I would like to contribute from my experience.
I found that using glycerin in place of water to make liquid soap is better in that it takes literally 2-3 minutes to saponify the oil with the KOH. I don't know if the end result is any different in terms of how bubbly, emollient or drying the soap might be, however. Let me make a very clear point about water. It absolutely must be distilled. This means for the KOH mixture, dilution, EVERYTHING. Use tap water if you like, but chances are your soap will not be clear. Tap water has minerals that the soap will react with that your store bought liquid dawn or Palmolive does not.
The basics that I've come to find are as follows:
1. saponify the oils with water or glycerin
2. once it's time to cook, add in your superfat of no more than 3% or your soap will cloud (i'm a little unsure about when to add the superfat for liquid soap but this is what i've seen others do)
3. Depending on the oils you use they will 'neutralize' faster or longer. What I do is this: once the oils saponify, I keep stirring it manually for a few minutes and then let it sit on low for 1.5 hours. I do a clarity test after the 1.5 hours. If it passes I have a choice to keep cooking to bring down the PH or neutralize when I dilute. If it doesn't pass, cook for another 1.5 hours. If it never passes clarity you either miss-measured or used an oil that is not conducive to clear soap (tallow for example). In the article you linked to she said to put in on HIGH, but on low, the temperature in my crock pot reaches around 230+ degrees so I think that's pretty hot considering water only boils at 212
. I test the PH with Phenolphthalein drops. If it's dark pink, I put it in for another 1-1.5 hours. After this, testing again. If it's still dark pink (total cook time of 3 hours) and I'm absolutely sure i used the proper measurements, I move to dilution after weighting my paste and add some citric acid to neutralize.
A note about paste weight and dilution. I've found that if you have 25% or more coconut in your recipe, you should probably dilute it to about 20% or it will be drying to your hands. I don't know if this is everyone else's experience, but it has been this way for me. Both my boyfriend and his mom say that the soap I made wasn't drying to their skin at all but i found it left me wanting to grab the lotion bottle a little after sponging a few dishes in the sink.
4. Figure you what your dilution ratio is. The above mentioned link on about.com produces a dilution ratio of 18%. If you are using a recipe with a lot of olive oil like this, Dilution is not a problem because you will thicken with Salt after. Yes, Table salt. SO if you had a batch that weight about 22oz in paste, that would mean you'll put 66oz of water (22x 3=88. checking math: 88 X .25 = 22) for 20%, 22 x 4 = 88
5. Neutralize. Oh man did I have problems with this. The 20 mule team borax stuff never worked for me ever. No matter how much I added per any instructions on the internet it turned my soap white. Again, this has been my experience YMMV. I got some citric acid from a middle eastern store (also known as sour salt). Don't expect to find this at safeway or target
.I made a twenty-something percent solution in DISTILLED water and I always add about 1% to my diluted soap. a 16oz batch would need about 0.5 ounces after dilution. Do it while it's hot or heat it up after you add it to the diluted mixture in your pot. The lumps you see in the soap will dissolve pretty quickly. Remember that Neutralizing is not really neutral. 7 is neutral on the PH scale but soap MUST be alkaline for it to work properly. I have added citric acid to a diluted soap before and then saw the soap get cloudy after it cooled because the PH dropped too low. Yikes! This is pretty easy to fix, thankfully. I just grab about a 1/2 tsp of lye and add it to tablespoon of water. I add it, a little at a time and I can almost watch as the soap gets clear again right before my eyes. Do it while it's cold because the soap will get clear when you heat it up and you want to be able to see the reaction to know when you've added enough lye to bring it to clarity. Once it's clear, i'd add a tiny bit more for good measure. Remember, soap is supposed to be a little on the alkaline side. DR Bronner's castile soap says their soaps are I believe 8.9 on the PH scale. Phenolphthalein drops with their soap produce a light pink that is so very very faint, you can barely see it.
6. Sequestering agents. I'm not very well versed on this but I see 5% the max sequestering agents to use. Either a sugar water solution or Glycerin. or a mixture of the two. I use the max of 5%. I understand that sequestering agents are used to help with clarity but I also now know that the added glycerin helps with bubbles and make the soap feel emollient. If it weren't' for these two points I probably would skip sequestering since I think i've mastered the process to produce a clear soap. Add these to diluted soap.
7. Fragrance. The about.com says to use 3oz of fragrance. That is a LOT if you ask me. Can anyone offer guidance here? the total batch for their recipe is about 80oz diluted. I wold guess 2% would be the max amount of fragrance to use and this is almost twice as much. Fragrance oils are delicate, especially real essential oils. Some more than others. I recommend waiting until your diluted soap is less than 130 degrees before adding any essential oils or extracts. Extracts are more soluble than essential oils, in my experience and I recommend using a combination of the two if the end product scent is nice. I wonder if you were to mix an essential oil into an extract (which contains alcohol) if it would make it more soluble? Ethanol (used with extracts and is consumable) is an emulsifier. Perhaps this is why I don't see any polysorbate on Dr Bronner's labels? The use of extracts! I never thought of that until now.
7. Thickening. This part is fun
. I make a supersaturated salt solution. I add 2 parts water to 1 part salt in a sauce pan and boil the DISTILLED (again) water and then add salt. This is what I add to to thicken. Recipes with more than half of the oil being Olive oil will thicken very nicely and very easily! I start with 3.5% but usually end up around 7% of diluted soap weight. Add thickening while it's cool. If you do it while it's hot, you may find that when it cools its WAAAAY thicker than you wanted. I turned an 80% olive oil recipie into nearly jello once lol. I'll usually take a teaspoon of it in a cup and just squirt a little saltwater in and mix it up just to see how it reacts if it's a new recipe. If you add too much, it will turn milky which is why 3.5% is a good starting point.
