more than likely that you are not inclined to learn anything soap related. The percentages are what any soaper would use to relate a recipe, they are everything.You just want to be spoon fed like the wiki article did. This forum is more about people who are actively learning or sharing various technicalities of soap making. But since you are so distressed by this already, our lovely Galaxy might just figure out everything for you and tell you what to do next. Hang in there. But in future it might just be better for you to buy the Dr.B's liquid Castile soap. I apologize if I'm sounding rude but this is what I think right now.


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## doriettefarm (Sep 21, 2015)

Where did you purchase the KOH?  If we know where it came from we might be able to figure out the purity (if it isn't listed on the bottle).  galaxy is correct in that lye purity is important in determining the superfat %.  It takes more of the impure lye to saponify the same amount of oil than it would for pure 100% KOH.  That's also why I rely on a good lye calculator (like soapee.com or soapcalc.net) to double-check all recipes . . . I'm not very mathy either


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

By the way, what is my percentage of super fat in this recipe?


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## DeeAnna (Sep 21, 2015)

Doriette and Galaxy are right -- too much superfat is your problem. You cannot superfat liquid soap more than about 3% or it will separate -- the fats will float in a layer on top of the diluted soap. 

I really don't like that Wikihow recipe. For one thing, do not ever measure by volume because it's too inaccurate. Back in my grandmother's day, she had to, but there's no excuse in this day and age. 

Really, honestly, you need to use the SMF tutorials instead. They will set you straight --

Susie: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=49852
Irish Lass: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?p=428988 see posts 8 and 9

And Galaxy is right -- never, never substitute or change the fats in a soap recipe without recalculating the amount of lye required.

eta: "...By the way, what is my percentage of super fat in this recipe? ..."

Others have explained this twice now -- it's about 14.5%.


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

this is the lye I am using


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## doriettefarm (Sep 21, 2015)

galaxy and I both made best guesses at your SF% (15%) assuming your KOH is 90% pure.  we need to know the purity of your lye to tell you definite superfat level . . . this is why a lye calculator should be your best friend (hint, hint)


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

Ok Deanna, thank you for the help, but all I did was ask a question. Sorry if it has already been answered, I have not had a chance to read the previous posts except for the ones that appear instantly. So please, no need to be that way.

And I will most certainly invest in a lie calculator 

Lye*


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## doriettefarm (Sep 21, 2015)

In one of the Amazon comments, the seller replied the KOH is 95% pure.  If so, then at 3% SF your recipe should have used 10.11oz of KOH.  Given the 95% KOH purity, the recipes you made were at 10% SF instead of the desired 3%SF.


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

And the brain fired soap maker just realized that there is an online calculator. Ughh, I'll wake up eventually.


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## doriettefarm (Sep 21, 2015)

Yep, the lye calculators are free unless you want to splurge on software like SoapMaker3 that helps you calculate recipe costs and such.  I've really been liking the new soapee.com calculator for all types of soap (bar, liquid & cream).  It seems to be the most flexible and it will even let you save & share recipes with others.


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

Vkumudini, yes, you are quite rude actually. As I said, I AM NEW. I am asking questions. What is so wrong with that? The people on here are unbelievably condescending. I am attempting to learn just from these threads alone. Is that not good enough? I began this so I could have a hobby, and to make gifts for family and maybe even sell a couple. But the unsupportiveness is so unnecessary and quite insulting! Seriously, be encouraging, not a jerk!


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## kumudini (Sep 21, 2015)

What you are learning should be good enough for you and your future victims, not for any of us. If you think that's enough who am I to say otherwise. Have fun lovelies, I'm out of here.


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

Future victims? Seriously? What is your problem?


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Sep 21, 2015)

Okay, everyone stop for a moment, before this gets more out of hand.

OP, you may well be new and wanting help, but the internet is not a good medium for picking up nuances such as how stressed you are and how many jobs you have. People don't have to help you and may also be rushed and so will pop a short post

- If you want others to assume the best about you,  do the same for them. 

Plus, as people don't have to help, having it thrown back in their faces is not going to endear you to the other members. 

As has been said, slow down in general. If you are stressed and tired, trying to work out soaping is not a good idea. Take some time to learn some theory, read the threads, look at recipes, post questions and digest the responses slowly. Then, make soap with enough time. You cannot rush this sort of thing. 

Now to be the mean one - you shouldn't even be thinking about considering the idea of looking to sell.


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## Carreiram (Sep 21, 2015)

I really didn't think that asking the questions I did was so wrong. So I'm sorry to everyone here that I seem to be inconveniencing. That was not my intention.


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## doriettefarm (Sep 21, 2015)

Personally, I would only feel inconvenienced if I thought my comments were falling on deaf ears.  I would like to ask the OP if the info I posted (along with galaxy & DeeAnna) and questions we asked made sense?  I think all of us were trying to help you connect the dots and provide the necessary tools to sanity-check a recipe so mistakes aren't repeated.


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## Obsidian (Sep 21, 2015)

If you need a quick, easy to make recipe, follow the one on the video I posted. Its pretty fool proof and makes a decent liquid soap. There is so much wrong with the recipe you used, I'm not surprised it failed. It doesn't mention at all superfat, neutralization, clarity testing or thickening.

Oh one more thing I'm surprised no one has mentioned, castile is 100% olive oil soap, what you made is just liquid soap.

making soap isn't like baking a cake, you can't just follow a recipe and have it turn out. There is a lot you need to learn first, one is how to properly use a lye calculator because you should always run a recipe through one yourself, never trust a recipe you find on the net. 

We use percentages because it really is the easiest way to keep track of the amount, plus some oils should only be used at certain percentages. Castor and coconut are two that comes to mind, castor is generally used at 5% max and more then 25% coconut can make your soap really drying. A lye calc will take your percentages and turn them into ounces or grams and you can quickly resize the batch size that way too.

I do have to say, I'm surprised by some of the responses you've gotten. I can understand that people get frustrated trying to teach someone all the soapy things when all you want is a simple answer when there isn't a simple answer. Seems maybe some of my soapy friends have forgotten that you can't learn what you don't know exists and we were all newbies to the hobby at one time.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Sep 21, 2015)

If you read the first 5 posts then you can get an idea of where post 6 came from. Even if the link posted in post 2 was actually 'glycerine soap' the response to it was rude as the op had not stated previously that it was only 'all natural' Castile that was wanted. It was downhill from there. 

It's easy to respond harshly on a forum, especially for long timers seeing the same wrong information coming in over and over, when it seems that people can find this site once everything has gone wrong, but not before hand to avoid learning all the rubbish in the first place. Even more so when the op seems combative. 

With a forum, it's just text on a screen with nothing to give context about what is going on with the poster themselves, in their life. It makes it easier to go on what is given, not on a bigger unknown picture. Which leads to misunderstanding


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## doriettefarm (Sep 21, 2015)

And if you want to salvage your original batches, it's probably possible to make another batch of negative SF paste to add back to the original.  It would take some calculations to figure out the correct ratio to get you back to a 3% SF but it could be done . . .


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## galaxyMLP (Sep 21, 2015)

Wow, I really really didn't mean to start an all out debacle. I have just seen instances where sometimes, things are taken the wrong way and threads get out of hand. I thought by saying something (that I thought) was not rude but pointed out where something could be taken the wrong way, it would help. 

If other members on the forum thought my remarks were inflammatory or uncalled for, I sincerely want you to know that was not my intent.

OP: Unfortunately soap making does take a bit of background know how and I know it sucks that an internet recipe led you astray. The good thing is we know what went wrong and how to fix it. That is more than half the battle in soaping and we all make mistakes. 

Sometimes with the internet being so big, its hard to pick out the stuff that is right and the stuff that is plain wrong. When it comes to the web, everything looks like it could be legitimate. Especially if you have people repeating the same thing they "heard/read that one time" over and over again. That is how misinformation spreads and it is especially rampant in the soap making community. 

I hope you are not discouraged from trying liquid soap again.


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## kumudini (Sep 21, 2015)

O, I understand we all start from zero, or may be someone remembered their basic science lessons from school and they start with some sort of understanding, but to actually advance from that starting place, one needs to learn or be willing to learn. Just asking to be handed some numbers without even trying to see what people are asking or saying does give the impression that they are not willing to really learn anything. We direct them to the most helpful thread and it seemed to fall on deaf ears. I agree that my response was somewhat rude but not without reason, you just can't demand for help. No one here has any obligation to help an unwilling newb. All of us do it because we love to, out of generosity or as a way of returning all the generosity shown to us.
I also know that an apology won't right everything, but it's what it is.


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## not_ally (Sep 21, 2015)

If you want to salvage the original batches, I would post again and see if someone can help you work out the math.  At this point you might be too frustrated with it to do that, if it were me I might be.  In that case I would watch the link that Obsidian posted to get a sense of a better way to go about doing it next time.  

The problem for me in following Galaxy and Doriette's generous advice is that for *me* it wouldn't be enough information for me to learn about the process and how to troubleshoot myself if things went wrong the next time.  It is very reassuring for me to do research in advance in a reliable/reputable place before I start, it makes it less stressful because I have a better sense of what is supposed to happen, and why, and what I might need to do to fix it.  Also, it gives you a better idea of which questions to ask, if that makes sense.

I *really* recommend that before you do anything else you go back and read the first couple of pages of the long LS thread.  Within them, Irish Lass - one of the gold standard posters here - sets out a very long, detailed description of exactly how she does it, why, what to look for, etc.  I think you will find it extremely helpful and make things less stressful, not more so.


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## IrishLass (Sep 21, 2015)

Welcome, Carrie- I do hope you decide to stay so that we can get your liquid soap-making endeavors started out on a much better footing than the Wiki recipe. If you ask me, the others are correct- that Wiki recipe leaves much to be desired. I would just treat it as a bad memory that's best forgotten, and then start anew.......

Also- from here on out, I hope everyone can treat the rest of this thread in the same manner as the Wiki recipe. Things got off on a bad foot due to stress, misunderstandings, and frayed nerves, but lets move on to better footing. 

Carrie- you said you'd like to make a Castile body wash. I may be partial, but when it comes to making liquid soap, you really and truly can't go wrong with the 'glycerin method', which is explained thoroughly in the links that several members posted in this thread. 

As Obsidian stated in one of her posts from this thread, you can make a 100% Castile liquid soap with the glycerin method. It sounds like you may have mistook the glycerin method as being a method for making glycerin bar soaps, which is understandable, but that is actually far from the case. The reason why we call this particular method of liquid soap-making the 'glycerin method' is because liquid vegetable glycerin is used in place of some of the water amount. 

In case you are leery of using glycerin to make your liquid soap, you need to be aware that one of the natural by-products from making soap with lye is actually glycerin. The percentage of natural glycerin present in lye-based soaps generally runs somewhere between 10% and 15% or so, depending, so using extra glycerin to make lye-based liquid soap is really non-issue and nothing to be leery of......and the extra glycerin makes liquid soap-making so much easier (and much quicker!). 

I do hope you'll stay on board and read through the suggested threads. There is a wealth of information there that will save you from so much frustration and that will get you started on the right foot. 


IrishLass


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