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Of course, you can't tell it anything. But if it is saponifying one faster, how will you stop it from completely saponifying that one first?

Some fats go to trace at a rate that seems much faster to me, than other fats. For instance, a lot of the solids oils seem to trace in less than a minute, while some of the liquid oils (like olive) seem to not trace for many minutes of stick blending. Isn't this a sign that some are saponifying...

From things I've read, I was under the impression that different fats did not saponify at the same rate, so ratios would change with the slowest saponifying oils left at the end. So, you're saying the different fats saponify at the same rate, which would have to happen for the ratios to remain...

From a guy's perspective - I don't know what your co-worker's intent was, because I wasn't there, but in general, men do not take such things seriously. Get a group of guys together and we will often make fun of anything and everything another guy does - all in humor. Sometimes, we forget that...

I used the default 38% water in Soap Calc. Even if this wasn't an experiment, I would have noticed something wrong with the lye-heavy soap, but it wouldn't have been the lye. It would be the fact that it was so brittle at 48 hours. To look at it, there was no color difference and no lye...

Yes, I have and it's very obvious. I've also had a lye crystal on my arm that I hit with water and it zapped instantly and clearly. I touched both of these soap formulas to my tongue several times on several bars, and nothing. I even held it there for a couple seconds. From the pH reading, I...

Okay, I went ahead and did it. I put my tongue to both soaps and no zap - nada. So what was your guarantee?

I have completed the pH testing at trace, 24 hrs and 48 hours on two soaps with the same formula. The exception being the superfat level. I made one at 5% SF and a lye-heavy one at -10% SF The formula was similar to others I have made that ended up around 10.5 pH after several weeks. 50% PO...

Ah, I didn't think to test my shaving soaps. They are very high stearic acid soaps. I've have to give them a test the next time I'm doing some testing.

This particular pen only has one-point calibration and I would have used a higher pH buffer, but I didn't have one. I am going to pick one up so that down the road, the tests may be more accurate. What I was most interested in seeing was not the actual pH reading, but the fact that out of my...

summerflyy, I'm actually doing this test, because I prefer not to put soap in my mouth (on purpose) and want to find out for myself if pH can be useful for determining when my soap is safe. I have my own doubts about zap testing. I have to wonder if everyone's mouth, saliva, tastebuds, etc are...

In my quest to understand the value of knowing pH to determine soap safety, I decided to experiment a bit. I'll outline what I did and what I plan to do further. I have 40+ different soaps here at this time, but some are rather close, so I decided to test 10 of those that seemed the most...

I do have the equipment and supplies. I have electronic pH meters, the calibration solutions and distilled water. I think I will test all my soaps just to get an idea of how much pH actually varies with mine. If I have time, I'll purposely make a lye-heavy soap and then see what happens to the...

Sorry, I must have missed it, or wasn't paying attention since I assumed that would be the case. So, if I have a recipe that after 4 weeks, tests at 10.2 pH, on a regular basis, then it would seem to me that pH testing would tell me if a future batch of this recipe was safe, since if the...

So, what are the typical buffers in soap? I would have guessed that it was the various fatty acids.

Maybe it's the definition of buffering that is getting in the way. It appears that it is being said that buffering makes a pH safe even it is very low or very high. I can't get my mind around that. You can buy a buffered sulfuric acid for drain cleaning. Buffering makes the pH stable, the...

Thanks DeeAnna, I appreciate the effort you put into that post. I'm probably a bit dense, but I still cannot see how a soap with a pH of 13 would be safe. I understand the concept of the buffer, which will stabilize pH. I do not see how the buffer will make a pH of 13 (or 12.4) safe. I'm...

From what I'm reading, OH can be contributed by more than just lye. It can come from other ingredients and the concentration determines how caustic the soap would be. The more OH, the higher the pH. So, how can a soap have no excess lye, and a pH of 12.5 or 13 and not be caustic? Conversely...

I got two things of importance from those threads. One, figuring out the pH is tricky and knowing what it means is not straight forward. Two, time is your friend and if I'm waiting 3 months, then there is little to no risk of a lye-heavy soap. I'm very comfortable with my decision to not lick...

Can't that be said of any recipe? How do you really know you got everything right? Just because it doesn't zap, doesn't mean you got the SF correct. It's been a long time since my college chemistry classes, but isn't lye caustic because it has a very high pH? Is there a pH level that would...