Liquid Soap, hows this look for a plan?

[Seawolfe]

Ok I think I over did the research and I just keep going round in my head about this.

I have KOH from Essential Depot - so that will be the 90% KOH on soapcalc.

I want to make liquid soap for dishes and grubby hands - so I will aim for 3% SF.

After reading Grayceworks excellent thread, I plan to dissolve the KOH in half of the water and then use liquid glycerin for the other half.

Question! when using soap calc for liquid soap, should I keep step 3 water as percent of oils at 38%? Or change that?

Ok, I plan to use my basic bastile recipe (65% OO, 30% Coconut oil and 5% Castor Oil at 3% superfat) unless theres something silly about that.

Now - since Im following Grayceworks suggestion of half glycerin, should I do this as CP? Or should I cook it? Im kind of confused about this - we HP liquid soap to saponify quickly, right?

And since I am using 3% superfat, I dont need to neutralize, right?

It will probably be a thin soap, but I can thicken it with borax or salt if necessary later, as far as I can tell.

Sorry Im sounding so dingy but theres a LOT of info about liquid soap on the web and Im too new at this to know what is good or bad advice.

 

[Susie]

The first thing you are doing perfectly is asking all these questions now, rather than after you mess up(like I did).

"Question! when using soap calc for liquid soap, should I keep step 3 water as percent of oils at 38%? Or change that?"

I always leave my water percentage as 38%. It works great.


"Ok, I plan to use my basic bastile recipe (65% OO, 30% Coconut oil and 5% Castor Oil at 3% superfat) unless theres something silly about that."

Bastille seems fine to me. It is going to give you a really moisturizing handsoap. It was my first liquid soap also. I am not sure how it works on dishes, because I am hopelessly spoiled by my dishwasher.

"Now - since Im following Grayceworks suggestion of half glycerin, should I do this as CP? Or should I cook it? Im kind of confused about this - we HP liquid soap to saponify quickly, right?"

Although you can CP liquid soaps, I have never tried it. CP in a liquid soap is a different process than CP in bar soaps. In liquid soaps, you stick blend just enough to bring it to emulsion, then put a lid on it and set it somewhere out of the way for 2 weeks. At that point, you should have paste that can then be diluted. I just never have the time and patience for this. I usually need that soap now.

That brings us to the HP for liquid soaps. You are going to need a dedicated crock pot or stainless steel pot large enough to at least hold double your recipe if you don't want boil over. I am not going to re-invent the wheel here when there are excellent videos on YouTube. I used the following for my first liquid soap tutorial.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VUGV_H7bZU[/ame]



"And since I am using 3% superfat, I dont need to neutralize, right?"

Correct

You are probably going to want to add some sort of EO or FO. Be sure to add that at dilution after the temperature gets below the flashpoint of the EO or FO. Then, if you are choosy about perfectly clear soap, set it aside to settle for a week. I am not choosy, and as mentioned before, I am usually in a rush to use it.

Do get into, and stay into the habit of running every batch through the soap calculator for yourself. I print my re-run recipes out with the date every batch with additives and notes. Those then go into my soaping binder. I then write notes on that page about what I think about that soap so I don't make the same mistakes over and over.

Please let us know how it turns out?

 

[grayceworks]

I usually cook it. I always leave the water at whatever it says on soapcalc.

That thread with the fast CP liquid soap was an experiment, and although I love how it turned out, I don't know how it will act with other recipes. THAT will be my next experiment! I don't know if it's just fast because the PKO heated up on its own, or if other recipes that don't produce as much heat would work the same.

And I did still have to heat it in the crock-pot for diluting the next day. So either way, a crock-pot is a good idea.

For me, figuring out the dilution on a new recipe is always the tricky part. That's definitely something to make sure to write down once you've got it! Even though your final paste weight might vary somewhat from batch to batch, if you know the ratio you diluted at previously, it's easy to adjust without having to figure it out all over again.

I personally leave my dishwashing soap fragrance-free, but if I was going to scent it, I would use an EO, rather than a FO, but that's just my preference.

 

[Susie]

I only use EOs. I have been allergic to artificial scents for as long as I can remember. I know now it is probably the phthalates, but then I did not have a clue. I just used unscented everything. And even though I know now that I can purchase phthalate-free FOs, it is difficult for me to even consider after avoiding them for so long.

But, I know that FOs are cheaper than EOs. And not everyone is sensitive to them, so I try not to tell people to use only EOs.

Yes, dilution rate is difficult to judge when making liquid soaps with more than one oil. I like keeping things as simple as possible, so I filter enough water to do a 3:1 ratio. But I only add enough for a 1:1 ratio to start with

Set the crock pot on high if your paste is cool, low if it just finished cooking. Add the 1:1 amount of boiling water. Break up the paste as much as possible. Let this heat together, and stir about every 15 minutes, breaking the paste up every time. You may be tempted to add more water every time, but don't. When I have those chunks broken up and they stay broken up, and seem not to be shrinking, I add what I estimate to be 1/4 the amount of the chunks in water. Only add water when you think the chunks have stopped shrinking again.

Write down the amount of water it took on your batch page. That way you know a closer approximation for next time. Still don't add the whole amount, but you can add 2/3 of that amount of water and save some dilution time.

Don't be afraid to turn the crock pot off and let it sit over night if you run out of time. It will continue to dilute some while it is off. And you may wake up to perfectly diluted soap.

I have laundry soap that takes only 1:1 water for dilution. I have some hand soap that takes 3:1. Most soaps fall between that somewhere.

 

[grayceworks]

When I dilute my fresh paste, I just dump it in the crockpot with 1:1 water, put the lid on, set it to low, and go to bed. I don't start stirring until most of it's dissolved, I just don't have the energy for that... lol.

When I wake up, it's usually mostly diluted, and then's when I start stirring until dissolved, adding if it just won't dissolve that last little bit, adding if a skin forms.

 

[Susie]

Every day I learn something new from this forum that makes my life simpler or richer in some way. You just added some more simplicity. Thank you!

 

[Seawolfe]

OMG thanks Susie and Grayceworks! You have made it all so clear!
And that soaping 101 video! I didn't even know it was there - I had gotten stuck on her laundry one which isn't nearly as informative. I didn't even realize I could replace all the water with glycerin like she did.

This batch will be unscented, hubby likes things unscented so that makes it easy for a first batch.

 

[Susie]

OK, I was afraid I left something important out, and I did.

The reason Graceyworks and I use half water and half glycerin is this: to do Soaping 101's whole method requires heating up the glycerin. Which is an unnecessary step that I(we) avoid by adding our KOH to half the total liquid in water. Let the reaction between the KOH and water heat it up enough to add the glycerin to it. Works a charm, and saves a step. I find it is no less moisturizing that way.

 

[Seawolfe]

OK, I was afraid I left something important out, and I did.

The reason Graceyworks and I use half water and half glycerin is this: to do Soaping 101's whole method requires heating up the glycerin. Which is an unnecessary step that I(we) avoid by adding our KOH to half the total liquid in water. Let the reaction between the KOH and water heat it up enough to add the glycerin to it. Works a charm, and saves a step. I find it is no less moisturizing that way.

Thank you! I was just coming to understand that.

 

[Seawolfe]

Status report!

I mixed the KOH in half the water till it dissolved, then dumped that into the half volume of glycerine (so it would heat up the glycerin and let me pour all of it into the soap.

Getting to trace and the subsequent translucent taffy stage seemed to take a lot longer than the video suggested, longer than CP soap even, but eventually it did.

I cooked the 2lb batch for almost 2 hours before a little bit mixed clear with water. The video says to mix equal amounts of soap and water to test, but that makes no sense if her final dilution was 3 parts water, so I just winged it. When I mixed a small blob of soap in a bit of water it wasn't perfectly clear, but more like soapy water. But definitely not milky.

I started with a 1:1 dilution, and then realized if I went as far as a 3:1 dilution I would run out of crockpot room, so I blobbed half of the soap paste out. It had been submerged but not mixed in to the water so it should store ok, right?

So I am 1 hour into diluting half the paste with 2 parts water in the crockpot on low and having a well earned cocktail

 

[grayceworks]

yeah, cook time and dilution ratio vary from recipe to recipe, and whether it tests perfectly clear or not really is based a lot on your SF level. With a SF of 3%, if you've cooked till zap-free and translucent, should be good to go! Also, when you're diluting the little amount for the test, start 1:1 and see how much more you have to add to get it to dilute. That will give you a head-start on figuring out how much to use for the whole amount. For example, if it takes 1.5oz water to dilute 1oz paste, then you'll know it takes approximately 15oz water to dilute 10oz of paste for that recipe. I say approximate, because there's evaporation to think of when you're diluting the whole batch, and some times you have to add a tiny bit more.

 

[grayceworks]

OK, I was afraid I left something important out, and I did.

The reason Graceyworks and I use half water and half glycerin is this: to do Soaping 101's whole method requires heating up the glycerin. Which is an unnecessary step that I(we) avoid by adding our KOH to half the total liquid in water. Let the reaction between the KOH and water heat it up enough to add the glycerin to it. Works a charm, and saves a step. I find it is no less moisturizing that way.

AND glycerin has to be heated a LOT to dissolve the same amount of lye as a much smaller amount of water. So it's just much easier to dissolve it in water and add in the glycerin.

 

[Susie]

The paste should be fine. I store my undiluted paste in the fridge, just because I am not sure where else I would store it and be able to remember where it is. (Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most.)

 

[Seawolfe]

I ended up using 1400 ml of water to dilute 460 g of paste - so a 3:1 dilution over 6 hours. Which makes sense with all the olive oil in there.

Question though - it was lovely and clear last night when I put it in the plastic bottle (it was still warm), but this morning its a bit cloudy. Did I do something wrong? Or will that clear up?

The soap paste I didn't use is double bagged and in the box where I store my soaps - and labeled with dilution instructions.

 

[Susie]

Liquid soaps generally require a sequestration period to settle and clear. A week to two weeks generally will tell you what your end result will be.

However, the clarity does not affect the functionality. Your soap is soap right now. And it will clean your hands as well as perfectly clear soap will. There are things you can add to clear your soap up, but I don't use them as I don't sell my soaps, and I value simplicity and function over aesthetics. You can probably look them up using the search function.

 

[Seawolfe]

Thanks Susie!! I feel the same - my soap dispensers aren't even clear - but I was wondering what happened. Ill check after a week.

 

[grayceworks]

With some soaps the lather improves a bit by the end of that 2wks also. Yay! Glad your soap went so smoothly!

 

[Susie]

Yep, liquid soap does better with a little age on it. I actually got ahead of the game and made a new batch of hand soap before the last ran out.