Liquid soap to liquid

[Persofit]

Hello,
This is my second liquid soap test and everything whent perfect until the dilution part. I must have added to much water because its very liquidy, i seen that adding salt can thicken the soap ( but how much salt to use?)

My recipe contains 39 oz coconut oil and 13oz olive oil 13oz koh and 39oz distilled water.

I ended up with 5lbs of paste and diluted with 2.5lbs of distilled water.

Thanks for any ideas

 

[Susie]

That should not have been too thin at that dilution rate. Not for that recipe.

Salt is not going to help much with that recipe, either. Too much coconut.

I also see you have about a 6% superfat that may lead to some separation.

Are you sure your scale is accurate?

 

[DeeAnna]

Every soap is going to be different, so you are not going to find anyone who can give you specific numbers about how much salt to add.

With that much lauric and myristic acids from the coconut oil, I'm guessing that salt may not do much to thicken this soap. Salt works better with soaps high in oleic acid. But I could well be wrong, and it's easy to experiment with adding salt to a small sample of your soap to know for sure. (Don't try this on the whole batch until you know salt will give you the results you want!)

Here's the kind of informal test I've done to learn about the effect of salt on liquid soap --

Weigh out a given amount of diluted soap. Add dry table salt to the soap sample at, say, 1% of the diluted soap weight. Stir until the salt dissolves and see what happens to the soap. If not sufficiently thickened, try 2% and so on. As the salt % goes up, you may not get additional thickening past a certain point. Test the soap for lathering as you add more salt -- the salt may reduce the amount of lather as the % goes up.

If you find a point at which your liquid soap sample is thick enough and lathers fine, that's the % of salt you want to add to thicken the rest of the soap.

Next time, when you're diluting a new recipe, dilute a small amount of the paste first and start diluting cautiously. The more lauric and myristic acids in the recipe, the less water you should add at first. Once you know the best dilution for the sample, then you can dilute the rest of the paste with more confidence. Diluting the whole amount of paste without really knowing the best dilution for your recipe is a risky venture.

Also, salt will work better on a soap that is at an optimum dilution for the type of soap it is. Salt cannot work miracles on an over diluted soap.

 

[Persofit]

Ok thanks, i think i will use this batch in a foam dispenser bottle. Since its thin it should be perfect.
Thanks again for your help.

 

[IrishLass]

Persofit- a better way that I've found to thicken up liquid soap that has diluted out to thin is to let heat and evaporation go to work for you. I just dump my diluted soap into a pot (with the cover off), set it on low to medium-low heat and let evaporation have it's way until I'm satisfied with the thickness.

Salt is just too tricky to use and the results are not worth it since it diminishes lather. Plus, if you add just a titch too much salt solution, the thickening stops and the soap will actually get thinner.


IrishLass

 

[Persofit]

IrishLass - i will try that.

 

[Persofit]

Just a little update on evaporating water to thicken my liquid soap, half the water evaporated but its still just as thin.
And i even used borax in this recipe. I may have miscalculated the ingredients ( i had to translate into the metric system )

 

[cmzaha]

I was going to say the same as IL. It can take a long time to cook it down to the thickness you like. I have done that but would rather add in some HEC for thickening. As for using it in a foamer you may have to dilute it more. Without looking up my notes I do not remember the actual dilution rate of ls for foamer bottles but it is very dilute.

 

[Susie]

Please post your entire recipe in weights, including borax and all other additives, for troubleshooting help. I think you made serious error somewhere.

 

[Persofit]

Susie - I think your right, I didn't write down the calculations I made in grams. But I will try again to make another batch.

Do most people just add water to their paste until satisfied with the thickness or are there ways to calculate dilution?

 

[Susie]

First off, please use a good lye calculator to prevent errors. My current favorite is Soapee.com.

I will give a quick tutorial:

1. Click "liquid soap". Set your KOH purity to whatever your purity is on your KOH. You may need to contact the manufacturer to find this out.

2. Select your units of measure. It does not matter how you do it, just be consistent. I like grams just fine.

3. Amount of water in recipe. This refers to batch water, not dilution water. I use 3:1 ratio.

4. Set superfat. I use 3% for hand soap, and 0% for dish and laundry soap. I do not ever make lye excess soap that then requires neutralization with borax. It is a wasted step, IMHO.

5. Set fragrance amount. If you do not have the manufacturer's recommendation, I would stick to 3% or less. Fragrance is added at the end of dilution, so don't add it to the oils.

6. Select Oils: Just scroll down and click whatever you want to add. It will open up a window to the far right that you can type in how much of each oil.

You can then scroll down to see how much KOH and water to add to that particular recipe. Best of all is no changing windows to see this information. As you modify one oil or another, it changes the KOH and water.

You can then save and print your recipe. Take the recipe to your soaping area to begin soaping. Make notes right on that page about how that soap acted and what you think about it. Save these recipes.

If I were you, I would aim for no more than 1 kg of oil per recipe until you get the hang of it.

Dilution is both an art and a science. I start with half my paste weight in (boiling) water and add a little until I get down to a couple of lumps. I then turn the crock pot off, add fragrance, and let it cool. RECORD how much water it takes for that batch on that recipe!

I often store my pre-weighed paste in labelled tubs or Ziploc bags for future dilution. I write my dilution ratio right on that package to save me time later. Typically I will weigh out the amount I know I need to fill a particular bottle.

 

[Persofit]

Wow thanks for the course, thats great.

For the dilution, the calculator doesnt say how much dilution water to use.
How do I calculate the water?

 

[IrishLass]

For the dilution, the calculator doesnt say how much dilution water to use.
How do I calculate the water?

I wish I could say there were set amounts written in stone somewhere that would work for every recipe and to everyone's satisfaction based on how thin or thick they like their liquid soap, but truth be told, it all comes down to good old-fashioned trial and error. LOL

The good news is that if you take meticulous notes as you are diluting, you'll have your own 'set-in-stone' dilution rate, and you won't ever have to agonize over your dilution rate again........ at least not for that particular recipe anyway. lol..........

If you make a new/different recipe, you'll have to fiddle around with the water amount and take notes again until you find the sweet spot dilution rate for that particular recipe, too. No two recipes are alike. Depending on the oils you use and in what proportion you use them, some soap pastes will end up thirstier than others and need more dilution water.

In general, most folks like to start out using 1 part paste to .5 parts dilution water and then work their way up from there until satisfied.


IrishLass