Liquid soap separation

[Sapwn]

　
I am very new to liquid soap. I made two batches until now.
The first bottle is my second batch, but the first successful. It is 2/3 extra virgin OO and 1/3 coconut oil with 5% superfat. I followed a recipe that I found in youtube for castile soap making and I changed it a bit.
　
The second bottle is a recipe for a shampoo that I followed exactly as described. The problem is that this liquid soap separates and I don’t know neither why this happened, or how I can fix it.

I hot processed the soap for at least an hour and a half, maybe I overcooked it, and then I tried to dilute it with water. Failure.
A difference between the two is that the first one is half water half glycerin of the amount of water that the calculator was giving, and the failed one is made only with water as the recipe required.
　
　
Is there a way to fix it? Should I cook it/boil it?

 

[100%Natural]

It is most likely separating because it wasn't cooked long enough. You can try warming it up again and using a SB to see if it will blend for you. I haven't tried the reheating and blending personally, I read it on here so take it with a grain of salt, but you never know!

 

[Sapwn]

Thank you Soapy Soaperton.

If I understand right you are saying to cook it again all together in low temperature.



Thank goodness I suspected that "take it with a grain of salt" had some strange meaning and i googgled it to find out, otherwise I would have cook this after adding a spoon of salt. This is what I initially understood :mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:

 

[100%Natural]

LOL Thank goodness for Google! I would put it all in a pot or a slow cooker and recook it for several hours and use the SB. The water based method usually requires more cooking time for the paste itself to neutralize before dilution.

I really don't think you have much to lose at this point and it's worth a shot! Let me know how you make out with it!

 

[Robert]

A difference between the two is that the first one is half water half glycerin of the amount of water that the calculator was giving, and the failed one is made only with water as the recipe required.

And that's the reason. The glycerine's a solubilizer. To the 2nd one, try adding an amount of neat glycerin equal to the amount of water that was already used, and mix like crazy but in a way that doesn't foam it.

 

[Sapwn]

Thank you Robert!

I started boiling the soap today morning after reading Soapy’s comment.
I boiled it in low for about 2 hours.

Then I let it cool down and it separated again with the formation of solid pieces on the top.
I mix it many times while cooling and now it seems to be ok. No separation occurred the last two hours.


As you can see a great amount of water evaporated and the soap is much more dense now.

I will wait until tomorrow and if it is fine I will leave as it is. Otherwise, I will add glycerin and mix it again.
　
　



Thank you both!

 

[FGOriold]

1.5 hours is definitely not long enough to cook liquid soap paste. My bigger concern would be how caustic your soap is due to not cooking long enough. 5% Superfat is pretty high for liquid soap too. So you have two issues you are dealing with. Have you tested the Ph of your finished soap?

I would try again, make sure you run your recipe through a reliable lye calculator set for liquid soap with a 0% superfat and cook until your paste is translucent. Some of my pastes cook for about 9 hours in the crock pot.

 

[Sapwn]

Thank you FGOriold!

How do you know that the cooking is done?
The zap test is not valid here i guess.

 

[FGOriold]

After cooking for 3 hours you can dilute about 1 ounce of your paste into 3 ounces or so of boiling distilled water. If it is clear, you can consider it done - however with a 5% superfat, it may not be clear. If it is milky, it has to cook longer. I use a digital ph meter to determine ph of finished soap. During the cooking process, I will test a tiny dollop of the paste with Phenolphthalein drops on a paper towel every hour after the initial 3 hours until it is clear to very light pink around the edges. Paste "should" be like a translucent gel (some will use the term vaseline) when completed. The color can range from pale yellow to dark amber depending on your oils used.

If you stop your cooking when your paste tests clear when diluted with distilled water, you can always reduce the ph if it is too high with citric acid or borax. Using a 5% superfat will make it a bit more difficult to determine the clarity though. Cloudy can be okay (some oils and butters will cloud the soap too - Avocado oil, shea butter, jojoba oil are some), milky is not good and you have to keep cooking.

 

[Sapwn]

When should I add the oils for superfat?
When cooking is over and before diluting with water?


And how do you see the final photo?
Is it ok for you ?

 

[Robert]

1.5 hours is definitely not long enough to cook liquid soap paste. My bigger concern would be how caustic your soap is due to not cooking long enough.

Alcohols are catalysts for saponif'n, so adding glycerol at the beginning should help speed that up too.

 

[Robert]

How do you know that the cooking is done?

Takes some doing, but a pretty precise way would be to check the pH of equally diluted samples at timed intervals and plot the pH vs. time. When the line hits bottom (stops going down), you're done.

The only more precise way I could think of would be the same time course, but instead of measuring pH of dilutions, you'd back-titrate samples vs. an indicator that was one color at pH 10 or less, and another at pH 11 or more. That is, you'd see how much lye there was left unreacted. You know it's going to be alkaline no matter what, but you know soap alkalinity would produce a pH below where the indicator changed, so that anything that raised the pH above that had to be the lye. You're seeing how much acid you'd have to add to the sample to get it to where the alkalinity is all from soap, and the equivalent amount of lye to that amount of acid is what you have left at any point. If you're superfatting, that amount should go to 0 at some time, so it would seem a time course wouldn't be necessary, but it's reassuring to see that number go down over time.

 

[Robert]

If you stop your cooking when your paste tests clear when diluted with distilled water, you can always reduce the ph if it is too high with citric acid or borax.

You might reduce the pH in a concentrated solution a little with borax, but you wouldn't be reducing the total alkalinity; in fact you'd be increasing it. Since the total alkalinity is what's going to determine its harshness (once the pH is above a certain point), you should use the citric acid (or other acid) rather than borax.

 

[whitetiger_0603]

Hi hun. I didn't read through everything so I might repeat some suggestions but here goes.

When you cook your soap paste, hot process around 160-180°f for 3 hours minimum to ensure all the KOH is cooked out. It will also help you achieve a transparent soap after diluted. I personally like to set my crock on the warm setting and leave my soap to cook overnight after the 3 point. I get the best results that way and it never burns. Next. When making things like shampoo, always reheat using your chosen method at temps over 140°, that way any added ingredients fully incorporate. And don't be afraid to mix really well. It may cause bubbling but at least your ingredients are mixed well together. And lastly, the only thing that makes castile soap is olive oil. Any other oils used do not make a castile soap. That is how it historically has always been. I'd been soaping for over a year Joe and am finally getting the hang of it. Picking up Catherine Failor's book on liquid soap making also really helped tons. My soap looks more aesthetically pleasing and i have fewer errors. Hope these few tips help a little.

Sent from my HTC One using Soap Making mobile app

 

[Sapwn]

Thank you all for the information.


Does glycerin make any difference?
Personally, I am not a fun of high percentage of glycerin and if I can avoid it I will.

 

[whitetiger_0603]

Thank you all for the information.


Does glycerin make any difference?
Personally, I am not a fun of high percentage of glycerin and if I can avoid it I will.

Actually it does! For one of my recipes I add 4 ounces and it speeds up saponification and trace . Like REALLY speeds it up. If i remember correctly it also helps with the final product in gaining a transparent soap. I'd have to check my book on that last one. But yeah, try it the way I mentioned and you'll be surprised. And order that book as well. I got mine on Amazon and it was definitely worth the few bucks I spent. It's by Catherine Failor and it's just simply called Liquid Soap. She also has another book on transparent soap making as well but I haven't gotten it yet. Just remember, your key friends in liquid soap making is time and heat. More heat and time gets better results.

Oh and so long as you get vegetable glycerin your fine dear. Remember that true soaps have glycerin in the final product.

Sent from my HTC One using Soap Making mobile app

 

[Robert]

Does glycerin make any difference?

As I wrote above, yes, although I called it by its other name, "glycerol", to emphasize that it's an alcohol.

Personally, I am not a fun of high percentage of glycerin and if I can avoid it I will.

I don't blame you; I gather you don't like the stickiness. There are other alcohols you can use to speed up the saponif'n and/or solubilize the ingredients, but you might be even less of a fan of them. Ethyl alcohol, the one we ordinarily mean by just plain "alcohol", is one. Propylene glycol is another. One that's come into use lately is 1,3-propadiol.

 

[FGOriold]

The only oil that I have ever heard of being used to superfat after the paste is made and during dilution is sulfated castor oil as it is water soluble and will not cloud your soap.

Any other superfatting you want to do should be done with the initial melting/heating of the oils and kept at very low % because any extra fats that cannot be saponified by the KOH will be left floating in your soap, settling to the bottom and otherwise clouding it. This does not mean the soap is no good, it just will need to be thickened to keep those extra fats suspended or shaken up before each use to redistribute them.

Your best bet is to start with a very basic formula (2 oils or 3 oils) with no superfatting to get a hang of the process then experiment with different formulations. Always run your formula through the summerbee meadow or brambleberry calculators.

 

[whitetiger_0603]

I'm with FGOriold. But i would like to add from my own experience, that a small amount of sunflower seed or Grapeseed Oil are good for post diluting superfatting and it not cloud. And Summerbee calculator is amazing and is actual designed on the Failor soap methods as well.

Sent from my HTC One using Soap Making mobile app

 

[Sapwn]

Thank you guys. Really!