# Dishwashing LS



## emi (Sep 15, 2019)

Dearest Soapers!
I'm seeking advise regarding dishwashing soap. I'm not sure if this LS I made is good for dishwashing or not. I think its original purpose was more a hand soap? So now that I succeeded in making this LS (thanks to IrishLass!), my questions are:

Can I use this as dishwashing liquid? Or is the 3% SF too high for dishwashing? Can I add some citrus EOs or is that not a good idea for dishwashing? Should I add tetra EDTA or anything else? I have very hard water. I'm guessing I should. IrishLass's creamy shea tutorial says to add tetraEDTA at 1.96% of paste but is referring to a 39% solution. Mine's in powder form so I'm going to have to calculate that 39% solution. Can someone remind me, is "EDTA in 39% solution" mean for example, 100g of water + 39g of EDTA? or is it 39g of EDTA + 61g of water? It's the first one right?? Is it possible for me to just figure out how much powder I need to add and add it directly to the LS or do I need to dissolve it in water first? My LS turned out pretty watery so I'd prefer not to add any more water than I have to. 

This is the LS I made following a recipe I found on this forum posted by IrishLass. (This is not her amazing creamy Shea/Coco LS that I have made and love! https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/my-creamy-cocoa-shea-gls-tutorial.57974/) This one's a little simpler, the recipe is below. I can't seem to find the original post by IrishLass so I'd appreciate it if anyone knows where it is they could share the link. I found it a couple years ago and printed it out for myself. It was a recipe she said is "3bees~1flower's (Carrie's) formula". Here's a pic and recipe below.






65% Olive oil
25% coconut oil
10% castor oil
SF 3%
diluted at 1:0.62 paste:water (0.62 only if dissolving KOH in equal amount water before adding to glycerin. If dissolving KOH directly into glycerin with no added water, then 1:0.75)
sodium lactate added at dilution at 3% of paste.

Mine actually turned out pretty watery which I don't mind but the recipe said it should turn out thick and honey-like. Maybe it's because I started with too much glycerin (liquid)
. It didn't specify the liquid to lye concentration or ratio, so I just left the default which was at 2:1 I think.

And just sharing....
I also took some of this LS and made it a nicer hand soap by following the part in IrishLasses' Creamy Shea tutorial on how to SF and scent the LS in her recipe. In the pic below the smaller jar on the left is the one I added the following to:
Meadowfoam oil 2% of LS weight
PS80 3% of meadowfoam oil
EO of verbena and Eucalyptus totaling 0.5% of LS
PS80 equal amount of to EO





I'd appreciate any advise on making my soap into dishwashing soap or making dish soap from scratch as well! -emi


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## DeeAnna (Sep 15, 2019)

I think you're going to find the added meadowfoam will eventually separate out from the LS unless you add a lot more PS80. The paste contains 3% superfat and you've added the meadowfoam in addition to that. If I'm following you correctly, you added PS80 as only 3% of the meadowfoam weight. I take that to mean if you added 100 g meadowfoam to the LS, you would have added only 3 g PS80? In my experience, I have had to add a _lot _more polysorbate 80 to get the fat fully solubilized.

As far as the Carrie/IL recipe being a good dishwashing soap. Regular soap (KOH or NaOH soap) is not going to be real effective if you squirt a bunch in a sink full of water unless you're using super soft water. There's just too much hard water mineral dissolved in that much water. The soap will react with those minerals and basically turn into mostly or all soap scum unless you use a huge amount of soap. That's why real soap doesn't make much lather in a sink of water and that's why the soap doesn't clean well -- there's mostly soap scum in the water, not actual soap, and soap scum doesn't clean nor does it lather.

If you're going to use LS for dishwashing, IMO it's best used for spot washing -- squirt a little soap directly on your cleaning sponge or cloth, wash the dish using the soapy sponge/cloth and a minimum of water, and then rinse. LS can work okay that way. I keep the Carrie/IL soap at my kitchen sink for washing hands, but I will use it for spot washing dishes on occasion. What I find, compared with Dawn detergent, is the Carrie/IL recipe doesn't work nearly as well to cut heavy grease, but it works fine on light soil, light grease.

The ideal recipe for dishwashing is a 100% coconut oil soap with minimum superfat for maximum grease cutting and fast solubility in water. It's still going to perform at its best if used for spot washing. Problem is it's also going to be tough on your hands.

As far as EDTA or other chelators being the solution to using LS for dish washing -- A chelator won't make the soap scum issue worse, but it's going to be limited in what it can do. You cannot physically pack enough EDTA in a LS to handle all of the hard water minerals in a sink of water ... and still have the soap be decent soap. I wrote a long post about how much chelator would be needed for treating the water in a clothes washing machine. The same idea applies to dishwashing.  See https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/laundry-soap-and-hard-water-questions.75237/


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## Zany_in_CO (Sep 16, 2019)

DeeAnna said:


> The ideal recipe for dishwashing is a 100% coconut oil soap with minimum superfat for maximum grease cutting and fast solubility in water. It's still going to perform at its best if used for spot washing.


I agree. That's what I use for dishwashing, laundry, orange spray cleaner, and foamers -- 100% coconut oil at 0% SF; dilution rate: 40% soap to 60% water.

I have a foamer at the kitchen sink for washing dishes. It is further diluted at a rate of 1 oz liquid soap + 3 oz water to make up the solution for the foamer. I use a few pumps of foam on a sponge, a quick rub, then rinse thoroughly with cool water to remove soap residue.


DeeAnna said:


> Problem is it's also going to be tough on your hands.


I don't find it drying at all when used for washing my hands, but that's just me -- and I do wear gloves when doing dishes.


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## emi (Sep 16, 2019)

Ooh DeeAnna thank you for replying!

Re: Meadowfoam oil. I'm glad to hear this, because I honestly thought it was odd that for amount of PS80, I only needed 3% of the meadow foam, but then said 100% of the EOs. I figured oil was oil, right? So I got the recipe back out to check and here it is word for word. This is the step after the LS is already made and now adding SF and scent. This is from IrishLass's creamy shea LS recipe.

"Once I have figured out how much soap I have, I multiply it by 2.053% to come sup with the weight of Meadowfaom SF to add. Then I multiply the Meadowfoam's weight by 3% to calculate how much PS80 to mix with it in order to soluble it into my soap. You can go higher in on the PS80 if you need to but I've found 3% of Meadowfaom Seed Oil is all that I need. For what it's worth, I weigh these 2 things out on my small Jennig's scale, which can weigh things accurately in very small increments."

I made a batch of the creamy shea LS, about 500g of paste last year and loved it. I did always tend to add a little more PS80 than the 3% of meadow foam it called for. Maybe it did separate but I didn't notice, since they were just in my pump bottles around the house.  I just ran out of it completely which is why I made a new batch of LS and wanted to try this other clear one. Well is that maybe why the one I added meadowfoam to is so cloudy? I honestly don't care what it looks like, I just want it to function well. Do you think if I add more PS80 to equal 100% of the meadowfoam I added it will function better? Is clarity any kind of indicator of un-emulsified oils?

Re: EDTA. I have actually already read that entire thread when I made my own laundry detergent. I read your bells website too! And based on that super useful information, I made, and still have 100% CO LS at 0%SF. I chose to do just the LS instead of CP, grating, drying. I use the LS and washing soda (sodium carbonate) I made from baking sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) in the oven. I use 18 g of the CO LS at 1:1 dilution  and 30g of washing soda because I have a top loading machine that uses about 150L of water. I think I calculated about 18g LS was bout how much 15g of CP granule/powder would be? Not sure if my math was correct on that. Does that sound right? It seems to be working fine, but it seems that the long term effects of laundry soaps/detergents are the bigger threats of improper formulas?

So for dishwashing liquid I see how EDTA is not the solution. Would sodium carbonate somehow be able to play a role in dishwashing soap? I'm guessing no, unless the fill-the-sink method?  I'll try the 100% CO LS I have left for spot cleaning. I use a dishwasher for most of my dishes and I do just spot cleaning with a sponge normally, but sometimes have greasy pots and pans I wash by hand. Plus I do love regular store-bought dish soap, and to recreate that, it looks like that means I would have to face the mysterious world of surfactants I'm still scared of... (but I'm almost at the point of ordering ingredients for my long pending shampoo project!) Making my own dishwasher pods is also a pending project.

My 100% CO LS has gone kinda cloudy since I made it about 3 months ago. Is there something I did wrong? It was crystal clear when I first made and jarred it. It is at a slightly stronger dilution than the recipe said which was 1:1. This one's at about 1:0.85 paste to water. 




Thank you so much DeeAnna for all your help.


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## DeeAnna (Sep 16, 2019)

I get overwhelmed with lots of questions all together, so forgive me if I don't reply to all.

The thing is ... what worked for IL in her cocoa-shea recipe may or may not apply to any other recipe, and I'm not even thinking about this other LS anyway because there's the added stearic acid is complicating matters. What I am focusing on in YOUR LS is the LS with meadowfoam is cloudy and the LS without is clear. In my experience with LS, that shift from clear to cloudy means something is eventually going to separate. If using PS80 to solubilize an oil into this particular LS, I would want the final mixture to be almost or fully clear as the original LS for a stable mixture.

You certainly can add sodium carbonate (washing soda) to dishwashing water to soften the water. You'll have to experiment with the amount to get enough softening action. 

I want to add to my earlier post and explain we use a whole-house water softener. Our water isn't rain water super soft, but it's reasonably soft for bathing.  I'd still not use a lye-based soap for dishwashing in a sink full of water -- there is still too much hard water mineral for the soap to perform well. So washing soda would be required to get the water soft enough even with our water.


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## SoapySuds (Sep 16, 2019)

I use a recipe that has a lot of coconut oil in it. Yes. It's a bit cloudy, but settles out over time. However, it cleans like nothing else.

Superfat at -1%

50% CO
30% GSO
10% CastorO
10% SO

I do not use thickening agents. I don't put salt in my LS. I've tried those, and they are a pita to work with. I don't need it to look like the crap in the grocery store, I want it to clean. Adding thickening agents inhibits the suds. Adding salt can cause it to separate. If I'm using it for myself, why do I need it to look like Dawn Dish soap? (side bar, after about a year of using my homemade LS, I found a small bottle of Dawn, and so not to be wasteful, I went ahead and used it. Never again. I don't care that it's thicker, I have to use three to four times the amount and it dries my hands out. My pans have to soak longer, my pots have to sit around longer with dried bits of food on them. Nope. I will stick to my 'watery' but powerfully effective LS)

If you want an excellent cleaner for stainless steel and oven tops (not glass), use your soap paste while it still 'zaps'.  Wear gloves.

I don't super fat my dish washing LS. There's enough grease from cooking to nullify the suds if it's got too much superfat in it.

We have hard water, and CO will suds in sea water.

I don't want to spend hours washing my dishes, so no, my hands aren't dried out. My soap is amazing.

If the excess lye freaks you out, correct it with some citric acid.

Citrus oils are great cleaners on their own. Lemon, grapefruit, lime, orange... Adding some to your LS will be great, and smell nice.


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## emi (Sep 17, 2019)

Thank you and sorry for my endless questions! I'm going to try my left over 100% CO 0%SF oil soap for dishwashing by sponge (not in a sink full of soapy water). And I'll add more PS80 drop by drop into my LS on a scale to see if it'll clear up. Thanks again for all your help!


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## emi (Sep 17, 2019)

Thanks for your reply! I want to try your recipe next. I've never thought to make a -1%SF LS! I bet that cuts through the toughest grease! I also don't care about how it looks. I just want it to work. I"m gonna try my CO soap and then try yours. But what is GSO? I looked it up on the acronym page but couldn't find it. and SO is sunflower oil correct?


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## DeeAnna (Sep 18, 2019)

emi said:


> ...I've never thought to make a -1%SF LS! I bet that cuts through the toughest grease!...



A -1% superfat used when setting up the recipe may or may not be a true negative superfat in the finished soap, depending on how the KOH purity is accounted for and whether the actual fats used have slightly different sap values from the values used in the soap calculator.

A slight real negative superfat in a new batch of LS may also disappear after a few weeks as the soap mellows.

IMO, a slight negative superfat is more about ensuring there is no extra fat in the finished soap, and less about having excess lye, and thus a higher pH, in the soap. If you want to raise the pH more effectively and safely when washing dishes, use washing soda. It will raise the pH of the dishwater and react with the hard water minerals. And washing soda is somewhat less likely to be damaging to the skin than excess NaOH.

If there is a true lye excess (negative superfat) in the finished soap, be careful when using it with bare hands until you have some experience with it. Even a -1% superfat may (or it may not) be irritating and drying, depending on your skin. If you're prone to dermatitis, eczema or similar skin issues, I'd be extra cautious.


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## SoapySuds (Sep 18, 2019)

GSO - grape seed oil. I add it in everything because I have a pail of it, and it needs to go.


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