Distilled Water

[z00100]

Quick question.........

How much difference in quality and what are the differences would I get if I chose to forego using Distilled Water in my soaps?

I do realize that when making my lye mixture I will be getting some salts being formed from the tap water, but aside from the lye water being cloudy, is there any benefits for going with distilled water?

I would think the salts (calcium and whatnot) in the soap would be beneficial.

Thanks!

 

[kellistarr]

Lately, I've been using distilled water just because I make liquid soap and use it for that purpose along with making lotions and such. But before that, I'd boil tap water. I don't notice a difference, either way.

 

[Hestey]

The benefit to using distilled water is that there are no impurities. Minerals, salts, metals etc. There are an amazingly large number of these compounds in tap water. I don't think any of them will hurt your soap, but the innate metals could cause spotting, and the minerals could cause clumps.

 

[Fragola]

I would think the salts (calcium and whatnot) in the soap would be beneficial.

No, they wouldn't. However, it's so little of them I'm not sure it makes much difference.

I was thinking myself recently about this. Soap spends all it's life in tap water, after all (assuming very few of us use distilled water to wash ourselves). Except that certain minerals are known to cause DOS earlier.

 

[Hestey]

I believe the main concerns are how the minerals etc react with the lye. The tap water at my parents house causes a lye containing precipitate and reduced my lye water to something that could never successfully make soap. Mind you, they live 5 minutes from the beach and the town uses a sub-aquatic aquifer for its water supply; so lots of minerals and salts to react with the lye. Guess it really depends on where you live and what is in your water.