How To Compensate for Dried Orange Peels Affecting Lye?

[PaintyLiz]

Hi All,

I looked through a lot of posts, didn't see this info, but maybe I just missed it. I'm still fairly new to soaping, so I guess I didn't think I needed to do any research, but when I did, I didn't find any answers anyway.

I make 0% SF 100% Coconut Oil dish bars & love them! I thought I'd add some old dried orange peels I had laying around, so ground them up & threw them in at trace.

I noticed the bars did not set up as quickly as usual. Huh .. now when I use them they are wonderfully creamy, but not sure they clean as well. Also, a white bloom formed on the ones I took out of the molds early. The ones I left in longer look fine.

I'm thinking it's that the citric acid in the orange peels affected the lye - but how would you know how much to offset the lye? I'm not finding any info. Also these peels had a lot of pith (white part) in them. That probably had an impact.

Anyway, wondering how to adjust this next time. Since it's 0% SF I don't want to end up with unsaponified lye, although it would probably clean dishes great LOL

Thanks for any help/suggestions! You all are great!

 

[PaintyLiz]

sorry, I didn't specify - the soap is just organic coconut oil & lye. No other ingredients. 0% Super Fat

 

[DeeAnna]

"...citric acid in the orange peels..."

It's the juice in the fruit that contains citric acid. Orange zest contains essential oil, but does not contain juice. The pith (white part of the peel) also does not contain juice.

Even if there were small bits of fruit sticking to the peelings, the amount of juice in these bits will be tiny. So if you use dried orange peel the way most soap makers do, the amount of citric acid supplied by the peelings is small to non-existent. Don't worry about that.

Best guess is your soap didn't get warm enough to go into gel. The most obvious issue caused by this is the sap will be softer.

Soap that doesn't get sufficiently warm is also slower to saponify. That means it is more likely to form soda ash (the white stuff you mention) as the soap is exposed to air.

At zero superfat, your soap may be slightly lye heavy even with the best of conditions. Don't fret about this as long as you're taking reasonable care to weigh your ingredients and make the soap properly. A slight amount of lye heaviness in properly made soap will dissipate as the soap cures.

As to why the soap appears to not clean as well, it's possible you're not as objective about your soap as you would like to be. You suspect the soap has been damaged by citric acid, so therefore the soap does not clean as well as you think it should. This is a common factor in human psychology called "observational bias." This bias happens to all of us, even the best of soap makers. But that's just a guess, not a fact -- I'd have to test your soap myself to have a better opinion.

More about using citric acid and citrus juices in soap making: https://classicbells.com/soap/citricAcid.asp