CP Sodium citrate addition

[DeeAnna]

"...sc added to the lather even though we have soft water..."

Even soft water contains some hard-water minerals -- maybe not much, but some -- so citrate will still chelate these minerals in your soft water.

 

[newbie]

Hmmmm, I have used it all my soaps with all sorts of swirls. I'm perplexed!

 

[Saponista]

This is the right stuff isn't it?

 

[DeeAnna]

Yes, that looks like the stuff.

I don't know why you are having trouble, Saponista. It's hard to give sensible advice on this one without actually being with you when you soap. You may be perfectly right about the citrate causing the soap on a stick issue ... but I will say I've recently re-learned the old lesson that what you think is causing problems with soap and what really is the trouble-maker can sometimes be two different things.

 

[Saponista]

Thanks for the help DeeAnna. I will make a batch exactly the same way without the citrate and see if I am still having issues. At least I can rule it out then.

 

[Sonya-m]

I didn't use it in my spin swirl as I forgot but I have used it in swirls, this one definitely has it in and I waited ages for the white to trace thick enough

 

[Dahila]

I use Ca in every soap and I had not notice any accelaration. I use 1.5% and it makes a huge difference.

 

[Saponista]

DeeAnna was right as she always seems to be! It was human error, I had typed 33% lye conc into the box instead of 30% which was clearly causing it to set up much faster. Sorry for being a dunce and thank you all for trying to help me!

 

[ngian]

Well yesterday for the first time I was impatient to dissolve all the trisodium citrate in the water, and when I added the NaOH there where still some grains of triSC and I then poured all of it at the oils with still some grains visible. I had a very quick acceleration even without a stick blender!

I guess it was for that as it is for sure that the fragrance I used does not accelerate.

Got my lesson and next time I should firstly totally dissolve SC as this way I have never experienced acceleration before.

:!:

 

[Atihcnoc]

I been used SC for a year following the rates of "Lotion Crafter" the rate I use is 0.1% of total oils weight, already check with other places and found this:
Typical dosage for sodium citrate is 13 g to 39 g sodium citrate powder for every 1,000 g oils (1.3% to 3.9% ppo). Use more for hard water, less for soft. Typical usage rate: 0.1-1%

I add SC to my water before or after lye and never have a problem of cristals, maybe because I had been using a lot less ammount than most of you. My soap behave ok, no scum or other problem, just once acceleration in one of my formulas but I was not sure if it was the SC or the E.O.

Lotion Crafter SDS have this info: Melting Point 150C , water solubility 400-700 g/l at 20-25C

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0026/8317/5001/files/sds_sodium_citrate.pdf?5588891969930949157

 

[DeeAnna]

This is an older thread, @Atihcnoc, so the original problem has been solved.

"...Typical dosage for sodium citrate ... Typical usage rate: 0.1-1%..."

I don't know where you got this information from, but it looks like it's a garbled quote from an article I wrote. The current version of this article is here: https://classicbells.com/soap/citrate.html

If you have very soft water, you might not see a lot of difference from using citrate, no matter what dosage you use. Other people with harder water do see a difference and need to use more to control soap scum.

Bear in mind that Lotioncrafter supplies ingredients for general bath and beauty products. They are definitely not targeting soap makers, so their recommendations do not always apply to soap.

 

[Atihcnoc]

Hi DeeAnna, so what is the recommended usage rate for soap? I had been looking more info about it and it is no specifications about it.
We have hard water.

 

[DeeAnna]

Re-read my article, please. That information is in the article. https://classicbells.com/soap/citrate.html

 

[Atihcnoc]

Thank you DeeAnna

 

[Minerva's Curious Physick]

I tried 3% today for the first time, and had the exact same soap-on-a-stick-blender experience as Saponista. I don't know of anything else I did differently (substituted palm oil for my recipe's lard and ran it through a lye calculator, but that shouldn't speed trace like crazy). I'll drop it to 1% next time.

 

[Gaisy59]

I usually remove some of the water that I dissolve my lye in, mix my sodium citrate then blend it back into my lye. Nothing has happened so far. Am I just lucky? I have done this many times.

 

[gww]

I use 2.4 percent (approximate math) and divert part of my lye water to dissolve and add it to my oils before adding the lye solution. I do not know what speed to trace is fast but do know that the one time I timed it, it took 11 minutes and was still very manageable. No scent or color and only about 7 batches under my belt and so very new. Take it with a grain of salt.
Cheers
gww

 

[Ladka]

I tried 3% today for the first time, and had the exact same soap-on-a-stick-blender experience as Saponista. I don't know of anything else I did differently (substituted palm oil for my recipe's lard and ran it through a lye calculator, but that shouldn't speed trace like crazy). I'll drop it to 1% next time.

Lard is known to be very slow to trace so when you substituted it for palm oil the "braking" lard slowed it no more and the batter sped to trace.

 

[Gaisy59]

Lard is known to be very slow to trace so when you substituted it for palm oil the "braking" lard slowed it no more and the batter sped to trace.

Very true Ladka. I use 3% with my lard and have had no problem.

 

[Minerva's Curious Physick]

Thank you so much, Ladka and Gaisy; I'll try the same thing again with lard and see what happens!