Well, I just made my first liquid soap - with lots of good input from AGriffin. I'll post about that separately because it was an interesting experience and it didn't go as planned.
For now, I wanted to just get some help with thickeners. I read some old posts about Xantham gum and Borax, but i wasn't really clear on the method for incorporating them. Could someone give a step-by-step of how you incorporate these (especially the xantham) into your soap solution? In case anyone's interested (and feel free to skip this if you're not), here's what I did and how it worked out for me:
I used Xantham gum in this batch I just made. I used 9 grams of the powder (My diluted soap mixture was a total of 1500 g (33% concentration), so that's less than 1% xantham gum powder). I read that you can do from .5% to 2%, so I started low. I added it to 2 ounces of very hot distilled water. I mixed it up and it was a gloppy gob. :shock: So, I added a little more hot water, but it didn't help much. I didn't want to add too much water, because I had already diluted my soap to a 33% mixture (I didn't anticipate having to use so much water for my xantham gum powder). i wasn't sure what to do at that point, so I decided to add this mixture to my soap solution. I figured that if it would dissolve properly, I could easily strain it out.
Then, I went back to these forums and found one person's method, which involved a stick blender. You're supposed to add the powder to some room temperature water and stick blend it. I decided to try another 9 g of powder. I boiled 100g of hot water (figuring that more water might be helpful). I'm not sure why I used hot water instead of room temperature - I guess I misread the instructions. Anyhow, when I stick blended the mixture, it was a very thick paste - not something that I could easily add to the soap mixture. Again, I didn't want to add much more water, so I decided to just stickblend this smooth, but pasty xantham mixture into the soap solution. I knew it might cause a ridiculous amount of suds or possibly just mess up the whole thing, but I was feeling experimental and didn't know what else to do.
I have not gotten any borax yet. For the next batch, I'll try using excess lye and neutralizing with borax. Again, I have no idea of exactly HOW to incorporate it into my mixture.
Thanks in advance!
For now, I wanted to just get some help with thickeners. I read some old posts about Xantham gum and Borax, but i wasn't really clear on the method for incorporating them. Could someone give a step-by-step of how you incorporate these (especially the xantham) into your soap solution? In case anyone's interested (and feel free to skip this if you're not), here's what I did and how it worked out for me:
I used Xantham gum in this batch I just made. I used 9 grams of the powder (My diluted soap mixture was a total of 1500 g (33% concentration), so that's less than 1% xantham gum powder). I read that you can do from .5% to 2%, so I started low. I added it to 2 ounces of very hot distilled water. I mixed it up and it was a gloppy gob. :shock: So, I added a little more hot water, but it didn't help much. I didn't want to add too much water, because I had already diluted my soap to a 33% mixture (I didn't anticipate having to use so much water for my xantham gum powder). i wasn't sure what to do at that point, so I decided to add this mixture to my soap solution. I figured that if it would dissolve properly, I could easily strain it out.
Then, I went back to these forums and found one person's method, which involved a stick blender. You're supposed to add the powder to some room temperature water and stick blend it. I decided to try another 9 g of powder. I boiled 100g of hot water (figuring that more water might be helpful). I'm not sure why I used hot water instead of room temperature - I guess I misread the instructions. Anyhow, when I stick blended the mixture, it was a very thick paste - not something that I could easily add to the soap mixture. Again, I didn't want to add much more water, so I decided to just stickblend this smooth, but pasty xantham mixture into the soap solution. I knew it might cause a ridiculous amount of suds or possibly just mess up the whole thing, but I was feeling experimental and didn't know what else to do.
I have not gotten any borax yet. For the next batch, I'll try using excess lye and neutralizing with borax. Again, I have no idea of exactly HOW to incorporate it into my mixture.
Thanks in advance!
