# Dual lye castile



## DeeAnna

Hey, liquid soap makers, here's a new thing to make with your KOH --

I have been reading Anne Watson's "Castile Soapmaking" book. She discusses the issue of castile (100% olive oil + NaOH) soap forming that slimy gel we all love to hate (aka snot or slime) and the related problem of the soap not lathering well. To help combat these disadvantages, she suggests making castile soap with 5% KOH and 95% NaOH.

Intrigued, I put it on my to-do list. Last weekend, I made a small batch of "mock castile" soap using 100% high oleic safflower oil, 5% KOH, balance NaOH, 40% lye solution concentration, 3% superfat. My personal calc includes estimates for the actual purity of the lyes, so there's less chance of extra "hidden" superfat in my soap compared with recipes made with most online calcs. 

By golly, Anne's suggestion works pretty good.

I compared this week-old soap to a 2 year old 100% OO soap by washing my hands in cool water. The OO soap immediately formed the classic ropy gel and small amounts of creamy lather. I could put my hand flat on the wet bar of soap, pull it away slowly, and the soap would form slimy ropes of gel 1 to 1 1/2" long before they broke. 

The young HO safflower soap doesn't make any snot at all. It lathers easily with a nice amount of fluffy bubbles mixed with a creamy lather that has a slightly slick, syrupy quality. This slick, syrupy quality of the young soap's lather is similar to that of the older castile after I worked to get its lather developed.

The soap with 5% KOH is not at all soft or sticky. It unmolded and cut nicely 12 hours after the soap was poured. It looks just like a normal bar of NaOH soap. I found myself wondering how 10% KOH would change a high oleic soap, whether for better or worse. Or whether 5% to 10% KOH would improve the amount and quality of lather in tallow or lard bar soaps -- in other words, soaps high in palmitic + stearic acids.

Some of you might wonder why I used HO safflower if the point was to make a castile. A couple of years ago I made a 100% OO soap and a 70% high oleic safflower + 30% lard soap and compared the two. They both made the same slimy gel and the same low level of lather when hand washing, so I concluded a castile acts like a castile because of the high oleic acid content more than anything else. I don't have any OO around that I want to use for soaping, but I have plenty of HO safflower. My earlier experiment made me comfortable with this substitution.


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## snappyllama

That is interesting! With the brick-hard bar that my Castile makes, I don't think 5% KOH would be any problem at all and anything that cuts down the slime factor is awesome. 

Next time I make Castille, I'll have to try it out. Thanks for the suggestion!


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## IrishLass

Drat!!! I should've known something like this would come along right on the heels of my adamant decision to cease making any more 100% Castile's ever. lol  You beguiling soaptress, you. :razz:


IrishLass


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## DeeAnna

It still has that odd castile syrupy-ness to the lather, but I doubt the average soap user would pick up on this. What they would notice is the soap makes lather a faster, it's more bubbly, and there's no slime. I'm curious to see how the soap does as it cures.

A tip for those who masterbatch lye -- I used a 50% NaOH master solution to make this soap and had to add the extra KOH somehow. I experimented with adding the KOH directly to the 50% NaOH solution and wasn't surprised to find that didn't work very well -- the KOH flakes didn't dissolve. I then added enough extra water to the lye mixture to equal the KOH weight and the flakes dissolved fine. I'm sure if I had made a 30% or 35% NaOH solution, the KOH would have dissolved fine without any extra water. It's just when the solution is near saturated that this will be an issue -- be sure to add enough extra water for the KOH.

I remembered this evening during supper -- there was a gal with the screen name of Sistrum who talked about using 10% or so of KOH in her bar soap recipes when she was active here a couple or three years ago. I should look up her posts.

IL -- I'm glad I could tempt you with this!


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## Arimara

I might have that book. I may look into it.


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## DeeAnna

If you've got the KOH on hand, this change is easy to add to any recipe, although I think high oleic soaps (olive oil) and high stearic-palmitic soaps (lard, tallow) will benefit the most. 

I recently added an article to my website about how to properly calculate the weights of NaOH and KOH for a dual lye recipe: http://classicbells.com/soap/dualLye.html


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## Arthur Dent

Very interesting indeed.  This reminded me to test my 100% HO safflower soap I made last October following a discussion with Obsidian.  It's whiter than any other soap I have made, totally without any smell at all, completely DOS free, and rock hard.  It does indeed give the ropy slime that everyone talks about from castile, though if you work at it a while it turns into a nice creamy lather.  If 5% or so KOH would get rid of the ropy slime this would be a pretty nice soap.  I think it's time to order some KOH.
Thanks very much DeeAnna!


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## DeeAnna

It's an elegant solution to the problem, and I can't think of any other solution that really solves the problem of snotty castile except to make a bastille. And then it's not castile anymore.

An old-time Castile soap would have been made with a lye solution made from the ashes of seacoast plants. Because these plants had to deal with a lot of salt from the ocean, the lye solution had a lot of sodium in it, but there was still a goodly amount of potassium, since plants naturally contain potassium in their tissues. So the original castile would have been made with a mixture of sodium and potassium alkalis. Maybe this dual-lye recipe is taking castile back to its roots?


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## mzimm

> The soap with 5% KOH is not at all soft or sticky. It unmolded and cut nicely 12 hours after the soap was poured. It looks just like a normal bar of NaOH soap. I found myself wondering how 10% KOH would change a high oleic soap, whether for better or worse. Or whether 5% to 10% KOH would improve the amount and quality of lather in tallow or lard bar soaps -- in other words, soaps high in palmitic + stearic acids.



Thanks so much for posting this.....I feel some experimenting coming on, lol.  My oils stock is heavy on the tallow, with more coming soon after rendering a grass-fed beef we're buying in to.  I would dearly love to up the percentage of tallow in my recipes if I could only improve the lather somehow.


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## DeeAnna

Since this is my first experience with adding KOH to an otherwise normal type of bar soap, I can't say for sure whether a bit of KOH will help a tallow or lard soap lather better. But I do know potassium soaps are more water soluble than the equivalent sodium soaps, and being more soluble is related to making more lather. 

As the KOH dosage goes up, it will eventually make the soap unacceptably soft, more like wax or clay. I know 40% KOH makes a soft soap from watching the experiments Kevin Devine did with his shave soap (look for Devinely Yours videos on Youtube). But 5% KOH seems to be a safe dosage to try and even 10% might be fine. Anything over that is going to be an experiment.


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## Barbsbreakingbath

*Castile*



DeeAnna said:


> Hey, liquid soap makers, here's a new thing to make with your KOH --
> 
> I have been reading Anne Watson's "Castile Soapmaking" book. She discusses the issue of castile (100% olive oil + NaOH) soap forming that slimy gel we all love to hate (aka snot or slime) and the related problem of the soap not lathering well. To help combat these disadvantages, she suggests making castile soap with 5% KOH and 95% NaOH.
> 
> Intrigued, I put it on my to-do list. Last weekend, I made a small batch of "mock castile" soap using 100% high oleic safflower oil, 5% KOH, balance NaOH, 31% lye solution concentration, 3% superfat. My personal calc includes estimates for the actual purity of the lyes, so there's less chance of extra "hidden" superfat in my soap compared with recipes made with most online calcs.
> 
> By golly, Anne's suggestion works pretty good.
> 
> I compared this week-old soap to a 2 year old 100% OO soap by washing my hands in cool water. The OO soap immediately formed the classic ropy gel and small amounts of creamy lather. I could put my hand flat on the wet bar of soap, pull it away slowly, and the soap would form slimy ropes of gel 1 to 1 1/2" long before they broke.
> 
> The young HO safflower soap doesn't make any snot at all. It lathers easily with a nice amount of fluffy bubbles mixed with a creamy lather that has a slightly slick, syrupy quality. This slick, syrupy quality of the young soap's lather is similar to that of the older castile after I worked to get its lather developed.
> 
> The soap with 5% KOH is not at all soft or sticky. It unmolded and cut nicely 12 hours after the soap was poured. It looks just like a normal bar of NaOH soap. I found myself wondering how 10% KOH would change a high oleic soap, whether for better or worse. Or whether 5% to 10% KOH would improve the amount and quality of lather in tallow or lard bar soaps -- in other words, soaps high in palmitic + stearic acids.
> 
> Some of you might wonder why I used HO safflower if the point was to make a castile. A couple of years ago I made a 100% OO soap and a 70% high oleic safflower + 30% lard soap and compared the two. They both made the same slimy gel and the same low level of lather when hand washing, so I concluded a castile acts like a castile because of the high oleic acid content more than anything else. I don't have any OO around that I want to use for soaping, but I have plenty of HO safflower. My earlier experiment made me comfortable with this substitution.




Deanna, did you have to stick blend it forever? Just curious


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## Susie

mzimm said:


> Thanks so much for posting this.....I feel some experimenting coming on, lol.  My oils stock is heavy on the tallow, with more coming soon after rendering a grass-fed beef we're buying in to.  I would dearly love to up the percentage of tallow in my recipes if I could only improve the lather somehow.



Are you talking about bar soap or liquid soap here?


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## ngian

Well this is also on my to do list of experiments, and I am glad to read your review DeeAnna on how the 5% KOH helps with lather in a recipe without any Myristic and Lauric fatty acids. 

And this tip was firstly presented by Evik (the curious soapmaker), that Anne Watson is also crediting in her book:

https://www.facebook.com/CuriousSoapmaker/posts/995497590524116


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## mzimm

Susie said:


> Are you talking about bar soap or liquid soap here?



I assumed DeeAnna was talking about bar soap in her post, so yes, I was talking about tallow bar soap, too.  I'm one of those who feels she must have the full lather experience in order to really enjoy a bar of soap, but my tallow soaps have all the qualities of great soap EXCEPT exceptional lather.


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## Susie

mzimm said:


> I assumed DeeAnna was talking about bar soap in her post, so yes, I was talking about tallow bar soap, too.  I'm one of those who feels she must have the full lather experience in order to really enjoy a bar of soap, but my tallow soaps have all the qualities of great soap EXCEPT exceptional lather.



OK, I can speak to tallow in bar soaps, I have actually made those.  

When I rendered tallow, I made several batches of soap at varying amounts of tallow.  One thing they all had in common was good lather of big bubbles.  I used 5% Castor Oil and 1 Tablespoon of sugar per batch.  But I have soft water.


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## mzimm

Susie said:


> OK, I can speak to tallow in bar soaps, I have actually made those.
> 
> When I rendered tallow, I made several batches of soap at varying amounts of tallow.  One thing they all had in common was good lather of big bubbles.  I used 5% Castor Oil and 1 Tablespoon of sugar per batch.  But I have soft water.



Thanks Susie!  Adding sugar is something I've seen and considered, but haven't tried yet, so it too goes on my list of experiments.  Castor oil helps, but honestly I think our biggest problem here is the hard water.  We have well water high in iron deposits, which no amount of Culligan tweaking seems to help with.  My "city folk" friends think my tallow soaps are great, and have no problems with the lather, but for us here at home on the farm, I'm still looking.


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## Susie

Yeah, you're going to have to address your hard water first.  Before sugar or anything else will help.  There are several threads that talk about adding EDTA and other additives to help with lather and soap scum.


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## DeeAnna

Barb -- This batch traced faster than I would prefer. I don't think that was from the KOH. It was a very small batch of soap, so I may have been more heavy handed with the SB than I should have. Also I was using a 40% lye solution concentration (I originally wrote 31% in my first post -- error has been corrected), and that would have caused the soap to trace faster. And last but not least, my HO safflower is older, so I imagine the free fatty acid content may be higher, and that will cause faster trace.

Nikos -- Thanks for tracing the credit back to Evik, the Curious Soapmaker. I don't think Evik is the originator of this idea any more than Anne is, but she and Anne have taken on the task of keeping this idea alive for the benefit of the rest of us, and I respect that. Like I said, I remember SMF member Sistrum sharing this tip several years ago, but I wasn't interested in pursuing the idea at the time she mentioned it. (edit -- see later posts in this thread for the link to Sistrum's post)

Susie and all -- Just to be clear, I'm talking about bar soap; I apologize for not making that really clear in my first post. I debated whether this thread should be in the lye-based forum, but I put it in the liquid soap forum instead because I thought it would interest liquid soapers the most. LS dudes and dudettes have KOH on hand and know how to use it  and bar soapers generally don't.

Marie -- I agree with Susie that you may want to look into adding a chelator to your soap. Two chelators are often mentioned here -- tetrasodium EDTA and sodium citrate. Both will reduce the chance of rancidity (DOS) in your soap and will reduce the amount of soap scum that forms when soap mixes with hard water.


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## penelopejane

DeeAnna said:


> It's an elegant solution to the problem, and I can't think of any other solution that really solves the problem of snotty castile except to make a bastille. And then it's not castile anymore.
> 
> An old-time Castile soap would have been made with a lye solution made from the ashes of seacoast plants. Because these plants had to deal with a lot of salt from the ocean, the lye solution had a lot of sodium in it, but there was still a goodly amount of potassium, since plants naturally contain potassium in their tissues. So the original castile would have been made with a mixture of sodium and potassium alkalis. Maybe this dual-lye recipe is taking castile back to its roots?




Thanks DeeAnna, 
I add 1/2 tblsp ppo honey and 1 tsp salt to my Castile and it makes a difference to snott or its my water don't know. 
This KOH idea sounds great I just have to work out where to buy it!


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## ngian

After reading again this thread, I think it would be a more fair test to compare the 5% KOH's water solubility property between the exactly same oils. Olive oil is similar to Safflower HO but I think that they are not the same.

The above thoughts are based in my experiment I did with 6 soft oils at 40% in a recipe:

*Testing a few soft oils in 40%

*in which I felt that sunflower HO and Sweet Almond oils (which are similar to Olive oil) did lather a second or two faster than Olive oil and *maybe* I could see a few bigger bubbles with Almond oil vs Olive oil.

After seeing their FA profiles in soapcalc I guess that Olive's oil bigger amount of palmitic FA is responsible for that 1 or 2 seconds latency. I haven't worked with safflower HO but from its profile it looks like it is closer to Sunflower HO than to Olive oil.

Anyway by using 5% KOH in a NaOH bar will for sure add more solubility to the final soap, maybe similar to what sugar or Castor oil do (one of a forthcoming experiment).

DeeAnna your personal calculator computed 3% lye discount as 1,5% discount from NaOH and 1,5% discount from KOH and if so does this mean that it was finally used 3,5% KOH?


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## Guspuppy

Apologies for being a little off the main topic, but since we are talking about snotty lather here - is it in Castile soap from the very beginning or does it develop as it ages? I just made my first Castile over the weekend and I added a tbsp of sugar to the water to help it lather. Reading this thread alarmed me so i went and lather tested a piece and it seems fine. I want to give it to some very elderly aunts for Christmas but if it is going to develop snotty lather I'll have to make something else (maybe buy some KOH) soon! We all have soft water, btw, in case that makes a difference.


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## penelopejane

I can only get Potassium Hydroxide in 25 kg buckets where I live and only one soap supplier I have found in Australia will send it via courier. I am not ordering from them for a while.
But after exhaustive ringing around I can buy it in 1kg jars at a cleaning supplier 2 hours drive north.  Next time I go up there on a weekday I will get some. So pleased.


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## penelopejane

Guspuppy said:


> Apologies for being a little off the main topic, but since we are talking about snotty lather here - is it in Castile soap from the very beginning or does it develop as it ages? I just made my first Castile over the weekend and I added a tbsp of sugar to the water to help it lather. Reading this thread alarmed me so i went and lather tested a piece and it seems fine. I want to give it to some very elderly aunts for Christmas but if it is going to develop snotty lather I'll have to make something else (maybe buy some KOH) soon! We all have soft water, btw, in case that makes a difference.



Lots of people (well me and my family) love it.  I cure it for 1 year.  I have used it in less but it tends to dissolve quickly.  I am not sure what they mean by snotty lather.  I don't think I get it and the OO I use is pure EVOO. It might depend on the water supply in your house. It might depend on the OO.


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## fuzz-juzz

penelopejane said:


> I can only get Potassium Hydroxide in 25 kg buckets where I live and only one soap supplier I have found in Australia will send it via courier. I am not ordering from them for a while.
> But after exhaustive ringing around I can buy it in 1kg jars at a cleaning supplier 2 hours drive north.  Next time I go up there on a weekday I will get some. So pleased.




You can get it off eBay in 1kg tubs and also from Escentials of Australia.


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## DeeAnna

Soap will form a gel (aka snot, slime) based on the oleic acid content in the fats used to make it. If the soap is mostly sodium oleate, it's going to form a gel -- that's just its nature. I should probably trot out my solubility charts and get all geeky on y'all to try to explain, but I'm kind of down and tired right now so I'm going to leave it at that. 

There are a number of reasons why some people don't see the gel/snot. Two I can think of quickly -- the soaper is making soap from oil that's sold as olive (or other high oleic fat) but it's really a low oleic fat masquerading as olive or whatever. Or the person is using a fair amount friction and/or lots of water and/or warm water to develop the lather and thus they break up the oleic gel as soon as it forms. It makes no difference whether one's water is hard or soft -- it's more important whether the water is cold or hot, since sodium oleate is more soluble and less inclined to make an obvious gel when used in hot water.

Here's a suggestion to make oleic gel -- Wet the bar of soap and also to wet your hand in cool water. Let any free water run off the soap to leave just a wetted surface. Let the wetted soap sit undisturbed for 10-15 seconds. Don't touch it or add extra water -- give it a short amount of time to absorb the water and form a gel. Put your wet hand firmly flat down on the wetted soap and let it sit for a few seconds. Pull your palm straight away from the soap surface about an inch (2 cm). If you see strings of gel bridging the gap between the soap surface and your hand, that's oleic gel. If your hand has white or clear gelatinous lumps on it, that's oleic gel.

Another way -- Put the soap in a dish that has a thin layer of water in it. You're simulating soap sitting in a wet soap dish. After 20-30 minutes, remove the soap from the dish and examine the soaked surface. If the wetted soap looks more like soft mushy pudding or gravy, the soap isn't high enough in oleic acid to form an oleic gel. If the wetted soap peels off the underlying dry soap in a relatively firm layer -- something a bit like Jello gelatin -- that's oleic gel.


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## penelopejane

fuzz-juzz said:


> You can get it off eBay in 1kg tubs and also from Escentials of Australia.



Yes but i wanted to get more than just one thing from them because of the postage.  I can pick this up next time I go to the big smoke for free. 
Think frugal.  : )


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## penelopejane

DeeAnna said:


> Soap will form a gel (aka snot, slime) based on the oleic acid content in the fats used to make it. If the soap is mostly sodium oleate, it's going to form a gel -- that's just its nature.



DeeAnna, 
Thank you for restating things so understandably.  

Do you think it is causes less gel to form if you have a low SF? like 0% or 2%?


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## DeeAnna

penelopejane said:


> Do you think it is causes less gel to form if you have a low SF? like 0% or 2%?



The 100% olive oil NaOH soap I've been talking about in this thread was made with a -40% superfat (in other words, made with a huge lye excess). It makes plenty of gel. Other people see the same gel formation in their 100% olive oil soaps made with more typical superfat. So I don't think it makes much if any difference. 

What does make a difference whether you see the gel or not when using the soap is the amount of water (lots of warm water = less obvious gel) and abrasion (more mixing and aeration = less obvious gel) and cure (well-cured, dry soap = less soap on your washcloth = less obvious gel)


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## penelopejane

DeeAnna said:


> What does make a difference whether you see the gel or not when using the soap is the amount of water (lots of warm water = less obvious gel) and abrasion (more mixing and aeration = less obvious gel) and cure (well-cured, dry soap = less soap on your washcloth = less obvious gel)




Thank you. I think I do all those options so maybe that's the difference. DH uses a washer so it never comes into consideration for him. My Castile is (mostly) given a year minimum cure.


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## Guspuppy

thank you for that explanation DeeAnna!


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## Arimara

If I can get some rice bran oil, I could try this technique with that, olive oil, and avocado oil. I would take another risk at an 8oz batch but I've learned from my previous mistake and will be more careful with all of my measurements (I made a lye heavy batch of rice bran oil bastile for an experiment). I just don't feel like looking for rice bran oil now.


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## ngian

I was thinking if this dual lye method could help also with thickening a liquid soap. KOH 95%, NaOH 5%. I know only with experiments we can get some answers but I was wondering if anyone has already tried that.


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## Susie

I have used from 5% up to 40% NaOH in an effort to thicken liquid soap.  It does not work.  If you use 50% NaOH, it begins to get snotty unless you make a cream soap.

ETA:  I tried up to 45% NaOH, I had to finish breakfast to check my notes.


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## DeeAnna

From our human point of view, it seems sensible that the overall texture of a mostly-potassium soap should smoothly and gradually shift from water thin to honey-like syrup to smooth gel to firm solid as the percentage of sodium increases in the soap. From the soap's point of view, that is absolutely not something it wants to do.

Sodium soaps really "want" to be organized, so that's why sodium soaps prefer to take a solid form or make a ropy gel depending on water content and fatty acid content. The solidity of a bar soap or the ropy-ness of a sodium-soap gel is the result of those sodium soap molecules trying to organize themselves into some kind of structure. Sodium soaps will finally end their quest to be organized only when the water content gets very high. At that point, a sodium soap will form a watery-thin solution.

Potassium soaps are less particular about being organized into a framework -- they're naturally more disorganized. That is why a potassium soap can range in texture from soft sticky paste to smooth gel/syrup to water-thin liquid, again depending on water content and fatty acid content. 

As you dial up the sodium content in a mostly KOH recipe by adding more and more NaOH, you're very likely to see exactly what Susie has seen -- a fairly abrupt shift from mostly disorganized potassium soap behavior to mostly organized sodium soap behavior. I won't say it's impossible, but I do think it's going to be tough to find a precise mixture of Na and K and fatty acids and water content that produces the human ideal of a thick syrup or gel that stays pourable and doesn't get ropy. We're wanting a soap that is carefully balanced between sodium-soap characteristics and potassium-soap characteristics. That will be a challenge, because a soap generally wants to behave one way or the other, not somewhere in between.


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## Arimara

I wish I could show you the unholy gelatinous soapy mixture that became of my avocado oil tester. I'm trying this again but this time with a 0% superfat. I have my soaps curing now.


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## Arimara

I messed up with the olive oil soap today and made something with a 5% superfat. It is currently hardening up as we speak albeit since I've never made a pure castile, I have no idea if it is setting on the faster side or normally. I made it at about 11:00 or so and it is not a liquid anymore.

The avocado oil, if the dual lye process is used for it, seems trace much faster than olive oil, especially with a mover of an FO.

Edit: I unmolded these two soaps about two hours ago. they were very firm and not zappy. Considering that I was told that I'd have to wait at least a day to unmold a castile, I'm quite surprised.


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## cherrycoke216

DeeAnna said:


> Nikos -- Like I said, I remember SMF member Sistrum sharing this tip several years ago, but I wasn't interested in pursuing the idea at the time she mentioned it. I've tried to find the post where she talked about it, but I've given up on that project. The SMF advanced search will let me restrict my search to just her posts, but it won't search on keywords of 3 letters (KOH) or less. Google won't let me do a combined search in SMF by member name and keyword. And I'm not up to the idea of personally looking through all 500+ of her posts to find the one.








sistrum said:


> Pims, you can add koh to cold process soap.  I now add 10% of my NaOH to my batches high in lard and or tallow to help with lather, but will probably keep going higher just to see where I feel the cut off is for my formulas.





Hi, everyone. Here's a long- time lurker's contribution to the forum...



I think DeeAnna is referring to this post by Sistrum?!

Since I have seen commercial facial soap ingredient list states both NaOH & KOH, and at the time I just didn't get it...and tonight I bumped into this thread with High OLEIC acid soap using both lye.
The curiousness/ geekiness  just got me and I have to find it out. But since I'm a lurker, not quite sure I'm posting it right with iPhone app...

It's from a thread started by FatFacedCharlie called KOH and NaOH in shaving soap , 
www.soapmakingforum.com/archive/index.php/t-32706.html
Probably in post 19 or I just lost count!!! Haha! 

ETA: I used " lard, KOH, % " & user ID sistrum to filter it out... Still not quite sure if this is the answer DeeAnna is referring to.


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## DeeAnna

YES! Thank you, Cherrycoke! <...doing a happy dance...> I really appreciate the help.

Just a thought -- I really think Sistrum meant to write KOH, not NaOH, in her post:

"...I now add 10% of my [_KOH_] to my batches high in lard and or tallow to help with lather, but will probably keep going higher just to see where I feel the cut off is for my formulas. ..."


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## cherrycoke216

DeeAnna said:


> YES! Thank you, Cherrycoke! <...doing a happy dance...> I really appreciate the help.
> 
> Just a thought -- I really think Sistrum meant to write KOH, not NaOH, in her post:




Woohoo!!!
It's me doing the happy dance!
Glad that I can help.
<3
You're a true heroine. Should made you a crown or laurels or something.
Thank you for Always Breaking the hard stuff down and translate into human language for the Non-science people here!

And you are right, I think it's a fast typo there according to the post she replied.


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## DeeAnna

I'm happy that this thread has gotten others interested in using a bit of KOH in bar soap recipes to increase lather and reduce oleic slime. 

Here are a couple of threads that develop this idea further -- I want to mention these threads here so others reading this thread can find the others more easily:

"Castile 95%NaOH 5%KOH calculations help" by Earlene: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=60350
"Dual Alkali Soaps (NaOH & KOH)" by Nikos (ngian): http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=61561
"Dual lye soap? What is this amazing concept?" by Mikvanrose: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?p=625451


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## The Efficacious Gentleman

Has anyone done a comparison of sugar, koh, and sugar and koh in bars to see the differences if any?


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## Scooter

The Efficacious Gentleman said:


> Has anyone done a comparison of sugar, koh, and sugar and koh in bars to see the differences if any?



Such a great question. I am very interested in this.

Scooter


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## Scooter

DeeAnna said:


> "Castile 95%NaOH 5%KOH calculations help" by Earlene: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=60350
> "Dual Alkali Soaps (NaOH & KOH)" by Nikos (ngian): http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=61561



Thank you so much DeeAnna. I love how people share so much of their experience on this forum. It really helps newbies like me.

Scooter


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## CTAnton

I feel like Irish Lass...just when you thought you could turn your back on high olive oil percentage soaps...I plan on doing a batch tomorrow for next year's Christmas gifts...although I'm not sure a year old cure will make a noticeable difference on a hybrid lye soap...


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## earlene

The Efficacious Gentleman said:


> Has anyone done a comparison of sugar, koh, and sugar and koh in bars to see the differences if any?



I am curious what you mean exactly?  Sometimes I don't quite understand something that may be clear to someone else, so please help me understand your question.

Dual Lye soap with added sugar versus Dual Lye soap without added sugar?

Or something else?  Or that and something more?  

I have thought of doing side-by-side batches of with-sugar and without-sugar in some recipes to see if there really is a big difference, but have not done.


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## Scooter

earlene said:


> I am curious what you mean exactly?  Sometimes I don't quite understand something that may be clear to someone else, so please help me understand your question.
> 
> Dual Lye soap with added sugar versus Dual Lye soap without added sugar?
> 
> Or something else?  Or that and something more?
> 
> I have thought of doing side-by-side batches of with-sugar and without-sugar in some recipes to see if there really is a big difference, but have not done.



The way I read his question I thought he meant to test three different scenarios:  1) the effect of KOH alone versus 2) the effect of sugar alone versus* 3) the effect of KOH and sugar combined. I am also assuming (maybe wrongly) that there is no CO nor castor oil in any of these soaps and such an experiment would look just at the differences in lathering created by a little additional KOH or sugar.

I would like to hear more from TEG about how he would set up such an experiment.

*ETA: So in case #1 no added sugar and in case #2 no dual lye, just NaOH for case #2

--Scooter


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## The Efficacious Gentleman

Scoots was right - I would make 3 batches with the same recipe, except for a variation:

Batch 1 - 100% NaOH with added sugar
Batch 2 - 5% KOH, no sugar
Batch 3 - 5% KOH, with sugar

I think for many of us the difference between a pure NaOH soap with no sugar and one with is clear, so we can keep it at 3 variations. Batch 1 is control.


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## Susie

I can help there, but with high lard rather than high OO soap:

1)  Sugar, no KOH:  Rich, creamy, dense lather.  Not a lot of large bubbles, not a lot of lather, but it gets the job done.
2)  5% KOH, no sugar:  lather is still creamy, not quite as rich, larger bubbles, more like syndet lather (had to open a bar of Zest that was purchased before I married him), but not quite the same as syndet lather.
3)  5% KOH, with sugar:  Rich, creamy, less dense lather.  Lots of lather.  Small, medium, and large bubbles.  Much more like syndet lather.  This is my new favorite method.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman

Brilliant, thanks Susie. 

I did think that if anyone had tried out the bubbly boosters, it would be you!


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## DeeAnna

I hadn't tried sugar or honey, but I do several variations of a given soap recipe that has a high % of lard. One variant I do uses plain water, another uses beer, and a third uses a water infusion of sweetgrass as the liquid. 

I'd say there's good agreement amongst soapers that beer boosts bubbles compared to plain water. I know the sweetgrass infusion increases bubble-age too, much like beer. I started using KOH in all my soap since July of this year, so I've now made all three variations without KOH and with KOH. 

The beer or sweetgrass additive causes the lather to be more abundant for about the same amount of work compared with the water-only version. The additive doesn't seem to change the character of the lather a lot. If the lather is dense like whipped cream when made with only water, then a beer or sweetgrass version makes more of the same. Well, okay, maybe it's a little fluffier, but it still has mostly a whipped cream texture -- not super fluffy and light like a high coconut oil soap.

IMO, the KOH causes the lather to start quicker and easier and the lather has a spray of big, fluffy bubbles on top. The difference is really marked with a high oleic soap, but it happens with a high-lard soap too.

Some of this is subjective, I know, but I hope it helps.


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## Susie

DeeAnna said:


> I hadn't tried sugar or honey, but I do several variations of a given soap recipe that has a high % of lard. One variant I do uses plain water, another uses beer, and a third uses a water infusion of sweetgrass as the liquid.
> 
> I'd say there's good agreement amongst soapers that beer boosts bubbles compared to plain water. I know the sweetgrass infusion increases bubble-age too, much like beer. I started using KOH in all my soap since July of this year, so I've now made all three variations without KOH and with KOH.
> 
> The beer or sweetgrass additive causes the lather to be more abundant for about the same amount of work compared with the water-only version. The additive doesn't seem to change the character of the lather a lot. If the lather is dense like whipped cream when made with only water, then a beer or sweetgrass version makes more of the same. Well, okay, maybe it's a little fluffier, but it still has mostly a whipped cream texture -- not super fluffy and light like a high coconut oil soap.
> 
> IMO, the KOH causes the lather to start quicker and easier and the lather has a spray of big, fluffy bubbles on top. The difference is really marked with a high oleic soap, but it happens with a high-lard soap too.
> 
> Some of this is subjective, I know, but I hope it helps.



I was hoping you would have tested them!  My results are subjective, also, but without videos, how else are we going to explain what we have?


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## Dahila

you got me interested I changed my best soap for dual lye, the only change I make for now.  it contains lard and tallow


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## Dahila

I sample that soap as ^^ and it is really bubbly, will do it with others.  Thanks guys


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## Nanditasr

DeeAnna said:


> Last weekend, I made a small batch of "mock castile" soap using 100% high oleic safflower oil, 5% KOH, balance NaOH, 40% lye solution concentration, 3% superfat.



Would this work if I used ammonia instead of KOH? I don't have KOH but I do have plenty of _industrial strength_ ammonia (which needs to be diluted with 19 parts water, in order to simulate the store-bought 5% ammonia).


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## DeeAnna

I can't say, since I've not tried it. Ammonia based soap is more soluble than sodium soap, so theoretically it should work. 

Just remember your stoichiometry -- this is not 5% by weight; it is 5% on a molar basis. And review and follow the chemical safety requirements for working with concentrated ammonia solutions.


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## Nanditasr

DeeAnna said:


> Just remember your stoichiometry -- this is not 5% by weight; it is 5% on a molar basis. And review and follow the chemical safety requirements for working with concentrated ammonia solutions.



I'm enthused to try it now!
About the stoichiometry: Yes, I've seen another post of yours where you've explained it; thanks.


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## Zany_in_CO

DeeAnna said:


> I know the sweetgrass infusion increases bubble-age too, much like beer.


This is the first I've heard about this. Who knew?! I'm very interested. I have some dried sweet grass that I grew to make smudge sticks a few years back. Please m'am, I'd like to use it up and try this.  So, should I crunch it or powder it? Is there a best ratio of this herb to oil? Is there a link I can read?

FYI: If I want to add "sugar" to a batch, I use starch water to make my lye solution, i.e., potato water, pasta water, rice water. Rice water is especially nice.


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## earlene

Zany, so when you boil pasta you don't add oil to the water, then? I always add into the boiling water before I add the pasta so have not felt it appropriate for a lye solution. But it's great in soup.


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## Zany_in_CO

earlene said:


> Zany, so when you boil pasta you don't add oil to the water, then?


Correct.


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## homesteaders

Making Castile soap this afternoon. I'll try it with 5% KOH this time. Thanks for the info!


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## Tinlee

I don't get it.  Unless you are washing a baby why would anyone want to use Castile anyway?  It just doesn't clean very well.  However,  I started hardening any soap that has oo in it by adding salt.  I have to add salt anyway due to hard water so I salt to accommodate the slimy oo.  I still don't get it though.  Castille doesn't really lather and takes years to harden properly as a bar soap.  The only place I really like it is as a mix with coconut oil for a base for shampoo.  It makes pretty good shampoo bars too.  Will someone please tell me why I should even like Castille?


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## Tinlee

I do think I want to at least try the mixed lye at least once for this....can't help it.


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## DeeAnna

"...why would anyone want to use Castile anyway? It just doesn't clean very well. ... Will someone please tell me why I should even like Castille?..."

Why do you need to be convinced? If you don't care for it, you don't care for it and that's okay. Castile type soap is not my favorite either, but others do like it and that's their privilege.

FWIW, castile-type soap cleans and lathers just fine last time I checked.


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## shunt2011

I’m one who doesn’t like or rarely uses Castile.  I make one batch a year. Some like it.


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## artemis

Tinlee said:


> However,  I started hardening any soap that has oo in it by adding salt.  .... and takes years to harden properly as a bar soap.



I think this thread is about liquid soap, though, so hardness is really not an issue in this case.


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## shunt2011

artemis said:


> I think this thread is about liquid soap, though, so hardness is really not an issue in this case.



You are correct. I totally missed that.


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## DeeAnna

Actually, this particular thread IS about using KOH in bar soap. I started the thread for the benefit of liquid soapers who have KOH on hand as an alternative use for KOH. That is why I intentionally put it in the liquid soap forum.

On a related note, I personally don't like using salt to harden bar soap nor to thicken liquid soap, because salt reduces lather. But this is yet another example of the adage "to each their own."


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## Tinlee

Oh so true on all counts above.  I rarely make it for the exact reason stated above. (To each their own - make what you enjoy) I do make it for the younger family members who crop up now and again.  What I am trying to understand is why it is the "favorite" at the markets?  Oleic acid is found in other oils so the beneficial properties can be had without the yuck and the cleansing benefit of the other oils is better because of other properties that are also present.  I really probably just need someone who has been soaping for a long time to teach me how to make a good bar of Castille or a good liquid Castille.  I follow recipes exactly and get the results mentioned but I have never touched a hard bar unless I hardened it.  For babies, I just make a liquid (and I usually make bastille leaning towards Castille.)


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## BattleGnome

I think you just said it in this post: a favorite at markets.

Castille has a very long history and thus a great word of mouth marketing. The word “castille” is also a bit trendy now in the same way “all natural” gets all the monies. Customers don’t always know what makes a good soap they just know castille is a good soap word. Sometimes I think they use it to mean a veggie based soap but won’t care if it’s really a Bastille as long as it has some olive oil in it. Just look Bronners, it’s not a castille by soaper definition but the word is all over their marketing.


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## DeeAnna

Yes, "castile" means any type of vegetable oil soap to everyone but soapers. This has been the accepted definition for consumers (not soapers) for well over 100 years and this definition has been upheld in the US courts at least.

Dr Bronners and Kirks and all the other mixed veg-oil soaps can legally be called castile soaps.


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## Tinlee

BattleGnome said:


> I think you just said it in this post: a favorite at markets.
> 
> Castille has a very long history and thus a great word of mouth marketing. The word “castille” is also a bit trendy now in the same way “all natural” gets all the monies. Customers don’t always know what makes a good soap they just know castille is a good soap word. Sometimes I think they use it to mean a veggie based soap but won’t care if it’s really a Bastille as long as it has some olive oil in it. Just look Bronners, it’s not a castille by soaper definition but the word is all over their marketing.


You are quite right.


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## Nanditasr

DeeAnna said:


> I found myself wondering how 10% KOH would change a high oleic soap, whether for better or worse...
> ...so I concluded a castile acts like a castile because of the high oleic acid content more than anything else.


Typically, how much oleic is considered a high oleic soap?


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## madison

The Efficacious Gentleman said:


> Scoots was right - I would make 3 batches with the same recipe, except for a variation:
> 
> Batch 1 - 100% NaOH with added sugar
> Batch 2 - 5% KOH, no sugar
> Batch 3 - 5% KOH, with sugar
> 
> I think for many of us the difference between a pure NaOH soap with no sugar and one with is clear, so we can keep it at 3 variations. Batch 1 is control.


Gentleman, did you make the batches? would you like to share the results?


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## DeeAnna

Nanditasr said:


> Typically, how much oleic is considered a high oleic soap?



I don't know that there's a commonly accepted definition. Speaking purely for myself, "high oleic" starts around 60% oleic acid. A 100% avocado oil soap at 58% oleic would qualify. Certainly a 100% olive oil soap at 69% oleic acid.


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## Nanditasr

DeeAnna said:


> I don't know that there's a commonly accepted definition. Speaking purely for myself, "high oleic" starts around 60% oleic acid. A 100% avocado oil soap at 58% oleic would qualify. Certainly a 100% olive oil soap at 69% oleic acid.


Thanks. Well, considering that most of my soaps contain substantial amounts of at least oleic, stearic or palmitic (and ricinoleic) acid, for whichever reason, it may be worth adding KOH at 5%.


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## DeeAnna

I am updating this thread with a link to an article I wrote about using 5% ammonium hydroxide solution (aka "household ammonia") to make soap. Ammonium hydroxide (NH4OH) solution is an alternative to KOH. 

When used with NaOH to make a "dual lye" bar soap, ammonia solution offers benefits similar to KOH in that it makes soap more soluble so the soap dissolves and lathers more easily. 

I cover the other pros and cons of using ammonia solution and how to use it to make soap in my article: https://classicbells.com/soap/ammoniumHydroxide.html


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## miheypete

After reading this thread, I decided to try the dual lye castile. I have Anne Watson's book about castile soap and used her recipe for Coconut Castor Castile and dual lye and added salt to the lye water.  It's been curing for eight weeks, so I gave it a try this weekend.  I know adding the castor and coconut oils takes it from a true castile to more of a bastille.  I liked it very much. It's a nice hard soap, lathers well, feels good on my skin, and no awful "snotty" texture, which I've always had with true castile.  I also used her CPOP method for the first time and it was very easy.  Since the members of this board have turned me into lardinator, I don't care too much about veg soaps, but this one I think I will make on a somewhat regular basis.  

Thanks for the thread, DeeAnna. And now I'm off to read about the ammonia soap.

Mary


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## Emmanuel

That's really awesome , I will try it out  thank you !


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## TeresaGG

I think I'll try the amonia dual lye first due to local supply availability.


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## Mobjack Bay

It seems that there is always more to learn about soap making.   I’ve had a bag of KOH sitting around for a month.  Now I’m excited to take a stab at a dual lye recipe.  Thanks @DeeAnna!

@TeresaGG and @Emmanuel - DeeAnna includes a caution about having good ventilation when you use ammonia.  Having made soap with ammonia once, I second that.  Ammonia is very stinky. For some reason, I also had a lingering ammonia odor in the soap even though the soap didn’t zap.


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## DeeAnna

Yes, a most excellent reminder about using good ventilation. Please be sure to read the link I gave above for my safety concerns and also how to adjust your recipe for the ammonia. 

Here is the link again -- https://classicbells.com/soap/ammoniumHydroxide.html


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## cmzaha

I use dual lye in almost all of my soaps and have for a few years now.


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## DeeAnna

I do too, Carolyn. Still very pleased with how a dab of KOH helps the lather of my soaps that are high in lard.

I haven't made soap with ammonia, but I probably should one of these days just to say I've done it.

edit -- @Mobjack Bay -- Sometimes the order in which ingredients are added to a chemical reaction can make a difference in the outcome. I wonder if starting the saponification reaction with just the ammonia solution would reduce the odor issue you encountered. Not saying I know this to work ... just musing out loud. Also the Delany sisters' recipe only uses a small amount of household ammonia. Did you do the same or did you use ammonia as a full water replacement?


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## Mobjack Bay

DeeAnna said:


> I do too, Carolyn. Still very pleased with how a dab of KOH helps the lather of my soaps that are high in lard.
> 
> I haven't made soap with ammonia, but I probably should one of these days just to say I've done it.
> 
> edit -- @Mobjack Bay -- Sometimes the order in which ingredients are added to a chemical reaction can make a difference in the outcome. I wonder if starting the saponification reaction with just the ammonia solution would reduce the odor issue you encountered. Not saying I know this to work ... just musing out loud. Also the Delany sisters' recipe only uses a small amount of household ammonia. Did you do the same or did you use ammonia as a full water replacement?


I believe I used the household ammonia as a full water replacement.  I used the ammonia to pull the dye out of madder powder. Beyond that I would need to go back to my notes.  It made a very dark pink soap, so I could certainly get away with less/use it as a split if I do it again.


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## Emmanuel

Hello evryone !
I just made my first dual lye castille soap. I used 5% KOH and 95% NaOH with a 1% superfat (to be sure). The stringy feeling did not disapears however I was able to have castille lather for the first time , it was thin but an interesting addition.


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## shunt2011

Emmanuel said:


> Hello evryone !
> I just made my first dual lye castille soap. I used 5% KOH and 95% NaOH with a 1% superfat (to be sure). The stringy feeling did not disapears however I was able to have castille lather for the first time , it was thin but an interesting addition.


Castille will always have the snotty texture in my opinion.   Even with Zany's recipe I didn't care for castile.   I don't like OO oil at a high amount at all.  I find it drying to my skin. 

Your's is still too new to get a feel for it once cured.  Now it's time to set it aside for a good 12 months.


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