# Salting out for Laurndry soap



## boyago (Feb 13, 2015)

So I want to make some laundry soap from all my old not so great soaps and scraps.  I figured I'd do the brine boiled soap to get my base.  Looking for confirmation of my suspicions that this will boil out the SF I can only find that it will take out the glycerine and excess lye. It will right?  I haven't found a clear salt to water rate for the brine.  
Also  I keep finding the rate of 2C soap shreds to 1C washing soda + 1C Borax but one of the links takes me to a page that states powdered laundry should or is either washing soda or borax and that borax works in liquid but is not useful in powdered.  Any opinion on this?  Then some use an oxyclean type powder at a 1/4C to either Borax or Soda.  
So those of you who do their own Laundry powder what rates are you using?


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Feb 13, 2015)

Borax should be fine with powdered - I can't get it over here, so don't use it. 

As for the salting out, it will indeed take you to a 0% sf.  What sort of soaps are you using, though?


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## boyago (Feb 13, 2015)

All kinds of scraps, I know that the ideal would be something like straight CO or PKO with a high cleansing attribute but I'm also looking for a use for the scraps and willing to loose a little of the cleaning POW for that purpose.  Or do you think that would be an exercise in futility?  I figure it will still work relatively well.


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## Dahila (Feb 13, 2015)

I am using laundry soap CO 100% with 0 SF, and I do not advice to use soap scraps, the oils in soap will seap into your clothes, and I am not sure your washer will like it.  
DeeAnna uses just CO soap same as mine with washing soda.  I will make some omitting borax. 
Search the forum "laundry soap" you will find a lot of info


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Feb 13, 2015)

But with no raw oils, will that still be an issue?  It might not be as powerful a cleaner as a pure CO, but it is still made up of soap-salts with no oils.  Interesting idea, for sure.


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## DeeAnna (Feb 13, 2015)

Hmmm. Okay, so here's a thought -- why not do a "rebatch" on those scraps and add about enough lye to bring the scraps to an estimated zero superfat, give or take a bit? This doesn't need to be super precise, cuz it's laundry soap, not bath soap, and it's even okay to be a little lye heavy if you want to err in that direction. This gets around the troublesome issue of boiling soap with lye and salting it out and all that jazz.

Here's an example:

I'm guessing your scraps come from typical recipes may be something like 80% tallow, lard, olive, sunflower, palm, etc. and about 20% PKO or coconut. 

The average sap value of the non cleansing fats (tallow, lard, olive, sunflower, palm, etc.) is very roughly 0.136 and the sap value for the cleansing fats (PKO or CO) is 0.180 or thereabouts. 

What is the estimated overall sap value for the fats in your scraps?
80 / 100 X 0.136 + 20 / 100 X 0.180 = 0.145 g NaOH / g fat

Let's assume you have 3 pounds of scraps. Since I don't do soap in pounds, how many grams is this?
3 lb X 454 g/lb = 1362 g of scraps

And if your typical superfat is 8%, how much fat is in those scraps? 
8 / 100 X 1362 = 109 g

How much lye is needed to saponify that fat? 
109 g fat X 0.145 g NaOH/g fat = 15.8 grams NaOH

So now do a rebatch and add about 16 g NaOH to the liquid you expect add to soften the scraps. Stir the liquid in very carefully wearing the safety gear you usually wear (or not, since I seem to remember something about you, Boyago, not wearing safety gear). In any case, just be aware you're more likely to get splashes doing this. Heat until the soap is softened and the liquid is thoroughly mixed in. Pour in a mold and Voila! laundry soap.

I am currently trying out equal parts by weight of soap and washing soda with oxygen bleach (oxyclean clone) as needed. My whites are slightly whiter than when I was using the 1/4 soap, 1/4 baking soda, 1/4 washing soda, and 1/4 borax recipe (again w oxygen bleach as needed). I also think I'm getting better removal of greasy stains without as much pretreatment. The article written by the gal who did all the study about what does and doesn't go into laundry detergent was very convincing, and my experience seems to be in line with what she says.


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## boyago (Feb 13, 2015)

DeeAnna said:


> since I seem to remember something about you, Boyago, not wearing safety gear




_Moi?!?_  I rock my PPE, not as diligent as I should be but I wear my gloves and goggles.  I posted a pic of my eye burn but that happened while cleaning up the morning after a late night soap happening when I thought I was safe enough.  

If I go the re-batch route which seems like a pretty good idea would there be any benefit to using KOH instead of NaOH?  My guess is it would dissolve a teensy bit better.

Also Deeanna, is your ratio by volume or weight?


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## boyago (Feb 13, 2015)

But also a reason to boil out the soap would be for all the other junk I throw into soaps.  oat meal, kelp, sugar and such.  Best to get some of that junk out.


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## DeeAnna (Feb 13, 2015)

My apologies ... think I've confused you w someone else who has confessed his sin of not doing the gloves and goggles routine! 

I do everything by weight even my laundry soap mix. The original four part recipe was by volume but I converted it to weight for consistency.

If you want to clean out the additives then yes you're looking at boiling and salting. The reason why you won't find measurements of the salt is that there aren't any. The amount of salt depends on the fatty acids in the mix. More lauric and myristic, the more salt. The more oleic, stearic, palmitic, or linoleic, the less salt.

edit: Here's another thread on the salting out process: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=32717

Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk HD


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## DeeAnna (Feb 13, 2015)

With boiling and salting ONLY use NaOH. KOH soap is too soluble in water, salty or otherwise. You cannot salt out a KOH soap.

Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk HD


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## boyago (Feb 19, 2015)

DeeAnna said:


> If you want to clean out the additives then yes you're looking at boiling and salting. The reason why you won't find measurements of the salt is that there aren't any. The amount of salt depends on the fatty acids in the mix. More lauric and myristic, the more salt. The more oleic, stearic, palmitic, or linoleic, the less salt.
> 
> Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk HD



I already did the salting out (which was pretty fun) but was just thinking, could I do both?  In the first boil add the necessary (plus some) NaOH to the boil (do a long first boil light on the water) and then salt out?  Wouldn't that make more soap out of the SF and then just rinse the extra lye out with the rest of the junk?  Kind of a quazy boiled soap/rebatch.


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## DeeAnna (Feb 19, 2015)

"...add the necessary (plus some) NaOH to the boil (do a long first boil light on the water) and then salt out?..."

Yep, I agree -- that is what you'd want to do to get a zero superfat product. 

Bear in mind that a concentrated lye solution will also "salt out" soap, so to get the best saponification, you'll want to add lye to the soap at a relatively low NaOH concentration and boil the combined mixture to saponify the excess fat. What is "relatively low NaOH concentration" will vary depending on the soaps involved. I'd experiment with a 25% NaOH solution concentration with the idea of adding more water to reduce the lye concentration if it looks like the soap is remaining separate from the lye. 

Some other thoughts:

Boiling, passing live steam through the soap mixture, and mechanical agitators are used by large-scale soapmakers to keep the soap mixture well blended. A whisk or stick blender will be a good substitute for a rolling boil and live steam. 

Once you think saponification is done, salt out the mixture to cause the soap to separate from the water phase. Separate the soap phase from the water phase, however that works best for you -- I'd probably pour the whole mess into a strainer and let the water phase drain out. Give the soap curds a good spray with cold water to rinse off more of the "spent lye".

Return the soap to the "soap kettle" and add more plain water if you want to further wash the soap. Boil to mix the soap and water, salt out, and separate the phases.


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## boyago (Feb 22, 2015)

Okay, well here is what I did.  Keep in mind I am not an expert and most of the information here is just regurgitated from other threads on this site and a couple other places I poked around on the internet.  But this is what I did and what I would do differently next time.  Though my goal here was to make a laundry soap I was also trying use up the scraps, odds, failed soaps and experiments I’ve done.  Most of the soaps that went into this were old soaps from my first year of soaping.  If you are wanting a super well performing dedicated laundry soap as has been mentioned you are probably better off starting from scratch and making a CO soap base to work with.  But here it is.
1.       I came here and asked a couple questions.  DeeAnna had some really good advice about not boiling it out but doing a re-batch to saponify the SF in the soap.  I however did not follow this advice because my soaps were all full of junk.  There were some with clays, big chunky pieces of oatmeal and whatever else I thought of trying in soaps. So I thought I should just boil them up to clean this stuff out.  After I did my first boil however I realized I could have done both, by adding additional lye during the first boil.  To do I should have / will in future calculate a general SAP value for my super fatted oils.  In going over my notes these soap where either straight up Castiles and Bastiles so I am good with using the rounded SAP values DeeAnna posted above as .136 & .180.  So almost all of these soaps were an 80% to 20% olive or RBO to CO my average comes to .145.  So in my case I wound up using 750g of scraps.  All of these soaps were done with soapcalc at the default setting of 5% SF.  The 750g x .08 = 60g of SF in my scraps.  60g x .145 = 8.7g of NaOH to add to my first melt and boil to tidy up the SF.  If you take into account that there are non-soap solids in my soaps (the clays, oats, sugars ect) and I made the NaOH calculation based on the weight of my scraps you may note that this is actually a little high since the weight of the additives in there too.  Sine I am boiling it, it will come out and I’m not bothered by this.  I will throw this NaOH into enough water to cover the soap and do a long first boil, maybe 40 minutes.
2.       I collected up a bunch of my old soaps and dusted off the salad shooter.  I’ve only got the one cutting insert for my shooter (thrift store score) but if you have another shredder or are doing it by hand the thinner the shreds the better.  There is something about shredding soap that I find very zen.  Even with the loud whirring of the shooter it is very calming.  If I had to do this by hand I may not feel the same way.





3.       The first boil is where I made a mistake.  For some reason I was thinking that I was just supposed to boil the soap in a brine.  This is not the case.  When I did this the soap got to its melting point and then just hung out on top of the brine I had mixed and added to the pot first.  The right way is to add just water let all the soap dissolve and then add the salt till the soap and now brine water decide they don’t much like each other and the soap separates from the brine.  It makes sense when you think of it like the whole thing is called “salting out the soap” you’re salting the soap out of the water.  Though I did it wrong the scrap soap did drop allot of the junk into the brine.  After 20-30 minutes I started scooping the soap curds out with a slotted spoon into a strainer to cool down.










The soap being not entirely solid did press itself through the holes in the strainer (big holed spaghetti type not the screen type) and made short soap noodles which were kind of fun to shear off with my hand.  It was around here when I realized that my strainer was pretty much a perfect fit for the pot I was using so I planned to throw it in the pot before the next boil and I could just let the soap cool and just lift it out when it was cool.


4.       For the second boil after the soap had mostly cooled down I broke it up threw it back in the pot and covered it with fresh (non-salted) water.  I did about equal parts by volume and melted it back down again.  I placed a lid on the pot and told myself that I was being impatient and to make sure to sit there with it as covering the pot would cause the soapy solution to boil over and make a mess.  I then saw something shiny, a squirrel or something with pretty buttons and let the soap boil over onto the stove causing a huge mess.  After stirring the suds back down and reducing the heat I kept it at a low boil for about 20 minutes and started salting. 


I didn’t measure the amount of salt I used but it just became apparent when the soap was lifting out of the brine.  This time the soap curds were much cleaner looking than the first time through.  It was getting late so I just let the soap cool down for an hour or so then lifted the strainer out of the brine and slipped a long spoon through the handle to hang the strainer over the brine and threw the whole thing in the fridge.
5.       The next morning I took everything out of the fridge and popped the soap out of the strainer. 


I then took a trip to Medford to stay with my aunt and uncle to show Soapcutter the ranch and let her help with the animals.  It was a really nice trip and Soapcutter had a blast, got to ride a horse, quad and the tractor!


6.       When I got back I cut up and shredded the mass of now cleaner soap.  The shreds felt kind of damp still so I spread them out on a cookie sheet and put the fan on them.  I turned the shreds whenever I passed through the room and they felt dry enough after a few hours but I went ahead and left them there with the fan on low over night.


7.       The next day I looked at a few different laundry soap recipes and settled on by weight 50% soap shreds, 25% washing soda, and 25% equal parts borax and an oxy clone.  I used the metal chopping blades in my food processor to grind and mix everything together.  My processor could only handle about half of the soap I had at a time so I made two batches.  Each batch got about 20 drops of Eos for scent.


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## boyago (Feb 22, 2015)

Sorry if that's a little sloppy.  Let me know if I can clear anything up and I'll try and make it better.


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## biarine (Feb 22, 2015)

boyago said:


> View attachment 12669
> View attachment 12670
> 
> 
> Sorry if that's a little sloppy.  Let me know if I can clear anything up and I'll try and make it better.




How it clean? More better than  coconut soap with 0%SF?


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## boyago (Feb 22, 2015)

biarine said:


> How it clean? More better than  coconut soap with 0%SF?



No.  A straight coconut soap would be the way to go if your going to make a soap specifically for cleaning, but I was trying to get some use from soaps that would otherwise just be a waste.


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## biarine (Feb 22, 2015)

boyago said:


> No.  A straight coconut soap would be the way to go if your going to make a soap specifically for cleaning, but I was trying to get some use from soaps that would otherwise just be a waste.




Thanks I thought will be more cleansing than cp or hp


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## reinbeau (Feb 22, 2015)

So you end up with powdered laundry soap.  That's what I want to make.  I wonder if I've got enough scraps yet to make a decent sized batch?  Hmmm.  Thank you for this!


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## DeeAnna (Feb 22, 2015)

Boyago -- you are a bad, bad influence. I wasted  my time this afternoon on boiling and salting out my soap scraps. Here's my adventure:

1. I collected a bunch of soap scraps and coarsely ground them in my food processor. You can see the bag full of scraps in the first picture. The total weight of scraps was about 1000 g. In an old pot, I added 500 g of distilled water and 10 g of NaOH (to saponify any superfat) and brought that to a gentle simmer. I then added handfuls of scrap, stirring well between handfuls. I tried to keep the temperature above 190 deg F but low enough that the soap was content to stay in the pot rather than boil over.

2. The scrap and water mixture looked like nasty thick gravy when I was done. I used my stick blender a little bit, but it was mostly stirring with my trusty spatula. As I worked, I realized that the soap was sticking to the bottom of the pot a little bit. I only added a little more water and basically put up with the problem, but I now know that I should not have scrimped on the water. I should have added distilled water up to the weight of the scraps (1000 g) -- or whatever was needed to keep the soap from sticking.

3. Once the soap was fully melted down and smooth, I cooked it at a gentle simmer, stirring frequently, to allow the NaOH to saponify any free fat. After about 20 minutes of cooking, the soap didn't zap, so I figured it was time to add the salt. 

I started with table salt, but switched to rock salt (scavenged from my water softener!) when I realized I didn't have enough table salt to do the job. The table salt dissolves faster, but rock salt is fine if you don't mind stirring longer to get it dissolved.

For scraps that are the usual blend of fats typical for bath soap, I figured the salt should be 15% to 25% of the weight of water added to the scrap. For this batch, that would be 150 to 250 g. I added the salt in 3-4 additions, stirring well after each addition until the salt dissolved.

4. I watched the soap appearance change as the salt content rose. It began to separate into a dark watery layer underneath a curdled soapy layer. I only added about 150 g of salt, and I don't think that was quite enough salt for this first pass. The soap certainly separated as you can see in the photo, but the soap never "grained out", meaning it didn't become as chunky (like cooked oatmeal) as it did in the second pass. I think it needs to look more like oatmeal. Once you get to that stage, stop adding salt. The weights are just guidelines, and every batch will be a little different.

5. I let the soap and water mixture cool until the soap started to harden up. I poured the soapy mass into a colander (sieve) lined with cheesecloth to drain. The water that drained from the colander was dark brown. 

...to be continued....


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## DeeAnna (Feb 22, 2015)

6. After draining as much of the water out of the soap as I could, I added about 500 g of distilled water to the pot, added the wet mass of soap, and heated the soap back to a simmer. 

Although I had realized at this point that I had not used enough water in the first pass, I also realized the soap now had a lot of extra water in it, so I thought just 500 g of water was enough to raise the water content to roughly equal to the weight of the scraps. 

This time the soap returned to a nice simmer fairly quickly. You can see the color of the soap is a lot lighter now than what it was at the start of the first pass.

7. I started to add salt in small additions, stirring well between each addition. I was looking for a harder, more granular appearance to the salted-out soap. As the soap started to look like curdled chunks of oatmeal swimming in runny liquid, I realized the soap was "graining" like it should. 

I also saw the "roses" that the old soapmakers describe. The bubbles coming up through the "roses" make a little burbling sound; the old boys said the soap "talked" at times like this. 

8. I turned off the heat and allowed the soap to cool. I realized that by stirring the soap, all I was doing was mixing the water and soap layers. I wanted them to separate, not mix! So I gently cut through the mixture to allow the soap curds to rise and the water to sink. 

9. When the soap fell below the gel temperature, it hardened into a pebbly chunks that I could crumble apart in my fingers. At that point, I lifted as much of the soap out of the pot as I could with my hands and put it into my cloth lined colander. 

10. The water that drained out of the soap was not as dark as the first pass, but still pretty dark.

11. The soap itself was a pleasant ivory color, so I decided I would stop the boiling and salting thing. I rinsed the soap curds with a gentle spray of cold tap water to get as much of the salt and such off. I could tell the fresh water rinse was dissolving some of the soap, so I didn't spend a lot of time on this -- I tried to find the a compromise between losing some soap vs. removing as much of the salty water as I could. 

In hindsight, I should have let the rinsed soap continue to drain and dry out for at least 1 or even 2-3 days before going on to the next step. The old soap makers would let a soap settle for several days, and I now realize there is a lot of wisdom to being patient at this point. But I ignored that wisdom and moved right on....

... to be continued ...


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## DeeAnna (Feb 22, 2015)

12. Again, I returned the soap to the pot and began to gently warm and melt the curds. After the melting process was well underway, I added 3% sodium lactate (based on the original weight of the scrap) to help smooth out the texture of the soap. I kept stirring and warming the soap until it turned into a smooth gravy-like mass. 

13. I poured the soap into one of my wooden molds. It was at this point that I realized my mistake in not letting the soap drain and dry longer. Liquid started to drain out of the ends of the mold. I sighed, put the mold in a cookie sheet, and resigned myself to the inevitable mess.

You can see the paper to the left of the mold where I dropped samples of the soap as it changed. The top four dabs are from the first pass, when the soap was the darkest. The bottom four dabs are from the second pass and molding-up steps. The numbers by each dab is the time the sample was taken.

Boyago's method of just letting the curds dry without molding is probably a better option especially if you want to eventually powder the soap as he did. I just wanted to see how this soap would mold up. I'm sure there will be a lot of shrinkage as the bars lose a tremendous amount of water, but it will be an interesting experiment to follow.

14. The soap doesn't taste particularly salty, but I'm sure it has more salt in it than usual. I was wondering how that residual salt would affect the lather. I'd say the lather is okay but not any better than okay. I hope it will improve as the soap dries out and cures.


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## KristaY (Feb 23, 2015)

Thank you Boyago and DeeAnna for posting the process and results of your experiments! I know it was a time consuming project for both of you. I'll be interested to hear how the laundry comes out using this soap as compared to 100% CO soap.

Great work, both of you. Plus a wonderful learning experience for all of us following along! :clap:


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## boyago (Feb 23, 2015)

boyago said:


> Let me know if I can clear anything up and I'll try and make it better.



or ya know, we could just wait like four hours for DeeAnna with all her teaching experience and giant chemistry brain to post a far superior tutorial that crushes mine into non re-batchable dust.


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## Susie (Feb 23, 2015)

Thank y'all both for convincing me that making 100% CO laundry soap is the way for me to go!  I will also continue to use my "less than pretty" bars for confetti!


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Feb 23, 2015)

boyago said:


> or ya know, we could just wait like four hours for DeeAnna with all her teaching experience and giant chemistry brain to post a far superior tutorial that crushes mine into non re-batchable dust.


 
There's room for both!


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## Saponista (Feb 23, 2015)

I really enjoyed reading both of them and am now inspired to give it a go myself.


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## DeeAnna (Feb 23, 2015)

Oh, Boyago -- You were the one person who inspired me to actually try this for myself rather than just spout what I've read. I really enjoyed your tutorial and got a lot out of your pictures -- they were definitely worth 1000 words and all that!

I have rained on your parade. I am sorry.


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## boyago (Feb 23, 2015)

DeeAnna said:


> Oh, Boyago -- You were the one person who inspired me to actually try this for myself rather than just spout what I've read. I really enjoyed your tutorial and got a lot out of your pictures -- they were definitely worth 1000 words and all that!
> 
> I have rained on your parade. I am sorry.



nah, the only thing I am sore about is not having yours to read before I did my soap

I do have a question for you though. I think I'm missing something in my understanding of the oldtimey frontier sopamaking.  What I know is pretty much just from the intros of soap books and tidbits I've picked up here and there.  Earlier you had said that the boiling process wouldn't work with KOH soaps because they are too soluble.  I thought the wood ash method of soapmaking produced mostly KOH when the ash was filtered (or water was filtered through the ash, what do you call that?) and then fats were boiled in the lye water and as the soap was making itself the pot was skimmed and the soap was collected and cooled.  Is that incorrect?  Would they boil the water out of the soap?


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## DeeAnna (Feb 23, 2015)

You're right about the process, Boyago. Wood ashes don't make KOH though, they make potassium carbonate. Although it is a weaker alkali than KOH, it can still be used to make soap. It just takes more time and effort to saponify with a carbonate rather than with a hydroxide.

A soft KOH soap can be partly converted into a harder sodium soap by adding table salt. The conversion isn't 100% however, and a potassium soap just won't grain out ... so you'd end up washing away a bunch of your precious soap if you tried to salt out this type of soap. 

Not to mention that salt was probably better saved for seasoning and preserving food than for mere soap. (Thinking like a tired pioneer wife in the midst of the wide prairie as I type this!) 

I suspect they just evaporated as much water as they could from their soft soap and used it that way. Potassium soap will not float like sodium soap, so you would never be able to scoop it out to separate it from the excess water. You'd need to deal with the whole kettle full of stuff as the soap ... that means you'd have to either evaporate it down as best you could or just use it as is.

Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk HD


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## biarine (Feb 24, 2015)

My aunt that married a German in Barbarian area she doing this soap for more than 20 years she learn it from her Mother-in-law.  They called it as curd soap in English speaking people. She use them for cleaning.


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## DeeAnna (Feb 28, 2015)

It's been about a week since I salted-out my scraps and molded the resulting soap. The bars have stayed a light ivory color. I can lightly dent the middle of a bar with a moderate press of the thumb, so it still has a fair bit of drying to do. Thankfully the bars have dried enough so I can actually handle them fairly normally now. Absolutely no ash to be seen on the bars -- that's maybe a small benefit of the salting-out process. 

The soap is forming suds easier than it did a week ago, so I expect it will lather fine after a good cure. I have been wondering if the salt residues from the salting-out might affect the lather, but that doesn't seem to be an issue. 

I just washed my hands with this soap, and my hands feel good -- definitely not stripped or dry. The scraps came from half a dozen batches -- they would have some castor, some high oleic safflower, some rice bran oil, but my recipes have been mostly lard, then olive, and next coconut oil. Most of my recipes have a cleansing value of 10 or under, so not a lot of CO in there. I'm thinking if the base soap recipe is mild, the salted-out soap will be mild too even though the natural glycerin has been removed by salting-out.


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## biarine (Mar 2, 2015)

My newly mad salting out and the laundry powder I made in my first batch of salting 4 months ago. 

And the powder I made 550 grams of salting out soap with 25% percent borax and 30 % washing soda.


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## DeeAnna (Jun 13, 2015)

It's been about 3 1/2 months since I last reported on my "boiled and salted out" scrappy soap. I stumbled across this thread today and thought I'd give an update.

The bars have remained an attractive ivory color. There is no DOS or anything else objectionable. The FO scent I added just before molding the soap has stayed clear and true. The bars have gotten shorter as they've dried out, but there is very little warping or deformation of the shape of the bars otherwise -- they're just shorter. What's really cool .... the bars FLOAT! 

The soap is lathering easily and freely now and the lather looks and feels comparable to the lather I'd expect from the original soaps. Since most of the original soaps were high in lard and have only a modest amount of coconut, they have a dense creamy lather with a spray of light fluffy bubbles. That's what I'm seeing from this scrappy soap now.

Boiling and salting out a soap is a lot of work and I don't think this method is for everyone because of the time, patience, and mess required. It is an alternative to rebatching as a way to process a large amount of scrap or to correct a soap that is lye- or fat-heavy. Boiling-and-salting is pretty much the only way I know of to remove objectionable material (unwanted fragrance, color, additives) from a soap -- not even rebatching can do that.


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## TheDragonGirl (Jun 14, 2015)

This was a really informative thread and I loved reading it and about the experiments with it, its definitely a technique I'll remember for if I ever need it


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## DeeAnna (Jun 15, 2015)

Glad you've found it helpful, DragonGirl. I appreciate Boyago for sharing his method with lots of pics -- very helpful. It's been a lot of fun to try it myself! 

I wouldn't do this again unless I had a good sized batch of soap to process. I salted-out about 1000 g (about 2 lb) of scrap and Boyago did about 750 g (about 1 1/2 lb). That's the least amount of soap I'd bother to salt-out as a hobbyist, because it takes about the same amount of effort whether I do a lot or only a little bit. I want to reprocess enough to make it worth my time and trouble.


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## Saponista (Jun 23, 2015)

I ordered a maslin pan today as they were on sale. I previously didn't have a large enough stainless steel pan to do this in, so as soon as it arrives I will be trying this on my big bucket of scraps!


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## DeeAnna (Feb 7, 2016)

Update to this thread -- for anyone who is curious about "salting out" and likes to watch videos, I uploaded a video tutorial tonight:

"Salting-Out Soap Scraps" tutorial on YouTube:

    Part 1: Prepare and melt the scrap. https://youtu.be/DedPOZIOnfI

    Part 2: Salting-out the melted soap. https://youtu.be/ZHAtoLDF2PA


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## dosco (Apr 25, 2016)

DeeAnna:
Question: does boiling and salting out remove the glycerine from the soap?

-Dave


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## DeeAnna (Apr 25, 2016)

Yes, it does. 

FWIW, here's a written tutorial -- http://classicbells.com/soap/saltOutTut.html


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