# Testing a few soft oils in 40%



## ngian (Oct 5, 2015)

Hello everyone

After starting soaping 10 months ago with recipes and additives that I was mostly inspired by this forum, I feel the need to enter an era where I would like to get to know each oil / additive and what they give to the final soap. So I started lately to test a few soft oils and how will they behave.







The small batch recipes are:
40% SweetAlmond / ExtraVirginOlive / PomaceOlive / SunflowerHO / Canola / Avocado
30% Lard
15% Coconut
10% Palm Kernel
5% Castor

along with salt, sugar, trisodium citrate, silk fibers, oatmeal floor and lemon FO.
They are all the same recipes apart from the main oil and in a few of them (EVO, Canola, Avocado) that I added pigment colors so as to recognize them easier.
The soap with the Pomace Olive oil has no color in it and the green is from the oil itself as it like a butter type olive oil full of chlorophyll:





_left: Pomace Oil, right: Pomace Oil inserted in soft oils

_After two months I will start to test them and hopefully I will manage to understand any differences they have. I have written down the similar fatty acid profiles of each soap so as to have a guide on my criticism.

The canola oil soap has 15% of linolenic & linoleic acids in the recipe and I hope that it won't have any DOS during or after cure. For sure it will get rancid easier if the environmental conditions are not good (humidity, heat, light, metal surfaces) while curing, but I wanted to ask if it is also for the self life of the oil. The one I used has a self life until July 2016 so that means it will not get rancid easily if it will stay in good conditions after cure for almost one year from now?






Nikos
http://www.soapmakingforum.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/


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## songwind (Oct 6, 2015)

Sounds like an interesting project. I look forward to hearing how it goes.


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## kumudini (Oct 6, 2015)

great experiment! will follow for sure.


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## IrishLass (Oct 6, 2015)

A very worthy experiment, Nikos. As with the others, I look forward to your results! By the way, I like the overall looks of your base recipe. 


IrishLass


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## rosche (Oct 8, 2015)

I wonder how does the result of the experiment. Can't wait


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## Arimara (Oct 8, 2015)

This sounds like a good experiment. All of the oils in testing are known to be conditioning on some level, right?


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## ngian (Oct 9, 2015)

Arimara said:


> All of the oils in testing are known to be conditioning on some level, right?



Well that is the word that the calculators use. But I think that this is not a very informative world that describes properly the high oleic and a few linoleic/linolenic percentages of fatty acids in a recipe. And as DeeAnna has beautifully written before:



> The longer chain fatty acids (stearic, palmitic, oleic, linoleic,  linolenic, etc.) are not as able to cause the type of damage "that lauric and myristic fatty acids do", so  they're called the "conditioning" fatty acids. The name is misleading,  in my opinion, because soap really cannot condition the skin.  Conditioning is the blanket property of adding humectancy (water) to the  stratum corneum, providing occlusion (barrier to abrasion or water  evaporation), and adding emollience (replacing lost fats), as well as  smoothing and soothing the skin.
> 
> Some of the additives in a soap can add some conditioning, but  soap itself cannot. Soap cleans. Period. Maybe the "conditioning" fatty  acids should have been called "non-stripping" and the myristic and  lauric acids should have been called the "stripping" fatty acids.



So according to this post I will try to understand and detect any differences/qualities they give in the soap.


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## Luv2Soap (Oct 9, 2015)

I love this experiment! Keep us posted as to what you learn.


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## Susie (Oct 9, 2015)

ngian said:


> The canola oil soap has 15% of linolenic & linoleic acids in the recipe and I hope that it won't have any DOS during or after cure. For sure it will get rancid easier if the environmental conditions are not good (humidity, heat, light, metal surfaces) while curing, but I wanted to ask if it is also for the self life of the oil. The one I used has a self life until July 2016 so that means it will not get rancid easily if it will stay in good conditions after cure for almost one year from now?



Certainly the expiration date is a good warning of when to use the oil by, but that is not necessarily the case once you use the oil in soap.  Unfortunately, though, there is no hard and fast rule of when a soap is going to develop DOS in relation to the expiration date.  I would stick to the 15% rule to avoid the DOS.  You should also add ROE to your oils to help prevent rancidity.


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## ngian (Oct 9, 2015)

Susie said:


> You should also add ROE to your oils to help prevent rancidity.



You mean add to both the canola oil bottle and to the oils while soapmaking before inserting Lye in?


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## DeeAnna (Oct 9, 2015)

I do one or the other, but not both. I think it is best to add ROE to the fats when I first get them. That way the ROE can protect the fat from the start. If you add ROE later when you soap, it cannot fix any oxidation that may have already happened. If this is the case, adding ROE when you soap might be a case of "shutting the barn door after the horse gets out".


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## ngian (Oct 10, 2015)

DeeAnna said:


> I do one or the other, but not both. I think it is best to add ROE to the fats when I first get them. That way the ROE can protect the fat from the start. If you add ROE later when you soap, it cannot fix any oxidation that may have already happened. If this is the case, adding ROE when you soap might be a case of "shutting the barn door after the horse gets out".


How much should I add per litre? Do I have to shake the bottle afterwards so for ROE to be mixed all inside the oil? And for how long does it extend the self life of the oil?

Edit:
I just read the answers for all the above on your signature link.


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## DeeAnna (Oct 10, 2015)

Nikos -- In response to your questions and tidbits I've learned recently, I updated the info on my website. Here's a summary -- 

I add 0.4 to 0.5 grams ROE per 1000 grams of fat (0.04% to 0.05% ppo). This is based on a ROE with 5% to 7% carnosic acid. If your ROE is lower than that, and some are as low as 2%, then I would adjust accordingly.

I weigh the entire bottle, container and all, and figure the amount of ROE based on that. I know the container weight shouldn't count, but if it's plastic, like most of mine are, it's going to not add a lot of error. Or you can estimate the container weight and subtract that from the total weight to estimate the fat weight.

It's very important to mix the ROE into the entire bottle. Since ROE is a thick syrup, it doesn't mix in too easily if you just dump the ROE directly into the bottle. (I had to learn this tip the hard way.) Best way is to pour out a little (100-200 mL or so) of the fat into a cup, mix the ROE into that until you can't see any trace of the ROE syrup, and then add the doctored-up oil to the bottle of oil. Shake.


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## brandnew (Oct 12, 2015)

Can't wait to follow the results! I am learning so much coming back to the forum.....:clap:


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## northwoodsgal (Dec 8, 2015)

*So excited about the results*

Very much looking forward to the results!


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## ngian (Dec 24, 2015)

These days I started testing the above 6 soaps and apart from *very* minor differences to their foaming behavior, I still need more time to test them.






I have tried them for washing my hands, while I was also filming so as for you to see how they behave (I will upload it in a forthcoming message).

Yesterday I tested them one after the other to wash my sort hair, and although the feeling  my head had after 6 consecutive washing times was that of "superclean" and a bit of a "feeling my head skin cold", feeling that I also get when I use strong commercial liquid shampoos, I'm trying hard to feel any big difference they have on my skin afterwards.

Thus I need more time to "investigate" them and maybe find a test method that will be as much fair as possible. I'm also planning on sending some pieces to other soapers for a second/third opinion.

Till then happy holidays!


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## Serene (Jan 3, 2016)

Ngian,

Are you super fatting these at all and if so what percentage?  Re-reading in case I missed it.
I would like to know how lasting the bars are.  Is this what they look like after one use or many?

Thanks in advance

Sere

Have been forgetting to ask.  Crazy holidays and all.


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## ngian (Jan 5, 2016)

Serene said:


> Ngian,
> 
> Are you super fatting these at all and if so what percentage?  Re-reading in case I missed it.
> I would like to know how lasting the bars are.  Is this what they look like after one use or many?
> ...




Hello Serene
All the bars have 3% lye discount. With 2% sugar, 33% lye concentration and Sat:Unsat ratio of ~ 40:60, the bars are dissolving relatively quickly in comparison with bars that have more stearic/palmitic acids (>50% Lard/Palm).

This picture was taken after 3-4 days of daily uses.


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## Serene (Jan 5, 2016)

ngian said:


> Hello Serene
> All the bars have 3% lye discount. With 2% sugar, 33% lye concentration and Sat:Unsat ratio of ~ 40:60, the bars are dissolving relatively quickly in comparison with bars that have more stearic/palmitic acids (>50% Lard/Palm).
> 
> This picture was taken after 3-4 days of daily uses.



Ngian,

Thank you for your response, and your testing on this.  I will wait patiently for your next report.  

Sere


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## ngian (Jan 13, 2016)

So after a few days of testing them, these soaps seems to have almost the same behavior and exactly the same feeling on my skin. All the soaps were cured for over 2,5 months (some where cured for 3 months) and I  used one at a time for every bathing day.

I realize now that when we talk about oils in a soap we are just feeling the sodium salts of fatty acids and nothing more. Except if we use an oil/butter that has enough content of unsaponifiables that someone can understand/feel easily (for eg. Shea butter).

Some sites when they are talking about the soft oils that their soaps have, they start to describe them with the benefits they offer as if someone would eat them or spread them on their skin as is. But in a soap the oil in not in a edible form but in a form that cleans you. Soap is not a cream or a conditioner, but a saponified matter that has nothing to do with its source form.

I have also send the 6 soaps to other soapers so as to help me on this experiment and one of them has already stated that she cannot see any difference too...

The only differences I have seen so far are:

Olive oil and Raw Pomace Olive oil soaps got hard faster among others while curing, especially Raw Pomace as it has inside melted flesh and pips of the olive fruits. Then avocado was the third in row that got harder while curing. It must be for the palmitic and stearic fatty acids that are in bigger amount on these 3 soaps.

Canola oils seems to lather a little bit more easily maybe because it is the softer one as it has the most amount of linoleic/linolenic fatty acids. But this is not so noticeable...

Also at the very beginning of this experiment the soap that lathered more easily seemed to be sunflower high oleic, but I suppose it was for the fact that it was cut with a knife, so they were no wavy sides and more soap surface was scrubbed in my hands. Now that there are no wavy sides at at all soaps, they seem to create the same amount of lather at around the same time. 

That's my humble opinion after this experiment.

I'm also embedding a video I made (select 720p HD for better viewing quality). Hope you like it. 

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJXFO8uDdBE[/ame]


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## dibbles (Jan 13, 2016)

This has been a very interesting experiment to follow. Thank you for posting your learnings.


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## snappyllama (Jan 13, 2016)

Love the video showing all the lathering. Thanks for posting the experiment and your results!


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## HoneyLady (Jan 15, 2016)

Very interesting!  Thanks for sharing your work.

Let me point out a few things for some folks who may or may not have caught some of the subtleties here.

What ngian is calling "canola" oil *IS NOT* what soapers in the US and Canada know as Canola oil.

That brand pictured actually says "Rapeseed oil"  Rapeseed (from the Latin, _rapum,_ meaning "turnip".  Rapeseed is an oil-bearing seed plant from the brassica family and is related to mustards, cabbages, turnips, etc.  It has been used for thousands of years.

Canola was bred in Canada from Rapeseed during WWII when many oils and lubricants were in short supply.  Canola used to be a registered trademark name (like Kleenex for facial tissue) that came to be substituted for the real name.  It means, as I recall, CANadian OiL Association, or some such.

Canola *IS* a GMO.  However, it does qualify as one of the few "good" GMOs in my opinion.  It isn't as hyper modified as soybeans or corn.  And the plants, while GMO, are still valuable AND safe for bees and other pollinators.  The current form of Canola that is the most widely grown was created in 1998, and that's ancient history in the GMO world.  Of course, bee friendly is *MY* bandwagon and soapbox.  

Rapeseed oil and canola are NOT the same.  Rapeseed oil is available in some health food markets, but it is no longer grown in the quantities that canola is, and is more expensive, and harder to find.  (At least in the US)

I use canola oil in some recipes and find it to be a cheap, easy, filler that adds some conditioning.  It is also prone to DOS, and if I use it, I always add vitamin E.  

If you are interested in trying ngian's ideas (and I have a list started myself) I wanted everyone to be aware that what s/he (sorry, I'm not sure which!) is using is not what we have available, and therefore, your results will vary.

Now wondering where I can find rapeseed oil . . . :mrgreen:

~HoneyLady~


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## Soapmaker145 (Jan 16, 2016)

Interesting test ngian.  FWIW, I can detect a different feel for soaps that have avocado/macademia nut oils and canola.  I avoided canola for over a decade.  Now I try to add it to every soap I make.  It gives the soaps a feel similar to adding buttermilk or silk without the added stuff. My oldest canola soap batch is about a year and a half old.  It keeps on getting better.  The rest of the oils run together since I use  about a 50:50 mix of sat to unsat. oils in all my soaps.

Canola is not a GMO.  There are some GMO canola seeds but there are also organic non-GMO canola seeds.   Canadian farmers worked hard to keep some of the canola non-GMO. Soaper's choice carries the non-GMO oil.  

The canola seed is a rapeseed that was bred or selected for specific characteristics just like most of the vegetable seeds we use including heirlooms.  The original rapeseed contains a lot of a long chain fatty acid that is toxic if ingested in sufficient amounts.  The selection process reduced it to acceptable levels.  

There are regulation about the amounts of the toxic fatty acid that can be present in rapeseed in the US and in the EU.  They are in the low single digits.  If we use the non GMO canola in the US, it would be very similar to the rapeseed oil available in Europe.


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## penelopejane (Jan 16, 2016)

great experiment. 

Maybe if you tried it without all the additives you mentioned you used you would be able to detect the subtle different feel of each of the oils. Even though you did this to each batch I think it would have significantly changed the qualities of each oil. 

I have been surprised that I can do so in smaller quantities than 40%.  I can definitely also feel the difference in my skin after I've used a soap with different oils in the shower (not just hand washing).

You said to each batch you added: 
<along with salt, sugar, trisodium citrate, silk fibers, oatmeal floor and lemon FO.>


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## ngian (Jan 18, 2016)

Thank you all for your input concerning the canola vs rapeseed oil.

I have also send these soaps to other soapers and one of them also said that she did find the avocado to be the most conditioning (she didn't feel the need to apply any handcream afterwards) one among all others while another one said that she didn't find any major differences, just like me. So I guess it is on the skin type also and if that is able to grab any characteristics the soaps have.

I'm also trying to find out if there is any unsaponified matter in the refined avocado oil and at which amount. Some sites are mentioning that it has high amount others are saying that it is high just like olive oil! but olive oil has a max of 1.5% of unsaponifiables. The store I bought the specific avocado oil only has an MSDS file that says nothing about its chemical composition.

Penelopejane I used these soft oils in a recipe that has many oils and additives because I wanted to test them in a recipe I use more often.

I'm a "he" named Nikos


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## BrewerGeorge (Jan 20, 2016)

One question I'm unclear on.  (Apologies if the answer is in the video, since I can't watch it...)

Are you washing with all soaps every day, one right after the other?  If so, it would seem that the differences might be blurred together because the end result would be that of the most stripping soap, to use DeeAnna's words.  A more exaggerated example would be to wash with a 100% olive oil soap, then immediately follow with a 100% coconut oil soap - the feel would be the super dry result of the coconut.


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## ngian (Jan 20, 2016)

You are correct George about using one soap right after the other. I once did that on my hair with these 6 soaps and I felt that my hair had run out of my head with the 25% of Myristic & Lauric acids each soap has. 

After a few days I started using one soap once per day on my hair and body and found out that my skin didn't feel different during the day for 6 days using different soap each day (I'm taking a bath every morning before I leave for work).


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## BrewerGeorge (Jan 20, 2016)

ngian said:


> You are correct George about using one soap right after the other. I once did that on my hair with these 6 soaps and I felt that my hair had run out of my head with the 25% of Myristic & Lauric acids each soap has.
> 
> After a few days I started using one soap once per day on my hair and body and found out that my skin didn't feel different during the day for 6 days using different soap each day (I'm taking a bath every morning before I leave for work).



Glad I asked, thanks.


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## ngian (Mar 7, 2016)

I guess this experiment will end with one more soft oil, and that is Macadamia nut oil.







I'm using this oil because it has the heightest amount of palmitoleic fatty acid (C 16:1) in its profile (20%), while avocado oil has around 9% of it and soapcalc doesn't account for that to the characteristics of the soap. Also some people say that they can feel the difference AO brings to the soap and maybe palmitoleic is responsible for that. Hoping to find any treasure in the dark side of the... soap.






It is the same recipe as the one stated in the first post of this thread apart from the main oil at 40%. I also used 10 drops of red pigment in the oils, giving that pink color.






The only unexpected thing I had in the procedure was that just after the gel phase with the CPOP method I always do, I left the mold outside the house all night instead of leaving it in room temperature and after testing the loaf for hardness after 9 hours that I always did with all the previous soaps of the experiment, this one was very soft to cut. It had a very soft surface, and leaving it for 12 hours total the loaf was still soft.

So I thought that I could warm it up in the oven once again to somehow speed things up. After put it in the oven @~65°C for a few minutes and leaving it out in room temperature the loaf seemed to gain hardness more quickly. I then put it once again in the oven and it for sure did speed things up. So after 24 hours from the initial gel phase, the loaf was so rock hard that I had to once again put it in the oven so as to be cut smoothly.







So after two months I will be able to test if palmitoleic acid is something worthy and also to see if my skin can feel anything more than the other soaps of the test.


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## Spice (Mar 9, 2016)

It is the same recipe as the one stated in the first post of this thread apart from the main oil at 40%. I also used 10 drops of red pigment in the oils, giving that pink color.






Your soap looks really good, did you CPOP, all of the soaps?


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## DeeAnna (Mar 9, 2016)

Thoughtful work, Nikos. I'm enjoying this!


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## lenarenee (Mar 9, 2016)

Thanks for sharing all of your work Nikos - you've done a very valuable test. 

Your macadamia soap is beautiful! And I don't like pink.

Isn't macadamia oil very yellow? Did it affect the color of the soap?


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## ngian (Mar 11, 2016)

Spice said:


> Your soap looks really good, did you CPOP, all of the soaps?



Yes I always CPOP all my soaps to ensure gel phase.



lenarenee said:


> Isn't macadamia oil very yellow? Did it affect the color of the soap?



Not really, I wouldn't call it a yellow oil. Rapeseed / Canola oil is for sure yellow, but not macadamia.

After one week of curing, the bars are getting really hard and it reminds me of recipes with 50% lard. Maybe it is the total 8% palmitoleic acid (40% in the recipe out of 20% in macadamia) which might acts something between oleic and palmitic acids that contributes to this hardening, or maybe the heating procedure I did a few hours after the gel phase helped also.


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## ngian (May 20, 2016)

Well over two months of curing has passed and I have tried the macadamia soap bar. My skin senses have captured a more silky and maybe easier bubbly properties on this soap compared side by side with the already 7 months-old avocado oil soap. The same opinion has another soaper that I gave her these two soaps.

So I guess that the palmitoleic acid (C16:1) is an acid that contributes in hardening (as the soap bar by its first week of curing was satisfactorily getting hard), and also gives a better palmitic (C16:0) kind of lather maybe because of the one double bond it has. I'm wondering if the 5 months age difference might also do something that makes them different.

The FA profile of the macadamia soap [Macadamia: 40%, Lard: 30%, Coconut Oil: 15%, Palm Kernel Oil: 10%, Castor Oil: 5%] is:

Lauric 10
Myristic 4
Palmitic 14
*Palmitoleic     8*
Stearic 6
Ricinoleic 9
Oleic 40
Linoleic 3
Linolenic 0

Iodine 55  (41-70)

where I would add palmitoleic to the plamitic family but with the tendency to be somehow more water soluble.

It is an expensive oil and I don't think I'm going to buy any other when the remaining oil will end. I can make with it one more soap with 60-70% of it and I think it will be a great one...


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## penelopejane (May 20, 2016)

ngian said:


> Well over two months of curing has passed and I have tried the macadamia soap bar. My skin senses have captured a more silky and maybe easier bubbly properties on this soap compared side by side with the already 7 months-old avocado oil soap. The same opinion has another soaper that I gave her these two soaps.
> 
> So I guess that the palmitoleic acid (C16:1) is an acid that contributes in hardening (as
> 
> It is an expensive oil and I don't think I'm going to buy any other when the remaining oil will end. I can make with it one more soap with 60-70% of it and I think it will be a great one...



Thanks for this. Macadamia nut oil isn't too expensive here. 
Can you compare it to your RB or OO mixes for me please?


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## ngian (May 20, 2016)

penelopejane said:


> Thanks for this. Macadamia nut oil isn't too expensive here.
> Can you compare it to your RB or OO mixes for me please?





Well here I can find Macadamia oil for 18E/litre. 

Rice Bran Oil is not in my experiment and olive oil, as I have written in older posts on this thread, seems to be a second or less late on giving the bubbles other oils like Canola, Sweet Almond and Sunflower HO are giving. Otherwise all the previous oils for me are the same on the feeling of their lather.

One soaper (and many here) found Avocado oil to give something special to the feeling during washing, which I couldn't feel it, but macadamia has something also which is obvious enough to me too...


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## ScentedExpressionsSupp (Jan 30, 2019)

ngian said:


> Hello everyone
> 
> After starting soaping 10 months ago with recipes and additives that I was mostly inspired by this forum, I feel the need to enter an era where I would like to get to know each oil / additive and what they give to the final soap. So I started lately to test a few soft oils and how will they behave.
> 
> ...


 I have a question about the trisodium citrate. Why do you use it instead of sodium citrate? Does it help better than the sodium citrate with hard water?


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## ngian (Jan 30, 2019)

Kburdette said:


> I have a question about the trisodium citrate. Why do you use it instead of sodium citrate? Does it help better than the sodium citrate with hard water?



Hello Kburdette
I don't know if there is any significant difference between trisodium/disodium citrate as it concerns how it affects soap, but trisodium citrate is what the soap supplies shop had to give me by that time.

Maybe someone with more chem knowledge can help us on your question.

Nikos


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## penelopejane (Jan 30, 2019)

Kburdette said:


> I have a question about the trisodium citrate. Why do you use it instead of sodium citrate? Does it help better than the sodium citrate with hard water?



It is the same thing, just another name for sodium citrate. 
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Sodium_citrate#section=Top


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