# Food grade lye, or regular lye?



## kuurt (Mar 25, 2012)

I've heard someone advise the use of food grade sodium hydroxide for soap making rather than regular sodium hydroxide.  Yet, I've read a couple of books on soap making and they just say to use regular lye.  They don't mention the food grade version.  

So I was just wondering which is best to use for soap making?  What do you use?


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## Hazel (Mar 25, 2012)

There was a discussion about this awhile back. Here's the link.

http://soapmakingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28061

I've used both food grade and tech grade. Both are fine. You can even use drain cleaner as long as it says 100% sodium hydroxide on the label.


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## scrubbie (Mar 25, 2012)

I use food grade. It is what I have used from day one. I have never tried anything else so I have nothing to compare it to. I dont have issues with my soap. It behaves as it should. I get it from Essential Depot because it is certified from USA so no extra stuff we may or may not know about.
I had a fragrance rice my batch once. Fresh Bamboo from BB and I was able to save it and soap is nice. I personally and this is just my personal idea, and I am a newbie I would nt use anything else. I am confident with what I use.
My lye always behaves the same way. All my recipes.


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## kuurt (Mar 25, 2012)

Essential Depot seems to be the name of the company that makes food grade lye.  I noticed that it's about 4 or 5 dollars for a 2 lb container depending upon whether you get it from their website or where they're selling it on amazon.  Plus it's an additional 11 or 12 dollars to cover shipping cost.  

So it would probably be a lot cheaper if you didn't buy your lye online because then you wouldn't have shipping cost tacked on.  But, you probably wouldn't find Food grade lye anywhere offline either.


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## Hazel (Mar 25, 2012)

kuurt said:
			
		

> Essential Depot seems to be the name of the company that makes food grade lye.



ED is where I bought my last purchase of lye and it was food grade. Watch for sales.  :wink:


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## VanessaP (Mar 25, 2012)

I just bought 12 pounds of lye from ED, food grade, for about $36 after shipping. The only place in town I could find lye was Ace Hardware for 15.95 for ONE POUND of the Rooto drain cleaner. Take that for what you will  :wink:


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## Dennis (Mar 25, 2012)

Right now at Essential Depot they have 16lbs food grade lye (8x2lb bottles) including shipping to my address is $43.22.  That's $2.70/lb including shipping.  Not bad.
I usually buy 10lbs at a time and store it in a Christmas popcorn tin in the garage.  It holds exactly 5 bottles.


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## dirrdee (Mar 26, 2012)

I just received an order from ED for 16 lbs too, and I have to say it cost about 1/2 of what I was paying when I purchased from Certified Lye...I did a comparison and it was around $48 with shipping from Ed and the same order from CL was about $98...I've soaped a couple times with it, no noticible difference (its food grade)


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## Dennis (Mar 26, 2012)

Food grade is just more highly refined.  Tech grade is cheaper, MAY have higher level of metals than food grade but ED says that they sell plenty to soapers for years with no problems.  It is cheaper, but with sale prices and quantity, I prefer to use food grade as there isn't that much difference then.
When you consider that people use Red Devil lye (drain cleaner) to make soap, tech grade should be equal or better so no big deal.


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## Genny (Mar 26, 2012)

VanessaP said:
			
		

> I just bought 12 pounds of lye from ED, food grade, for about $36 after shipping. The only place in town I could find lye was Ace Hardware for 15.95 for ONE POUND of the Rooto drain cleaner. Take that for what you will  :wink:



Holy cow!!  15.95/lb?!  That's crazy.  It's less than $4/lb at the Ace Hardware stores in my area.  If I remember correctly, it's even cheaper at Menards.  Although, not all Menards carry it.


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## sosocal (Mar 26, 2012)

Just a note - I went to buy 10lb of TG lye from Essential Depot the other day and they have stopped selling it. They now only sell food grade. It is only a couple of dollars more and they have coupon codes online which brings the price down by I think 10 percent.


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## Dennis (Mar 26, 2012)

sosocal said:
			
		

> Just a note - I went to buy 10lb of TG lye from Essential Depot the other day and they have stopped selling it. They now only sell food grade. It is only a couple of dollars more and they have coupon codes online which brings the price down by I think 10 percent.



Still on their web site.  Wonder what gives?  Check this out:

http://www.essentialdepot.com/servlet/t ... Categories


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## sosocal (Mar 26, 2012)

Dennis said:
			
		

> sosocal said:
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Yep, I put it in my cart and got this message:


Sorry, but Essential Depot no longer offers Technical Grade Sodium Hydroxide (Lye) as the vast majority of Essential Depot's customers prefer the High Quality Food Grade Sodium Hydroxide (Lye). Since Essential Depot has been able to obtain unbeatable pricing for High Quality Food Grade Sodium Hydroxide, it is now able to offer this Premium Product at prices that beat our competitors Technical Grade Sodium Hydroxide (Lye) pricing. All Technical Grade Sodium Hydroxide (Lye) typically contains levels of impurities which cause sediment and tracing issues for soapmakers.


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## VanessaP (Mar 26, 2012)

Dennis said:
			
		

> sosocal said:
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Yep, I originally put the food grade in my cart, then decided to get the tech grade. When I hit Empty Cart, they popped up that they'd stopped selling the tech grade. Ahh well, as long as I don't have to pay $15 a pound locally, I'm happy


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## Dennis (Mar 26, 2012)

Good for you.  Guess they haven't had the time to fix their web site.  Glad you're getting a better price -  a much better price.


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## donnebonn (Mar 7, 2017)

Dennis said:


> Right now at Essential Depot they have 16lbs food grade lye (8x2lb bottles) including shipping to my address is $43.22.  That's $2.70/lb including shipping.  Not bad.
> I usually buy 10lbs at a time and store it in a Christmas popcorn tin in the garage.  It holds exactly 5 bottles.


Does that metal container prevent the lye from clumping? I purchased food grade lye from bulk apothecary, (it's the only kind they carry) and even the containers I hadn't opened yet were really lumpy, then when I shook it up to break it up, then tried pouring it, it became airborne and flew all over. I had to take all my clothes off, shower dress, and then come back and clean all the lye from the counters and floor of my kitchen before I could finish my soap making. I don't keep my lye in the garage, I keep it in the air conditioned house, and it still lumped up.
When I used non food grade lye, it never did that. Looks like no one except the Lye Guy carries non food grade and he charges $5.25 for a 32 oz bottle. If you buy 5, you get one free, but that's still .50 more than what Bulk Apothecary charges.
Then he charges $15 for shipping. That's a lot of money to ship 10 lb of lye. How much did ED charge you for shipping on that 10 lb of lye? Anyone here have any sugestions as to where I can get lye that doesn't lump and go airborne on me?
Thanks for any and all suggestions.


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## IrishLass (Mar 8, 2017)

Welcome, Donnebonn! :wave:

I'm not sure whether you noticed or not, but this particular thread has been inactive for 5 years. Unfortunately, Dennis has not been here for awhile and therefore cannot answer your question about his metal container or how much ED charged him for shipping.

Barring that, though, here is a very helpful thread about how some members on our forum store their bottles of lye: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=59316&highlight=storage 

As for the best, most reasonably priced place to buy lye....that will depend on your location and how near or far the supplier is from you. For what its worth, many folks here use the Lye Guy and are very happy with his prices and the quality of the lye.

As an aside- for future reference, instead of posting a new question to a very old thread, it is always best to start a new thread with your question and provide a link referring back to the old, because new questions tend to get lost/buried in older threads and oftentimes go unanswered.


IrishLass


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## MissChris (Apr 19, 2019)

i have used both.  locally, i can get a whole "CASE" for only $39....   much better to go to hardware store and make deal to buy it there with local manager and ask for discount.  never seen any difference, just get the best quality one.  So many soap dealers are selling things SO HIGH PRICE.  They make new soap makers feel they have to buy so much at such high pricing... and by time people get everything, i dont see how they sell soap so cheap and make any profit at all today.  I shake my head all the time on it...  Buy oils and things certified and quality.  But use common sense also.  If you put so much into each bar, and sell cheap, you never get ahead.  When i can get good quality, i do. Lye is not something I am not spending a big amount of money on if the end results are about the same.



IrishLass said:


> Welcome, Donnebonn! :wave:
> 
> I'm not sure whether you noticed or not, but this particular thread has been inactive for 5 years. Unfortunately, Dennis has not been here for awhile and therefore cannot answer your question about his metal container or how much ED charged him for shipping.
> 
> ...


  is ok.......  time is priceless and people still learn and answer because they are new or did not see before or still have issue with it. many reasons people answer old post. and come back and read.  beauty of the internet


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## shunt2011 (Apr 19, 2019)

MissChris said:


> is ok.......  time is priceless and people still learn and answer because they are new or did not see before or still have issue with it. many reasons people answer old post. and come back and read.  beauty of the internet



Please do not pull up old threads. Read the forum rules. You are more than welcome to start a new thread and link to the old ones. Thank you.


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## pmalin (Jun 1, 2019)

i have been buying lye, from duda diesel they sell 2# food grade stuff for about $5 and I order a half dozen or so and the shipping isnt so bad.  It is the ball type stuff which is fine with me.  Their website was a little tricky, I think I had to scroll to bottom and pick a link.


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## Relle (Jun 1, 2019)

shunt2011 said:


> Please do not pull up old threads. Read the forum rules. You are more than welcome to start a new thread and link to the old ones. Thank you.





pmalin said:


> i have been buying lye, from duda diesel they sell 2# food grade stuff for about $5 and I order a half dozen or so and the shipping isnt so bad.  It is the ball type stuff which is fine with me.  Their website was a little tricky, I think I had to scroll to bottom and pick a link.


Please read the above post.


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