Calculating final water and natural glycerine amounts

[Lin]

When talking of a filler in this instance, it's of course going to be replacing oils (expensive) in the total weight of the finished product - you want to make a 4 oz bar but on the cheap? Use more water-replacement puree so that the final weight is higher than it would have been if the normal water amount was used. You get a 4 oz bar but with less oils used - it has less soap and more 'water' than it should have.

We're talking about how people tricked the weight of their soaps in the old days, not what people use purees for now.

No... We're not. Deanna mentioned that some people may consider using food purees as an unnecessary filler. I asked if she personally considered it to be, considering fillers are generally used to drop the price of ingredients used but adding a food puree to a soap or using a food puree instead of water is going to increase the cost of ingredients due to puree costing more than water.

 

[DeeAnna]

I think both of you are a bit off the mark. A filler is a more-or-less inert material added ON TOP OF the basic ingredients required to make the soap itself. Think of it this way -- I can make 1 pound of Soap X and sell it on its own as a pure soap product. Or I can make that same pound of Soap X, add 0.5 pounds of filler to it, and now I have 1.5 pounds of "soap" to sell. That's the way to think of a filler in soap.

For example, carrot puree adds two basic things -- water and bulk vegetable matter -- to a soap. I agree that the water in the carrots should be included as part of the water phase needed to make the soap, but the solid matter in the carrots is a bulk ingredient that simply increases the volume of product. Salt or clay are even better examples of fillers used in both modern-day and historical soap making -- neither adds liquid to the water phase and neither add to the fats. They basically increase the volume of the product without specifically adding to the cleaning power of the soap.

Whether a filler is intended to trick the consumer into paying more for less or whether it is intended by the soapmaker to "enhance the soapy experience" may be a moot issue as far as the authorities are concerned, whether they lived in the 1800s or today. Any filler that "dilutes" the soap, regardless of the reason for which it is added, may be seen by the authorities as an unfair practice.

My apologies to the OP for my digression from the original thread. I didn't intend for the conversation to go so far astray!

 

[Lin]

Whether or not something is considered a filler is definitely something that can be debated, for example the use of rosin in soap if its a filler (which in this case is also interesting due during original use it having been a cheaper ingredient, but now would raise the cost of the soap to use). My question was curiosity as to DeeAnna's opinion on purees as filler due to raising the cost of the soap rather than lowering it. In the frame of my question, I was originally referring to the use of purees in place of water, in which case its obvious that the cost of a puree is going to be more expensive than using your tap water for example.

Later I also considered the use of adding puree in addition to the liquid for diluting the lye, but I'm considering soap thats properly cured and not one where water weight is bumping up the weight of the soap. So to be highly specific, take 2 bars of soap that contain an equal amount of saponified oils. But on one bar, a puree was used instead of water. The cost of manufacturing that bar would be higher due to the equal amount of saponified oils, so is the puree a filler? Her answer didn't give me her personal opinion on the subject but answered it exactly how I was thinking the question, it depends on if the individual considers the vegetable puree to be adding something to the soaps use, or purely to increasing the soaps cost. A similar argument is frequently made here when debating the use of high cost butters in soap. Are they adding to the soap, or are they purely adding label appeal and cost to the soap.

I know exactly what I meant when I asked the question, even if it wasn't clear to others I know what was intended.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

In the original discussion it was about using something cheaper to up the finished weight of the product rather than a benefit - the things the Soap Police were looking out for. It's a far cry from replacing water with something like GM today for most people, or adding in something that either gives label appeal or an actual benefit.

I have no doubts that some companies still add some things in to their soaps to up the weight but keep costs down, but when most people make a pumpkin water replacement at home I think it's not really falling in to the 'filler' term. It is, of course, technically a filler as DeeAnna said, but usually it's added for a reason.

 

[DeeAnna]

"...Her answer didn't give me her personal opinion on the subject but answered it exactly how I was thinking the question, it depends on if the individual considers the vegetable puree to be adding something to the soaps use, or purely to increasing the soaps cost...."

Yep, Lin, you caught me! I intentionally didn't give you my personal opinion, but not to be difficult or evasive. The thread is more about the perceptions of soap by outside parties -- assessors and, secondarily, consumers. So I tried to give a more objective answer, because my opinion really doesn't matter in this situation.

 

[Lin]

The original topic was how to determine glycerin and maximum water amounts Threads can cover many different 'topics' by the end. I saw something I felt was interesting and so asked. This place would be pretty boring and much less informational if people were required to only discuss what the original/title topic in a thread was.