# liquid soap



## connieminnis (Feb 13, 2013)

I love my bar soap and wanted to break it down into a nice liquid soap and then tweak it for shampoos, etc? I read where adding citric acid would help with transforming the bar soap into a nice liquid soap.  Is this possible? If so, what steps to I take after grating the bar & adding water?


----------



## sweetcindylou (Feb 13, 2013)

I would be really interested in knowing this as well.  I have read on-line through research that one pound of shredded soap and 1 gallon of water warmed until everything is melted makes a good liquid soap. I can' answer you on the citric acid though.


----------



## CaliChan (Feb 13, 2013)

For the non-KOH liquid soap i boil one cup of water and grate 1/4 c. of a bar of soap into a powder (makes it disolve way faster) then stir till its disolved and let it set over night. it gells up quite nicely. Ive never added any citric acid to it or anything tho.


----------



## melstan775 (Feb 13, 2013)

Connie are you using a commercial bar or homemade bar? If its one you made you can use koh lye and run your recipe through a lye calculator to get a recipe for a liquid base.


----------



## connieminnis (Feb 13, 2013)

YES! soap I made and Love It! NOW I want to reverse the properties to a universal liquid then tweak it for different products! Possible?


----------



## connieminnis (Feb 13, 2013)

trying to avoid KOH Only wanted to reverse this homemade bar and use as a universal. Is KOH the option?


----------



## CaliChan (Feb 13, 2013)

Ive never tried to tweak the non-KOH liquid soaps. I only do that if i botched a batch that i dont want to rebatch.
But i do know you can mess with the ph levels of KOH soaps
Why are you wanting to avoid KOH?


----------



## connieminnis (Feb 13, 2013)

I don't have any KOH. It was crazy trying to even get lye locally. I don't know enough about the difference but honestly I just assumed I could melt the handmade soap bars down and then establish a liquid. I didn't realize you had to use a whole different product to make 2 things. Looks like I should be able to use the one, break it back down with certain specific additives and avoid the 2 separate soap making procedures. again, If I had the KOH I would be in there right now having a blast with , lol. Read where liquid could be made by adding citric acid, to the soap bar liquid. Is citric acid harmful?


----------



## melstan775 (Feb 13, 2013)

All I can say Connie is give it a try.  Otherwise, order some koh lye, (Potassium hydroxide), it's the kind of lye you need to make a liquid base.  Lye is hard to find here too, in fact it's not for sale at all so I had no choice but to order it online.


----------



## Kansas Farm Girl (Feb 13, 2013)

I tried making some of my bars into liquid once and ended up with a slimy snotty feeling goo. I don't know if I had too much soap and not enough water or what. I ended up recooking it to get the water out of it and turn it back into bars. I cooked it a long time, then left in in the mold for probably a month and it was still extremely soft. After it dried, which it eventually did, it looks like a dried piece of leather. But it works. I want to make liquid soap but think I will just order the KOH.


----------



## connieminnis (Feb 14, 2013)

update! Testing the citric acid and will pass on the results!


----------



## walkinwounded (Feb 14, 2013)

I have tried making liquid soap out of bars, it always tried to revert back to a solid, gets slimmy, its just the chemistry of Naoh soap. If you make it diluted enough, you will not get as much solidification, but it will be so weak of a solution it did not seem to be worth it to me.

You genrally use Citric Acid to adjust the ph of liquid soap (KOH) because during the cook process some people leave the paste lye heavy to make sure all oil is saponified so they get a clear product and then adjust it with Citric acid.

My concern if you are using Citric Acid in Naoh bar soap in a water dilution, if you add to much and lower the ph to low, you will desatbalize your soap and you could ( I think) destabalize your soap and have it seperate in to lye/water/ and oil! 

Catherine Failores book on liquid soap is a good starting point for anyone who is just starting to liquid soap and need information on KOH soap making. It is a hobby all on its own and is much different then bar soap making.

And if your making liquid soap (Naoh or KOH) you always need a preservative.

I really don't know why you would add citric acid to a water dilution with Naoh bar soap. I've never heard of that, do you have the link to where you read that, I'm curious, maybe I'm missing out on something.


----------



## connieminnis (Feb 20, 2013)

http://beeftallow.com/uses-of-beef-...basic-soap_73.html/comment-page-1#comment-722

#5


----------



## hoegarden (Feb 20, 2013)

Since at the topic on liquid soap, anybody know how to get the liquid soap to a gel like form like what we get in commercial liquid soap?


----------



## Crocoturtle (Feb 20, 2013)

hoegarden said:


> Since at the topic on liquid soap, anybody know how to get the liquid soap to a gel like form like what we get in commercial liquid soap?


 Heat it until the liquid evaporates.


----------



## walkinwounded (Feb 21, 2013)

hoegarden said:


> Since at the topic on liquid soap, anybody know how to get the liquid soap to a gel like form like what we get in commercial liquid soap?


 
Are you talking about making liquid soap from bar (Naoh) soap or are asking about making a gel from (KOH) soaping like they use in the store kinda soap gel, even though most liquid soap you buy out of the store is actual surfactants.


----------



## hoegarden (Feb 21, 2013)

walkinwounded said:


> Are you talking about making liquid soap from bar (Naoh) soap or are asking about making a gel from (KOH) soaping like they use in the store kinda soap gel, even though most liquid soap you buy out of the store is actual surfactants.



Hi, Iam talking about making a gel from KOH soaping. Yes I am thinking if it is possible to make it like the shower gel that we get from store..


----------



## walkinwounded (Feb 22, 2013)

hoegarden said:


> Hi, Iam talking about making a gel from KOH soaping. Yes I am thinking if it is possible to make it like the shower gel that we get from store..


 

The best way i personally found was:

When your diluting your soap paste, make a strong soap solution, by mxing equal parts soap paste  to water. First you bring say 16oz of water to a boil, when boiling reduce heat to a min simmer, then add your 16oz soap paste, cover, let stand for 10 min, then start working your paste in  the hot water with a wooden/plastic spoon, breaking it up and mixing it. Because you are tryin g to make a strong soap solution it will become really hard to dissolve the final bits and peices of soap paste, this is were you need an electric hand blender, pulse the soap soltion to dissolve the soap several times. Once you can not see any soap pieces floating around, put solution in desired containers and let cool, ounce the solution reaches room temperature it should be like a gel consistancy. Sometimes when your using a electric blender it will cuase a TON of suds and amke it hard to see the solution while your trying to dissolve it, so the best thing is a little spray bottle with ethonol/vodka/or even rubbing alcohol. By spraying the sudz, they will dissloce back in to the liquid, all the alcohol with evapourate do to the heat, so do not worry about having a product with alcohol in it. This is the best method to making a _clear_ gel out of real soap, then you could colour it and scent it as it cools. Keeping in mind you need to use the right oils to produce a clear gel from real soap, oils like palm kernal/ shea butter tend to turn soap cloudy if used in high ratios.

I tried using things like salt, which turns it cloudy and settels to the bottom eventually, it also is limited in how thick it becomes, after a certain point it will not become any thicker no matter how much salt you use.

Xanthan Gum only works if your solutions is very diluted with 80% or so being water, as it need the water to gel, then your solution is so diluted that it barely sudz or bubbles when you use it, it also gets a slimey feel. If you try adding it to a strong soap solution, it just settles on the bottom as sediment.

Now if your not concerned about getting clear gel, then you have even more options, like addind Ceytl alcohol which will kinda pearlize it and thincken it nicely as well as add conditioning properties. 
Or you can add some grated Naoh soap bars of any choice depending if their coloured or scented, this will thicken it up as well and also add extra bubles and lather as Koah soaps are naturally more lathery and bubblier then KOh soaps and make the lather and bubbles more stable. By adding Naoh soap to KOH soap, it keeps it from trying to revert back to a solid and keeps it liquidfied, but it will also cloud your product, so if your goal is clear like in  the store or creamy like in the store will determine what you do.
I personally liked the ceytl alcohol and I even added some sulfinated castor oil fro extra conditioning, and adding grated Naoh.

Holy Smokes, sorry for all the spelling errors!!


----------

