Hi all...quick advice for my 2nd attempt.

Annakathleen · Jan 11, 2016

I am a cp soap maker fairly experienced. Yesterday I made my first ever batch of liquid soap choosing the easy looking, foolproof looking, soaping 101 recipe after watching her video several times. The Castile soap, btw. So....here's my timeline....
Measured everything exact, followed directions in her video. When I combined glycerine and koh with oils I stick blended but never got a gelatinous looking blob like she did....I got taffy. I continued to blend then stir as my SB couldn't blend the "taffy"...probably 30 min....it never left taffy stage. I covered and cooked as we all know with cp you can emulsify , bring to light trace or heavy trace and all is good....I deduced that the taffy stage would suffice and so I waited 1.5 hours on low, stirred and incorporated again, then cooked another 30 because now it was thick thick caramel. I figured I'd cook it some more and see....now it's sticky and unstirrable. Gave up, turned crock pot off. left overnight. Still thick caramel. Diluted, used SB to blend and got a thin liquid "soap". Used table salt to thicken, got snot. Tried washing hands anyway...NO lather. I digress.

So...id like to try again tomorrow morning. I must master this as now my pride is involved. I did exactly as she did in video up until blending and getting stuck at the taffy stage which I'm guessing where all went wrong? Is it salvageable? Advice on this recipe for tomorrow....id like to stick with this one recipe until I can get it right....THANK YOU!

Note: I would NEVER soap with someone else's measurements without using a calculator and seeing it for myself, but since I am just learning LS, I used her measurements as others have commented it worked perfect. Just sayin...lol.
P.s. It never went translucent. Has been very opaque from the beginning. Still is.

IrishLass · Jan 11, 2016

Anna- don't despair- the taffy that you ended up with is a good thing.....it's called the "paste stage" and is actually the first goal to attain along the way to achieving liquid soap.

Once you 've reached the paste/taffy stage, you can stop mixing and start diluting. I've not watched the video in question, but I make lots of glycerin liquid soap and, trust me- the taffy/paste stage is what you should be aiming for before dilution can begin.

IrishLass

Edited to add- Anna, have you seen this thread? It will be of great help to you: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=46114

Annakathleen · Jan 11, 2016

Thank you. Can I fix the snot issue? And how can I get a translucent soap next time?

Obsidian · Jan 11, 2016

Castile soap has very little lather, in liquid form its even worse. Adding salt is almost guaranteed to completely kill the lather. Use less water when diluting to keep it thicker or buy some proper liquid soap thickening agent, crothix is supposed to be very good.

galaxyMLP · Jan 11, 2016

Did you dilute with distilled or tap water?

Yes, as obsidian says, salt will kill the lather of Castile soap

I would say everything went well but it was the salt that made it so it won't lather. Did you already dilute all of it/add salt to all of it?

Susie · Jan 11, 2016

By the way, don't despair, that was many people's first attempt at liquid soapmaking. Mine included.

Then, as Maya Angelou said, "I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

Seawolfe · Jan 11, 2016

My liquid soaps never got clear until I switched to distilled water instead of tap. And you will get there - it's funny but liquid soap is a bit of a butt to make in that it doesn't seem to always go through every single phase for every single person every time. Find out the critical landmarks and go from there.