ResolvableOwl
Notorious Lyear
Disclaimer: This is NOT advice. Feel entertained at your own risk. Take things with a grain of salt, particularly on April fool's day.
April fool's day reminds us to not believe everything we see or read. I decided to not adhere to the “NaOH makes bar soap, and KOH liquid soap” rule. Deviations are usually on the single-digit percentage levelm advanced techniques for minor regulation of solubility or viscosity.
Once again: there are VERY good reasons why these rules exist, and I cannot recommend anyone to seriously pursue whatever will follow now (maximum tension!
). It was a silly challenge I posed myself, out of pure sporting ambition.
Liquid NaOH soap
Small Na additions are useful to increase viscosity KOH-based liquid soaps, usually added in form of table salt (NaCl). Dissolved bar soap (Na salts of fatty acids) work too. I had a liquid soap project in the making, I planned to grate up some simple HO sunflower castile soap, and stir it into the LS. Not directly, but let it first soak in water … I thought. I was amazed to observe instead, how the gratings first swoll, became mushy, and then dissolved into a perfectly clear gel! It has a snot-like texture, and makes a usable liquid soap by itself, totally without potassium.
I'm still struggling with reproducibility. The dispenser on the left of the photo holds my third iteration: 1 part HO sunflower castile gratings + 5 parts water, went totally clear after a few hours of soaking and a short microwave blast. Initially, the gel was somewhat stiffer, reminding of aspic (plus the stringiness of castile slime). A generous glycerol addition of some 50%ppo helped to make it soft and sleek, with a more honey-like viscosity, and reduced sliminess.
Solid KOH soap
Once through the stockpile of worst tricks to increase hardness of bar soap: Maximum saturated fats, high lye concentration, CPOP. Only sodium lactate was missing (well, not really, since it would have added sodium). The recipe incorporates (among others) stearic acid, sumac wax, fully hydrogenated canola oil, palm + palm kernel + babaçu oil. Hardness number=67, INS=180. Saponification with 40% KOH. I cast it into half-sphere silicone moulds. It still was soft and sticky after several days (not unlike LS gel should be), and I subjected it to a second emergency CPOP. After that, I was able to unmould them and let them cure. They now have hardened up enough, after a month, to call them bar soap. A terrible bar soap. With a skin feel somewhere between chalk and sandpaper, and leaving a ton of soap scum deposits everywhere. Not even developing a nice lather. Catching moisture from everywhere and rapidly becoming sticky/slippery.
What is remarkable, though, is their optical appearance. The whitish spots are not soda ash (or potash ash, to stay chemically correct), but more like dried up lather. It washes off with water, but will appear again when dry. Beneath, the soap is ivory-coloured and translucent like frosted glass. Actually quite pretty, similar to violinist's rosin. Still, this little project was 100% not worth the hassle, and a pure proof of concept. Yes, bar soap from potassium lye is possible, but no, you want to stay with sodium.
And just to needlessly mystify the presentation, I had pressed two of the half spheres together (when still soft) to make a full sphere, and placed it, besides a half sphere, onto a mirror. Objects in mirror are crazier than they appear.
April fool's day reminds us to not believe everything we see or read. I decided to not adhere to the “NaOH makes bar soap, and KOH liquid soap” rule. Deviations are usually on the single-digit percentage levelm advanced techniques for minor regulation of solubility or viscosity.
Once again: there are VERY good reasons why these rules exist, and I cannot recommend anyone to seriously pursue whatever will follow now (maximum tension!
). It was a silly challenge I posed myself, out of pure sporting ambition.Liquid NaOH soap
Small Na additions are useful to increase viscosity KOH-based liquid soaps, usually added in form of table salt (NaCl). Dissolved bar soap (Na salts of fatty acids) work too. I had a liquid soap project in the making, I planned to grate up some simple HO sunflower castile soap, and stir it into the LS. Not directly, but let it first soak in water … I thought. I was amazed to observe instead, how the gratings first swoll, became mushy, and then dissolved into a perfectly clear gel! It has a snot-like texture, and makes a usable liquid soap by itself, totally without potassium.
I'm still struggling with reproducibility. The dispenser on the left of the photo holds my third iteration: 1 part HO sunflower castile gratings + 5 parts water, went totally clear after a few hours of soaking and a short microwave blast. Initially, the gel was somewhat stiffer, reminding of aspic (plus the stringiness of castile slime). A generous glycerol addition of some 50%ppo helped to make it soft and sleek, with a more honey-like viscosity, and reduced sliminess.
Solid KOH soap
Once through the stockpile of worst tricks to increase hardness of bar soap: Maximum saturated fats, high lye concentration, CPOP. Only sodium lactate was missing (well, not really, since it would have added sodium). The recipe incorporates (among others) stearic acid, sumac wax, fully hydrogenated canola oil, palm + palm kernel + babaçu oil. Hardness number=67, INS=180. Saponification with 40% KOH. I cast it into half-sphere silicone moulds. It still was soft and sticky after several days (not unlike LS gel should be), and I subjected it to a second emergency CPOP. After that, I was able to unmould them and let them cure. They now have hardened up enough, after a month, to call them bar soap. A terrible bar soap. With a skin feel somewhere between chalk and sandpaper, and leaving a ton of soap scum deposits everywhere. Not even developing a nice lather. Catching moisture from everywhere and rapidly becoming sticky/slippery.
What is remarkable, though, is their optical appearance. The whitish spots are not soda ash (or potash ash, to stay chemically correct), but more like dried up lather. It washes off with water, but will appear again when dry. Beneath, the soap is ivory-coloured and translucent like frosted glass. Actually quite pretty, similar to violinist's rosin. Still, this little project was 100% not worth the hassle, and a pure proof of concept. Yes, bar soap from potassium lye is possible, but no, you want to stay with sodium.
And just to needlessly mystify the presentation, I had pressed two of the half spheres together (when still soft) to make a full sphere, and placed it, besides a half sphere, onto a mirror. Objects in mirror are crazier than they appear.
