Effy's Liquid Soap Experiments

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

So, starting this off for my planning phase - this weekend I should be making some liquid soaps and doing some experiments to share.

To start, I'll masterbatch a 50% KOH solution to save some time. Then I'll make some batches using the cold process LS method -

2x 100% CO dish soap. One diluted with normal water, one diluted with a 20% table salt solution to see how the thickness changes.

4x hand soap:

2x with glycerine as the tracer-aid. One with normal water, once with the salt solution

2x with grated soap as the tracer-aid. One with normal water, once with the salt solution

​

I'll keep you all (or y'all, if you prefer) updated with the progress.

 

[Susie]

Sorry, Effy, brine solution will not thicken liquid soap with more than 20% CO. You'll have to reserve that thickener for something other than the 100% CO.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Ah, thanks for the heads up. What is good for thickening the dish one, or will it not really need it?

 

[Susie]

I don't know. I have been unable to join over there, or access any links from there. I keep getting some sort of place to buy supplies. Or when I eventually get to the apparently inactive forum and click on the link to go to the active one, I get this:

Not Found

The requested URL /forum/ was not found on this server.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Sorry, Susie - I meant to ask waht would be good for thickening dishwashing soap, when it is 100% CO - or doesn't it need it?

 

[DeeAnna]

Susie -- The Dish, you mean? Try this: http://www.thedishforum.com/forum

Effy -- not Susie, but it's hard to dilute a high-CO soap to get just the right thickness. (waving hands about gellation points and arcane bits of science trivia) If you really want a thicker CO soap, you may have to look at separate thickeners that don't depend on the soap itself for the thickening action. I'm not at all informed on this topic, so maybe someone else will chime in about thickeners that work well.

With the other soap, careful dilution may be all you need to get a pleasantly thick LS. Especially for high-oleic soaps, the range of water content is a bit wider where the soap itself is a gel. Salt is always an option, but I'd reserve that for the possibility that the dilution doesn't give you enough thickness. And I'd experiment on just a sample if you do go with salt. Salt can cut lather, so you're trading off evils, so to speak.

 

[Susie]

DeeAnna!

You are a miracle worker! I have been trying to get into there for 2 years. Thank you so much!

 

[IrishLass]

My one batch of liquid 100% coconut oil soap made via the glycerin method is as beautifully thick as my Dawn dishwashing liquid. My dilution rate was 7 parts paste to only 2 parts water (coconut oil doesn't need much water to dilute it, that's for sure!). I've heard from others that it's nearly impossible to get a thick dilution of 100% CO paste via the Failor method. I've never tried the Failor method, but thankfully, it's actually quite easy to get a thick CO soap with the glycerin method (at least it was with my attempt). Just start out small!


@ Susie- now that you are on the Dish, you can read through the awesome thread that got me started on my liquid soapmaking journey: http://www.thedishforum.com/forum/index.php?/topic/146547-glycerin-method-liquid-soap/?hl=glycerin I gotta warn you- it's very long (but so cool). It starts slow, but then it builds into a giant avalanche of exciting experimentation. The posts by 3bees~1flower and Lily2 were especially of tremendous help and encouragement to me.


IrishLass

 

[Saponista]

As a side note, has anyone else had difficulty dissolving the KOH in the glycerine. I have quite large flakes and I ended up stick blending it to try and get it to dissolve. It took over an hour in the crock pot to dissolve completely and even then I still wasn't totally happy with it when I added the oils.

 

[Susie]

You need to add that KOH VERY SLOWLY to the glycerin, stirring until it is completely dissolved. I probably added no more than 10-15 g at the time.

 

[Saponista]

Thanks susie, that was probably my problem. I dumped it all in in one go.

 

[Susie]

I did that once. Learned my lesson.

 

[IrishLass]

As a side note, has anyone else had difficulty dissolving the KOH in the glycerine. I have quite large flakes and I ended up stick blending it to try and get it to dissolve. It took over an hour in the crock pot to dissolve completely and even then I still wasn't totally happy with it when I added the oils.

Saponista- how hot does your crockpot get? I ask because the glycerin needs to be boiling in order for the KOH to dissolve in a timely fashion. When I dissolve my KOH in the glycerin, I add both together in a stainless pot at room temp, then I heat the pot on medium high to get the glycerin to the boiling point (while stirring), and it only takes about 8 minutes or so for the KOH to completely dissolve. Edited to add- my KOH is the thick, flaked kind.


IrishLass

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Enough of your hijacking shenanigans!

One thought - would Sodium Citrate be an idea, if it helps with bar soap in my water?

 

[IrishLass]

Enough of your hijacking shenanigans!

My aplologies! I'll try to be better!

One thought - would Sodium Citrate be an idea, if it helps with bar soap in my water?

I don't see why not. I use tetrasodium EDTA in my liquid soap as well as my bar soap, which helps with the same thing as Sodium Citrate.


IrishLass

 

[Saponista]

My apologies, I shall stop hijacking now. Thanks for your help though susie and irishlass. My crockpot was on low do I shall get the glycerine hotter next time too and hopefully all my problems will be resolved.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I was playing, ladies - it was a rather on topic hijack and those are rarely a bad thing.

Still, an update:

Today I made two batches, side by side -



One batch with soap, one with glycerine, to see how they behave differently if at all.

Basic recipe was the same:

155.5g olive oil
77.5g co
15g castor

5g citric acid
7.5g sugar

4g soap for the soaped batch
77.5g glycerin for the gly batch

54.5g KOH
171g distilled water - we know that is important and there just so happened to be some in the shop when I did the shopping this morning!

So reading the instructions in Susie's cold process LS thread, I saw that adding things like grated soap to the lye wasn't really 100% required, so added the tracer-aids to the stainless pots along with the co, sugar and ca.

Mixed up the lye, let it clear and then poured it in, using it to melt the co. When the co was melted, I added in the olive and castor.



Then I stick blended between the two (aye, there will be some cross contamination, but so little that I worry not. Hey, I'm not Dr Dunn!)

After a wee bit, the soaped batch was at a nice trace, about the same as wallpaper paste I would say. The glycerine batch was still jolly runny indeed, no sign of trace at all. I covered the soaped batch up to rest for a whole and carried on with the gly batch. Still not tracing.

So I also have that covered and will check again after a cup of tea

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

The Soap batch is still a wee bit zappy, so that is having more time to sit.

The gly guy had a solid disc and a lot of oils, so I gave it a good mix and it is a lot thicker, so wrapped that one up in the thick towel, too. Will give them both some time to get themselves in order.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Well, nothing like trying something new to remind yourself of how it feels to be a newbie!

The soap based batch looked okay, but I gave it a stir and there was liquid under a semi solid layer! Mixed it back to paste and it is zappy as can be. The gly based batch also had a liquid layer underneath. Both got a good stir and a little bake.

Will see how they are in the morning.

The instructions might well be fool-proof, but they aren't idiot proof

 

[Susie]

I'm going to go with insufficient stick blending to begin with. You need to get almost to the consistency of gelled HP.