# Soleseife soap



## Soap Techniques (Sep 6, 2014)

When making brine soap, what do you dissolve first in water: salt or NaOH? 

Thank you!


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## Dorymae (Sep 6, 2014)

I dissolve my salt first but I'm sure you will get answers on both sides.


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## froggybean37 (Sep 6, 2014)

I also do salt first - whatever little grains of salt which were being tricky dissolving were helped out by the warming of the lye when I added it after.


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## DeeAnna (Sep 6, 2014)

I haven't done this, to be upfront about my qualifications, but what I'm seeing is to make the salt solution first, then add the lye. The other way 'round doesn't work as well -- the salt doesn't dissolve well in lye solution.


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## Nevada (Sep 6, 2014)

The tricky part is pronunciation, "soul-lay-say-ef-aye"


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Sep 6, 2014)

Actually, when there are an e and an I together in German it is almost always the last that is pronounced. 

So ei is sounded as I and ie as e. 

So it is actually pronounced

So le si (si as in short for Simon) feh

That aside, I find it intriguing that the lye dissolves in salt water better than the salt dissolves in lye water. I think there was another topic on it where the science was covered but I can't find it I'm afraid


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## cmzaha (Sep 6, 2014)

i warm my water then dissolve the salt in the water. I then put my pitcher in the freezer to cool down the salt solution before adding the lye. I always had problems getting it to fully dissolve until I started heating up the water. Not sure if it really makes a difference it just did for me. Made 2 batches of soleseife this week. It has become my hubby's favorite type of soap


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## DeeAnna (Sep 6, 2014)

Yep, Gent, there was. I think the point is that salt (NaCl) is actually less soluble in water than sodium hydroxide (NaOH). If I recall correctly, a saltwater solution becomes saturated at 26% at room temp. NaOH and water can go up to a 50% solution concentration (actually a wee bit over, but who's counting).


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Sep 6, 2014)

Ah, I knew it was along the lines of saturation, but wasn't sure which was the way it went.  Thanks, DeeAnna - you superhero


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## Soap Techniques (Sep 6, 2014)

Thank you for your answers! I’d like to tell you about my little experiment. 

I have 3 kinds of salt: Windsor Table salt, Aurora Mediterranean Fine Sea Salt, and Sifto Coarse Salt (no additives):


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## Soap Techniques (Sep 6, 2014)

I poured 16 grams of warm distilled water into 3 separate glasses and added 4 grams (25%) of salt into each of them. I had no problems with dissolving any kind of salt, although the 1st solution with Windsor salt remained slightly cloudy.


1) Windsor Table salt, 2) Aurora Sea Salt, 3) Sifto Coarse Salt


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## Soap Techniques (Sep 6, 2014)

Then I added 5.6 grams of NaOH into each glass and mixed them very well. Each solution looked milky.


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## Soap Techniques (Sep 6, 2014)

I kept mixing them for 30 minutes… but when every time I stop each solution looks like this:


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## Soap Techniques (Sep 6, 2014)

So my questions are:
- what is this sediment? 
- can I use a solution that looks like this for making soap? If yes, how can I be sure that all lye is completely dissolved?
- what can I do differently to get a more-or-less clear solution with no sediments?


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## hmlove1218 (Sep 6, 2014)

I had a solution that looked like that and the batch I used it in turned out fine. I have a theory that it is undisolved salt particles (deeanna, feel free to prove me wrong). I only had it happen when I used 2 tablespoons of salt for a 2 pound batch. Now that I use 2 tsp for a 36 Oz batch I no longer have that problem. So perhaps it has something to do with the saturation??


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## Seawolfe (Sep 6, 2014)

Also check the ingredients - some salts have iodine or anti-caking ingredients.


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## Nevada (Sep 6, 2014)

Here is my math for calculating max salt to use.
In making Soleseife, the Salt is first dissolved into 32.5 oz water before adding the lye.

amount of oils in batch = 100 oz wt
amount of Lye = 13.4 oz wt
amount of Water = 32.5 oz wt
The "formula" 
Calculate minimum amount of water needed to dissolve lye = 13.4 * *.77* = 10.3 oz 
Remaining water available to dissolve salt = 32.5 - 10.3 = 22.2 oz wt water
amount of salt 22.2 oz wt water will dissolve  22.2 x *.36* = 8 oz wt salt

A Solubility Table was used. I admit it may not very accurate, but good enough!  I think it is useful to keep percentage of salt to lye uniform across various soap recipes.
*DO NOT try to dissolve 13.4 oz lye into 10.3 oz water! *
Roy


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## Soap Techniques (Sep 6, 2014)

I wrote on the 1st page about the salts I used for the experiment, two of them have no additives. 

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=450524&postcount=10


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## Soap Techniques (Sep 6, 2014)

Nevada said:


> amount of *Lye* = *13.4* oz wt
> minimum amount of *water* needed to dissolve lye = 13.4 * .77 = *10.3* oz


 
less water than lye? not even 50/50?


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## DeeAnna (Sep 6, 2014)

"... I have a theory that it is undisolved salt particles (deeanna, feel free to prove me wrong)...."

I'm not absolutely positive on this issue, but that's really the only thing it can be -- undissolved salt. Remember -- we're not dealing with the solubility of salt in plain water. Once the NaOH is added into the mix, the solubility of these chemicals becomes more complicated. 

From what I recall, the people who are using brine this concentrated to make brine soap are just using the NaOH-NaCl-water solution as a milky liquid. Or they are going to using less salt to get a clear solution, as hmlove is doing.

***

Regarding Roy's last post: 

The solubility table that Roy references shows how many grams of solute (solute means the chemical that is being dissolved, such as salt, NaOH, etc) per 100 g of solvent (the solvent is what is doing the dissolving -- water in this case). The amount of solute dissolved by a given amount of solvent is one way to talk about solutions of chemicals, but it is not the only common way. 

Chemists and soapers can also talk about solubility in terms of solution concentration. If we soap with a 33% lye solution concentration, that is a mixture of 1 part NaOH and 2 parts water. When the NaOH and water are mixed together 1/3 of the final solution is NaOH. The other 2/3 is water.

Salt solutions can be described in terms of solution concentration too. Using Roy's reference, we know that 36 g of salt can be dissolved by 100 g of water. What is the finished solution concentration? Well the total solution weighs a total of 36 g of salt + 100 g of water = 136 grams total. The percent of salt in this SOLUTION is this: 36 g salt / 136 g solution * 100% = 26% solution concentration. That means about 1/4 of the finished solution is salt and the other 3/4 is water. 

Remember I said earlier in this thread that a saturated salt solution is about 26% by weight? I was expressing the same information as Roy, but just in terms of salt concentration, not in terms of g solute / g solvent as in Roy's table.

It gets confusing, hey?

For those who are feeling intimidated by the math, just be careful and ask your local science geek for help  if you're not sure.

***

"...Calculate minimum amount of water needed to dissolve lye = 13.4 * .77 = 10.3 oz ..."

Moving on, I am befuzzled about the number 0.77 in this calculation. Even the referenced solubility table doesn't support the use of that value. ???


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## Nevada (Sep 6, 2014)

DeeAnna said:


> "... ...Calculate minimum amount of water needed to dissolve lye = 13.4 * .77 = 10.3 oz ..."
> Moving on, I am befuzzled about the number 0.77 in this calculation. Even the referenced solubility table doesn't support the use of that value. ???



Thank you DeeAnna, I should have showed my math better 
100g of Water will dissolve ~130g of lye
130g lye / 1.3 = 100g water   
1/1.3 =.77
130g lye * .77 = 100g water


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## DeeAnna (Sep 6, 2014)

I see your point now that you've clarified. Thanks -- I wasn't following your train of thought very well!

You are basically creating a recipe based on "full water" (about 27-28% NaOH solution concentration) then you are splitting the water into two imaginary parts. You are using one part of the water to make a saturated NaOH solution at 104 deg F (40 C). You are using the other part to make a saturated salt solution. 

I'd sure not want to make soap using a real-life 56% lye solution -- that would be far too temperamental for me. But it's clear this method of splitting up the water to calculate the salt for solseife is giving you good results. Hey, that's great!


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## Soap Techniques (Sep 6, 2014)

DeeAnna said:


> ... but that's really the only thing it can be -- undissolved salt.


 
But why, DeeAnna? I started the experiment by completely dissolving the salt.


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## Nevada (Sep 6, 2014)

Fata Morgana said:


> less water than lye? not even 50/50?



I edited my original post to clarify *not to make a strong Lye solution*
Lye is unique that it can absorb more than it's own weight of water

Your Dissolved salt became "un-dissolved" or precipitated out of solution.


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## DeeAnna (Sep 6, 2014)

"...But why, DeeAnna? I started the experiment by completely dissolving the salt. ...."

Yes, but you dissolved it in plain water. When you added the NaOH to the salt-water solution, you changed the rules of the game. Just because a chemical is dissolved in one set of conditions doesn't mean it will remain dissolved if you change the conditions. 

For example, one way to make a "rock" candy is to heat plain water and white sugar to form a super-saturated solution. My brothers and I used to hang a cotton string down into the container of sugar solution and wait. The temperature change and time will cause the sugar to recrystallize back into solid form around the string.

You're doing much the same thing with the salt solution -- you're making a near-saturated solution of salt in water, then adding the NaOH. In this case, it's the added lye, not the change in temperature, that is causing the recrystallization/precipitation, but the general idea is pretty much the same.


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## DeeAnna (Sep 6, 2014)

"...Lye is unique that it can absorb more than it's own weight of water..."

Um, might want to re-think this statement. A solution that contains more solvent (water) than solute (NaOH) is extremely common. 

If you're talking about hygroscopy (the ability of a solid material to absorb water from the atmosphere), NaOH is not unique. Zinc chloride, KOH, calcium chloride, as well as NaOH are all examples of deliquescent materials. And it doesn't really relate to the issues in this thread, anyways.


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## Nevada (Sep 7, 2014)

Interesting Google search "soleseife rezept" click here

Lavender Sole 
250 g coconut oil
250 g olive oil
250 g Shea Butter
200g sunflower oil
50g castor
335 g of cold, distilled water
131 g NaOH at 9% over-enrichment


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## Soap Techniques (Sep 7, 2014)

DeeAnna said:


> "...But why, DeeAnna? I started the experiment by completely dissolving the salt. ...."
> 
> Yes, but you dissolved it in plain water. When you added the NaOH to the salt-water solution, you changed the rules of the game. Just because a chemical is dissolved in one set of conditions doesn't mean it will remain dissolved if you change the conditions.


 
I understand that. But what makes you certain that in such case *only salt* can precipitate out of solution? Please help me to overcome the fear of undissolved lye.


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## DeeAnna (Sep 7, 2014)

Oh. I wasn't following your train of thought, Fata. 

It is my opinion that the white precipitate is salt (NaCl), because salt is so much less soluble (26%) at room temperature than the sodium hydroxide (52%). But I do not have absolute confirmation -- that comes from testing the chemical content of the precipitate, and I haven't done that. 

If you are concerned that NaOH is recrystallizing and you don't want that, you need to back off on the salt concentration to an amount that allows the NaOH-NaCl-water solution to remain clear, not milky. That way you can "have your cake and eat it" -- in other words, you can have your salt-brine soap and not be fearful.


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## Soap Techniques (Sep 7, 2014)

Thank you, DeeAnna.


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## Moya (Feb 12, 2018)

Thanks for the nice thread. I wonder how much lye concentration % do you guys think best for making soleseife?

---
Moya.


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## Moya (Feb 12, 2018)

The recipe:
100% coconut oil
20% superfat
26% salt
Coconut milk for water substitution.


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## BrewerGeorge (Feb 12, 2018)

I have done neither the experiments nor the calculations, but I have tried dissolving from both directions and I can say categorically that NaCl will _not_ dissolve into a solution of NaOH.  Not even a single teaspoon for a regular "non-soleseife" batch will dissolve in lye.  I believe like DeeAnna that the cloudiness when you go the other way is NaCl precipitated from solution.

In fact, I think that precipitate is the point of making soleseife.  We've all experienced - or at least read about here - problems with salt bars being too rough because the salt crystals were too big.  That can be an especial problem if a mined salt like pink Himalayan because the crystals, no matter how small, are irregular and rough.  So the idea with soleseife is to get a lot of salt in the bars without making them rough.  Dissolving the salt in water first, then letting it precipitate out of solution when the NaOH is added makes tiny, fluffy salt crystals that are nice on skin.


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## cmzaha (Feb 12, 2018)

I add any of the salt that precipitates out of my brine solution, which I master batch with hot distilled water, into my batter. I do need to mention I know it is salt not lye.  When I mix my lye into my room temp salt brine clear with no problems. Like Brewer George mentions it is not scratchy. I melted down a chunk of Himalayan, it was a candle holder that I was tired of,  just to prove I could not get anything higher than a 25% brine and 25% was it. As for salt bars I still prefer non-iodized table salt or a few brands of x fine pacific sea salt, but table salt makes the smoothest non-scratchy salt bars. For my soleseif soap I usually use a 31% lye concentration.


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## BrewerGeorge (Feb 12, 2018)

Modern table and pickling salts will have been made by vacuum evaporation, so they are small cubic crystals that are easy on skin.


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## Steve85569 (Feb 12, 2018)

I usually run the salt down at 20% and then add the NaOH. The lye then looks normal but the bars do need to be cut sooner than a "regular" recipe. The salt does harden the batch quicker.

I think what's going on here is that the Sodium hydroxide has a much higher affinity for water than salt  or sugar or most other additives) so it must be added after the other additive are completely dissolved or the additive can only achieve a solution. Thus it will precipitate back out. If 26 or 27% salt is in the water the sodium hydroxide will strong arm the water molecules away from the salt (NaCl)


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## DeeAnna (Feb 12, 2018)

"...Sodium hydroxide has a much higher affinity for water than salt or sugar or most other additives)..."

I agree about NaOH being more soluble than NaCl (table salt) so you have to add the salt first to get the desired result. 

The issue with adding table sugar into lye solution vs. into plain water is not related to solubilty. There is a chemical reaction between components of the sugar and NaOH. If this reaction occurs when the table sugar is still in large grains, the sugar granules clump together into a mass. If you get the sugar dissolved first, the reaction still happens, but on a molecular level.


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## Soapprentice (Feb 12, 2018)

Wow..this is a thread worth reading..


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## SaltedFig (Feb 12, 2018)

Moya said:


> I wonder how much lye concentration % do you guys think best for making soleseife? Moya.



I usually use a 2:1 lye concentration, more than that gets too fast for what I want to do and lower is easier to work.


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## amd (Feb 12, 2018)

:FacePalm: OMG. I never thought to not count the water used to dissolve lye before calculating the amount of salt I could use... Light.bulb.moment. I must also now correct a soapmaking friend that I gave bad advice too... oh sweet jesus. Maybe soleseife soaps should be a monthly challenge...? @The Efficacious Gentleman thanks for chiming in with the correct German pronunciation. I was going to as well. I've heard quite a few Americans murder this one (pronunciation and making of --> looking at myself), so once I discovered it was a German soap I had one of my German colleagues teach me the correct way to say it.


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## Steve85569 (Feb 12, 2018)

DeeAnna said:


> "...Sodium hydroxide has a much higher affinity for water than salt or sugar or most other additives)..."
> 
> I agree about NaOH being more soluble than NaCl (table salt) so you have to add the salt first to get the desired result.
> 
> The issue with adding table sugar into lye solution vs. into plain water is not related to solubilty. There is a chemical reaction between components of the sugar and NaOH. If this reaction occurs when the table sugar is still in large grains, the sugar granules clump together into a mass. If you get the sugar dissolved first, the reaction still happens, but on a molecular level.


My bad. I forgot about the caramel that I got when I did that. Once....


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## cascarral (Nov 5, 2019)

Steve85569 said:


> I usually run the salt down at 20% and then add the NaOH. The lye then looks normal but the bars do need to be cut sooner than a "regular" recipe. The salt does harden the batch quicker.
> 
> I think what's going on here is that the Sodium hydroxide has a much higher affinity for water than salt  or sugar or most other additives) so it must be added after the other additive are completely dissolved or the additive can only achieve a solution. Thus it will precipitate back out. If 26 or 27% salt is in the water the sodium hydroxide will strong arm the water molecules away from the salt (NaCl)


Hello! Can you explain me more about how you make brine bars? I want to make a batch in a loaf mold but haven't been successful even at 15% salt, cutting them the day after. 

You said with 20% you don't have to cut sooner than a normal bar, how much do you wait to cut? Is your recipe mainly soft oils? Mine is OO 40% and still cracking...


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## Steve85569 (Nov 10, 2019)

I said that I DO need to cut sooner since the salt hardens the soap quicker. If memory serves me correctly I would make soap in the morning and cut in the evening. It may even been as early as the afternoon. The do bear watching - just not as much as salt bars which are an entirely different thing.

Nearly all of my recipes are Lard at close to 50% with palm, coconut, shea butter, olive , soy wax and 5% castor. coconut oil is 10 to 14% with the amounts of palm and olive being the ones that vary the most. I usually would NOT put soy wax in either a brine or salt bar recipe.


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## Nona'sFarm (Nov 11, 2019)

This is extremely interesting. Can't wait to try making some soleseife soap. All the recipes I've found so far call for making a brine first with 4 parts distilled water and one part fine plain salt; then add lye. They vary around the amount of CO, some call for 100%, and other recipes use less. They all recommend using flat molds (not loaf).  So I'm going to try :
50% CO
25% OO
20% PO
5% Castor oil 
with 10% SF
Brine water at the 4 parts /1 part concentration

I've got a couple of projects ahead of this one. But as soon as I get to it, I'll report back. So much fun!


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## LBV (Nov 12, 2019)

Hi, most of my soaps are brine soaps as I am like my bars quite hard. I also made a CO brine bar for laundry. Salt is 20% weight of water). I was thinking that the brine would lower the foaming of the CO (I have a front loader). I have just got a new machine and instructions say don't use salt. So the question is does the salt stay in the bar or does the chemical reaction alter it?


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## cascarral (Dec 4, 2019)

LBV said:


> Hi, most of my soaps are brine soaps as I am like my bars quite hard. I also made a CO brine bar for laundry. Salt is 20% weight of water). I was thinking that the brine would lower the foaming of the CO (I have a front loader). I have just got a new machine and instructions say don't use salt. So the question is does the salt stay in the bar or does the chemical reaction alter it?


For what I can understand it does stay in the final bar. When I make my brine solution the salt appears to be completely dissolved (I use a very weak solution, like 10%), however after adding the lye some of the salt separates again and you can see the crystals, I've even filtered it and a lot of the salt crystals stay on the filter so I'd guess there's still most of the salt in my soap as well.


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## smengot0 (Dec 4, 2019)

Nevada said:


> The tricky part is pronunciation, "soul-lay-say-ef-aye"


LOL


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## Mtn5ro (Dec 7, 2019)

". They all recommend using flat molds (not loaf).  So I'm going to try "
50% CO
25% OO
20% PO
5% Castor oil
with 10% SF
Brine water at the 4 parts /1 part concentration

I did a loaf.
Don't forget the water needed for the lye to dissolve in. Otherwise the salt will precipitate out as I found out. (Thank goodness).
I followed your plan except 33% coconut, 10%Avocado, 7% castor, 30% evo, 20% Shea butter.


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