# 100% CO LS: thickness, dilution, and volcanoes



## emi (Oct 4, 2019)

Dearest Soapers, I just wanted to share my recent LS experience and ask if anyone has any input on thickening and dilution, and CO LS uses in general.

So here's my volcano. I'm pretty sure everything was just too hot. I returned the spilled paste back into the crock pot to try to cook it a little longer, I zap and clarity tested it from several areas and it passed. Also, is it just me or does it not take hours to get it to paste stage like most recipes say? It never takes me more than 15-20 mins. Is it maybe because I work with a smaller batch of 500g oil?





Re: thickness...
I wanted to get a thicker LS only because I use it in my dish washing wand dispenser thing and my usual LS just flows right through the sponge. I have to  squirt some on the sponge end every time I wash dishes which is no big deal, but just thought I'd try tweaking the formula to get a slightly thicker LS. I read up on thickening CO LS on several threads on this forum as well as online. Glycerin and low dilution seemed to be the best bet, so I tried subbing 1/3 of the water with glycerin, and diluted using minimal water ending up at 1: 0.6 paste to water. I also added some Sodium Lactate which I'm not sure made a difference. I'd appreciate any advise on my recipe or process. Here's my recipe:

100% CO
SF 0%
2:1 liquid to oil
subbed out 1/3 of the water with glycerin

diluted at 1 : 0.6 paste to water 
SL at 3% of paste weight





Re: dilution...
In the past I made my CO LS using a 1:1 dilution rate. But this time i ended up with 1: 0.6 with minimal dilution and the SL. It diluted perfectly. But now I have a really strong LS. I'm tempted to just adjust it to 1:1 and use as normal since the thickness isn't that different and it's so unnecessarily concentrated. What do you think?


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## Arimara (Oct 7, 2019)

100% coconut oil liquid soap is not likely ever going to be a thick soap from my experience. How high did you have that crockpot?


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## RogueRose (Nov 9, 2019)

Can you tell me your exact recipe and how you did it? I just did a CP with 100% CO that I intended for liquid soap and it turned out VERY well.  

What kind of lye did you use? 
What concentration of water (percentage - 38?)

What was the temperature of the oil and temp of the lye solution when you mixed?


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## emi (Nov 10, 2019)

RogueRose said:


> Can you tell me your exact recipe and how you did it? I just did a CP with 100% CO that I intended for liquid soap and it turned out VERY well.
> 
> What kind of lye did you use?
> What concentration of water (percentage - 38?)
> ...



A CP you "intended" for LS. Interesting! Does that mean you used NaOH? How did you do it? My recipe was:

refined CO   100%    500g
KOH  (It says "84%-92% purity, so I plug into calc at 88% purity)  142g      
lye concentration  33.3%   (which is about 58% liquid to oil) 292g liquid
glycerin - 1/3 of 292g liquid.   97g 
water - 2/3 of 292g liquid.   195g
0% SF
no fragrance

Diluted paste to water at 0.6: 1  with added SL at 3% of paste.

The oil was definitely too hot. I remember I put the crockpot on high to just melt my CO but had it sitting there for maybe over an hour like that, and then turned it off maybe only 20 minutes before I added the lye solution. And the lye solution was just dissolved, so also very hot. I don't know what I was thinking. Volcano, of course! It went through all the stages very quickly and the volcano happened in maybe 15-20 minutes after constant SBing. The paste was complete following the volcano though. It was clear, stiff, gasoline stage and passed the zap test and clarity test in several areas of the paste. Now looking at the recipe, I'm remembering that at some point I read something that made me think I should always use % liquid to oil. If I had used 38% liquid to oil, my liquid would've been only 190g instead of the 292g I used calculating at 33.3% lye concentration. However, when I was diluting I started with 0.5:1 paste to water which didn't fully dissolve even after SB and letting it sit in the hot water, so then added another 0.1 water at which point everything dissolved. So I was still using minimal water for the final LS, right?


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