Apple Cider Vinegar Soap

How is it possible to make soap with apple cider vinegar? I would imagine using vinegar to make soap is like using lemon juice to make soap. Just ain't possible. I was on a website looking at their wares. They're making medical claims about their "Apple cider vinegar ****** soap" claiming it "restores your skin's pH and acid mantle" and "kills yeast and Candida albicans." There is no list of ingredients, which is what I was specifically looking for since she said on the FB forum that she sells her recipes. I was going to buy it just to find out how to make vinegar soap! However, none of her Apple cider vinegar collection recipes are for sale. Which makes me wonder how in the world you can possibly make soap with vinegar. Base+acid=neutral. You would have to know exactly how much lye is neutralized by the ACV then add that much extra to compensate for it, wouldn't you? So, if I'm putting 50 gm ACV in the mix, how much extra NaOH do I have to add to prevent a ridiculously high SF? And if the ACV was neutralized by the lye, essentially bringing the vinegar's pH to 7-ish, what's the point of even putting it in there?

This is NOT about bashing or criticizing someone it's about really wanting to know if it is possible to make a vinegar soap. To be honest, I think this person is ripping people off by taking advantage of their illnesses. However, if it is possible to make a vinegar soap, I want to try it JUST BECAUSE. You know?

Yes, you can use vinegar to make soap. Just add the extra lye it wants to react with. This is essentially the same as adding citric acid to soap. If you don't add the extra lye, it raises the superfat enough that it could reduce lather and increase the soap's softness.

There are a lot of myths about vinegar. Vinegar does NOT reduce the pH of lye soap much if at all. Using vinegar to make a soap for washing hair does NOT eliminate the need to rinse the hair afterward with a separate vinegar or citric acid rinse.

Use regular commercial vinegar for up to 100% of the water in soap. Regular commercial vinegar is 5% acetic acid, so about 1 fluid ounce (2 tablespoons, 1 ounce by weight, or 28 grams) of commercial vinegar contains 1.5 g acetic acid.

1 oz (28 g) of commercial 5% vinegar neutralizes 1 g NaOH. 1 oz (28 g) of commercial 5% vinegar neutralizes 1.4 g KOH. For every 1 ounce (28 g) of commercial vinegar in your recipe, add the appropriate extra weight of lye needed to react with the vinegar. If you do not add extra lye, the vinegar, like any other acid, will increase the superfat in your soap.

Suppose I use commercial vinegar (5% acetic acid) for all of the water phase in my favorite soap recipe. The reaction between acetic acid and sodium hydroxide would end up increasing the superfat in this recipe from the usual 5% to a substantial 12%.

DeeAnna said:

Yes, you can use vinegar to make soap. Just add the extra lye it wants to react with. This is essentially the same as adding citric acid to soap. If you don't add the extra lye, it raises the superfat enough that it could reduce lather and increase the soap's softness.

There are a lot of myths about vinegar. Vinegar does NOT reduce the pH of lye soap much if at all. Using vinegar to make a soap for washing hair does NOT eliminate the need to rinse the hair afterward with a separate vinegar or citric acid rinse.

Use regular commercial vinegar for up to 100% of the water in soap. Regular commercial vinegar is 5% acetic acid, so about 1 fluid ounce (2 tablespoons, 1 ounce by weight, or 28 grams) of commercial vinegar contains 1.5 g acetic acid.

1 oz (28 g) of commercial 5% vinegar neutralizes 1 g NaOH. 1 oz (28 g) of commercial 5% vinegar neutralizes 1.4 g KOH. For every 1 ounce (28 g) of commercial vinegar in your recipe, add the appropriate extra weight of lye needed to react with the vinegar. If you do not add extra lye, the vinegar, like any other acid, will increase the superfat in your soap.

Suppose I use commercial vinegar (5% acetic acid) for all of the water phase in my favorite soap recipe. The reaction between acetic acid and sodium hydroxide would end up increasing the superfat in this recipe from the usual 5% to a substantial 12%.

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Thank you, DeeAnna! I'm going to try this! From what you're saying, I'm thinking I could do it one of two ways. Do full water replacement and add the appropriate extra weight of the lye without changing anything in my recipe. Or change my SF from 8 to 2 and not add any extra lye. I'll still end up with "some" type of SF, it will be a mystery SF for me 'cause I suck at math. I think I'm going to try this with two bars of soap. I have Pringles singles containers that I saved for molds. I'll do both of them 100% lard with no additives and 2:1 lye:vinegar ratio. I'll SF one at my normal 8 and the other at 2 then see what happens. I'll toss some color into the 2% bar. Soap is so much fun. I'm really going to have to buy some beer and wine and experiment with those, too. The nice Mormon lady going to the liquor store. What will people think?

Thank you for that explanation, exactly what I was looking for! I am trying to make shampoo with vinegar and will let you know results.

Glad I could help!

Teresa, your comment about being "the nice Mormon lady buying beer" reminded me of a story my dad told me. As a young man, he occasionally had to go to the tavern to buy snuff for his Aunt Fanny, because ladies were not supposed to enter such dens of iniquity. Even Aunt Fanny, who was a crusty old gal and very much a free thinker for her time, wouldn't go against that rule even though I'm sure her snuff habit was plenty scandalous. So she sweet talked him into doing running that errand for her.

Actually, I'll probably get a neighbor to go buy it for me. The last time I bought beer was for a recipe the I got from the Jamie Oliver show. I almost chopped my finger off. Wild exaggeration; however, I DID slice a good bit of the tip of my finger off and had to go to the hospital because it wouldn't stop bleeding. I swore it was God's way of punishing me for breaking his commandment. I'll never cook with alcohol again! Soaping is a whole other pot of fat, though...

ETA: If my beer soap recipe is a success, I'll make the bars round like a snuff can and call it "Aunt Fanny's Tavern Soap" in honor of your aunt.

Aunt Fanny would approve of your tactics! Does your neighbor like homemsde soap?

I love it Aunt Fanny's Tavern Soap. I'd buy that for a dollar!

That last is a quote from the original Robocop movie. T was funnier in 1987.

Love it!!!!!!

DeeAnna said:

Glad I could help!

Teresa, your comment about being "the nice Mormon lady buying beer" reminded me of a story my dad told me. As a young man, he occasionally had to go to the tavern to buy snuff for his Aunt Fanny, because ladies were not supposed to enter such dens of iniquity. Even Aunt Fanny, who was a crusty old gal and very much a free thinker for her time, wouldn't go against that rule even though I'm sure her snuff habit was plenty scandalous. So she sweet talked him into doing running that errand for her.

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My Okie Grammy, whom lived in the Bible Belt of Oklahoma also use snuff. She blamed it on her brothers and was so afraid she would go north when she passed on. I also told her I think she would be forgiven. One of her boys kept her supplied. She lived in a small enough town she would know when my rebel daddy hit town because he stopped at the market for beer, which had to be purchased on the outside through a window. They would always call grammy at inform her Roy was in town!! She always used a can, so one time I took her a really nice copper spittoon.

I lived for a couple years in a very small town in central Utah, as a rare non-Mormon. Something happened in the liquor store I will never forget. An older man came in the door, and the clerk instantly pulled a bottle-stuffed bag from under the counter and stuck it out for him to grab. He then quickly turned and walked back out the door without exchanging money or giving good glance at his face. Shocked, I asked about it. She told me it was a fairly common way to help protect her customers; they would call (and pay) in advance so that they wouldn't be there long. I'm guessing she made a few deliveries as well. Such a far cry from how I was raised; there were beers in the vending machine at the Knights of Columbus (Catholic) gathering hall, and my parents owned a liquor store during the latter years of my youth. Interesting religious/cultural differences.

TeresaT said:

How is it possible to make soap with apple cider vinegar?

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Deanna told you one way to do it. However, if you want to actually lower the pH of the soap with vinegar, you could do so by using hot process and adding vinegar at the end instead of the beginning. It would contribute to your superfat, but in the form of free fatty acids instead of oil, acidifying your soap. You can only lower the pH so much, because past a certain point your soap would lose its soapy properties. But you can definitely lower the alkalinity.

I don't suppose we know what ACV brings to the soap exactly. We only know to the extent that it adds the basic vinegar ingredients of water and acetic acid. The water will remain as water and the acetic acid forms sodium acetate in combination with the lye. This compound has the same"shortening" effect on soap as sodium lactate, a popular additive. It increases hardness and brittleness.

CaraBou, that is hilarious! I'm surprised he wasn't wearing a hat and oversized sunglasses. I grew up Catholic, so liquor was never any big deal (except for the alcoholics in my family). People drink, so what! But I'm now a Mormon living in the Bible Belt surrounded by Baptists. It's all about "the appearance of evil" as well as evil itself. RME. Whatever.


TOMH, thanks for the info. I'm not interested in lowering the pH of the soap. I honestly did not think you could make soap with vinegar. DeeAnna set me straight on that. I was just playing with the SoapCalc to figure out the amount of solution I'd need to make for two 2 oz bars and discovered I have to make one of the bars 4 oz so I could actually add the extra gm of NaOH to it. A 2 oz bar of lard will only need 15.69 gm of liquid at the 2% SF and will need 14.73 gm at the 8% SF. Since I don't have a .001 gm scale (yet, I really should get one!), I have to make a 4 oz bar so I can add 1 gm extra lye.

I am also going to make a 2 oz "control" bar with my master batched lye. I'm not going to put any additives like SC or SL in them. Not worth the effort and again I don't have a .001 gm scale. I'm going to add a little red colorant to the 2% bar because it may be lye heavy. Then I'll add a little blue to the 8% bar because it will be extra-fatted. I'll just dump the excess batter and make all the bars the same weight.

Since I fell asleep for a couple of hours after work today, I'm going to make some vinegar-lye solution and little bars of soap. I have 5% white vinegar. No ACV left in the house, but if this is successful, I might have to come up with an ACV formula soap.

ETA: photo. Here are my experimental soaps.

TeresaT said:

How is it possible to make soap with apple cider vinegar? I would imagine using vinegar to make soap is like using lemon juice to make soap. Just ain't possible. I was on a website looking at their wares. They're making medical claims about their "Apple cider vinegar ****** soap" claiming it "restores your skin's pH and acid mantle" and "kills yeast and Candida albicans." There is no list of ingredients, which is what I was specifically looking for since she said on the FB forum that she sells her recipes. I was going to buy it just to find out how to make vinegar soap! However, none of her Apple cider vinegar collection recipes are for sale. Which makes me wonder how in the world you can possibly make soap with vinegar. Base+acid=neutral. You would have to know exactly how much lye is neutralized by the ACV then add that much extra to compensate for it, wouldn't you? So, if I'm putting 50 gm ACV in the mix, how much extra NaOH do I have to add to prevent a ridiculously high SF? And if the ACV was neutralized by the lye, essentially bringing the vinegar's pH to 7-ish, what's the point of even putting it in there?

This is NOT about bashing or criticizing someone it's about really wanting to know if it is possible to make a vinegar soap. To be honest, I think this person is ripping people off by taking advantage of their illnesses. However, if it is possible to make a vinegar soap, I want to try it JUST BECAUSE. You know?

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Hey, i think I know who you are talking about. Is this on Etsy?
To be honest, I love ACV soaps...better than GMS IMO. And if this person was selling "****** soap"--it could be just called ****** soap for SEO purposes. Check to see if they have disclaimers. Because if they do have disclaimers, the FDA usually won't get onto them about medical claims. Have you looked at the soaps on Etsy? Medical claims galore!

grayterisk said:

To be honest, I love ACV soaps...better than GMS IMO. And if this person was selling "****** soap"--it could be just called ****** soap for SEO purposes. Check to see if they have disclaimers. Because if they do have disclaimers, the FDA usually won't get onto them about medical claims. Have you looked at the soaps on Etsy? Medical claims galore!

Click to expand...

No, not etsy. It's an individual website. The "****** soap" was the only product I actually clicked on. It did not have any ingredients listed or disclaimers. Because of that, I wasn't interested in looking at anything else. I assumed the rest of the site made medical claims and didn't have ingredients or disclaimers. It doesn't matter, though. As I said in my original post, I am NOT bashing this person. Especially, now that I have found out that it IS possible to make soap with vinegar. I couldn't comprehend how an acid could be mixed with a base and still make soap. But, I'm not a scientist and DeeAnna is. DeeAnna explained it very clearly and it makes sense to me. I still don't understand what the vinegar actually brings to the soap, but that's why I'm experimenting. Who knows, this person may have discovered the greatest liquid for making soap in the universe! The only reason she ever showed up on my radar was a discussion on a FB forum about adding sodium lactate to your soap. It's no big deal. I made my two experimental bars of vinegar soap and one control bar last night. I'll monitor them over the next several months to see what kind of soap they turn out to be. Maybe vinegar will be the "secret ingredient" I've been looking for to cure my dry skin.

I can hope, right?

With a name like that, it makes me wonder how much ppo they add in to the soap [emoji33]

I wonder what properties of ACV they think survives the lye solution. I mean, what benefit of ACV are they hoping to get??

Craig, you make me laugh. But it was the name of the soap, and the name only, that caused me to click on it. As a woman, that is the last place I'd be sticking soap! (Besides, the bars are square and have no string.)

Susie, that was the second big question for me. I really didn't think it was possible, and that's why I'm not a scientist making the big bucks!! But, beyond the if, WHAT on earth is the benefit of it? I know people swear by ACV for a bunch of remedies, but I don't understand what makes ACV better at "curing" a sore throat than white vinegar, wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar. They all contain, as DeeAnna said, 5% acetic acid. TOMH said the vinegar mixes with the lye and forms sodium acetate, which acts like sodium lactate.

I am no expert on vinegar by any stretch of the imagination. However, I do get frequent ear infections; I have all my life. My ENT prescribed an acetic acid solution for the last one and it burned like a mutha! He told me the next time I felt like one was coming on, put 4 drops of white vinegar in my ear three to four times a day for a week. If that doesn't prevent it, I should go see him. I've done this and haven't had an infection in a couple of years. The reason I mention this is because the doctor said WHITE vinegar, not ACV. Apparently my doctor doesn't know ACV is a wonder drug. (I'm glad I'm not an egg because I crack myself up!)

OMG, I just google imaged ******l soap. I learned things I did not need to know lol.

I unmolded the soaps about 15 minutes ago. Very interesting. The immediate benefit of soaping with 100% vinegar as your solution is hardness of the bar and ease of unmolding. The control bar left the "prongs" in the Pringles singles mold. The blue bar came out cleanly, but soft and broke a little. The pink one (didn't have red colorant) just fell out onto the counter. Another thing that is interesting, the vinegar appears to rush the saponification. I only used lard and soaped at 33.333%. Both vinegar bars are zap free. The control bar, which I used my master batched lye for, still zaps. Two things about that lye, it does have tussah silk pre dissolved in it and I made it last summer. I don't know if that might have any effect on the efficiency of the lye to saponify the oils. I definitely need to go put some butter on my hands, I can feel the dry tightness from the just-born soap. I video taped the washing of my hands. If anyone wants to see it, let me know and I'll try to figure out how to post it here. I'm adding it to my YouTube account.