Liquid Soap too cloudy

[Markadan]

Liquid soap Gurus, I need your help.

Yesterday was my first attempt to do my first batch of liquid soap. I put the following criteria:

• Lather
• Clarity
• Fragrance
• Consistency

Fragrance was the only thing I was happy with. I did not get much lather, the soap ended up being too cloudy and consistency was too watery.

Here are the recipe details:

• Organic Extra Virgin Olive oil: 490g (70%)
• Organic virgin Coconut oil: 140g (20%)
• 100% pure jojoba oil: 70g (10%)
• 90% pure KOH concentration: 30% (149g)
• Distilled water: 174g
• Vegetable glycerine: 174g
• Weight of raw material (before cooking): 1218g
• Weight of net material (after cooking): 1116g
• Superfat: 1%
• PH: between 8 & 9

For the first dilution test, I took out:

• 116g of soap paste
• 232g of distilled water
• 9g of essential oils (3%)

I diluted the soap in a low-heat pot while mixing it with water. I started with 1:1 water to paste ratio, and kept increasing as I saw the need to based on the consistency and foam I was seeing. Eventually I stopped at 2:1 water to paste ratio but the foam was still there. I let it sit for about 1.5hrs. At this point, it was still cloudy and foamy. I manually removed the foam with a spoon. I then heated it to about 50 degrees celsius and added the essential oils. It became even cloudier. Once it cooled down, a layer of oil formed at the top.

Based on what I've been reading, I think I did the following mistakes:

• Should have had a higher lye concentration (maybe 35-40%)
• Too much olive oil
• Should have kept the water to paste ratio during dilution as 1.5:1 at most.

Any validation on these mistakes would be really appreciated!


I now have 1000g of soap paste left that I'd like to save (if possible). I am not sure how to move forward. Any help/advice would be appreciated

. You can see the bubbles and oils at the top.

 

[Whatever]

Hi, would you like to share experiences, I'm new here too, but no one have answer our posts, by the way your soap doesn't seems cloudy to me, but probably is the photo, can you take one front a light source

 

[AliOop]

Your soap paste, recipe, and soap look just fine to me, with the following notes:

1. When you add fragrance or SF to liquid soap, that can cause cloudiness, separation, or both. Because each recipe will have different reactions to each fragrance and each level of SF, you have to experiment.

2. You can add a solubilizer such polysorbate 80 to prevent separation. With or without that, try adding very small amounts of fragrance at a time to see whether your soap clouds. As long as I know my LS was properly made, I personally don't care about cloudiness, and in fact, kind of like how it looks compared to the clear LS. That's really just personal preference, so don't be fooled by sources that insist that your LS must always be clear. Some fats and some additives will cause cloudiness, and that's not automatically a bad thing.

3. You can store your soap paste in an air-tight container in the fridge until you are ready to dilute more. I like using plastic baggies because I can remove almost all the air from them before sealing them. That helps prevent rancidity.

I'm new here too, but no one have answer our posts

Sometimes it can take awhile for folks to see a post, so it is good to give it a couple of days if you don't hear from someone right away. I for one did not see this post until you commented on it. Commenting is a good way to "bump" a post if needed to bring it back to the top of the forum list.

 

[natik]

Liquid soap Gurus, I need your help.

Yesterday was my first attempt to do my first batch of liquid soap. I put the following criteria:

• Lather
• Clarity
• Fragrance
• Consistency

Fragrance was the only thing I was happy with. I did not get much lather, the soap ended up being too cloudy and consistency was too watery.

Here are the recipe details:

• Organic Extra Virgin Olive oil: 490g (70%)
• Organic virgin Coconut oil: 140g (20%)
• 100% pure jojoba oil: 70g (10%)
• 90% pure KOH concentration: 30% (149g)
• Distilled water: 174g
• Vegetable glycerine: 174g
• Weight of raw material (before cooking): 1218g
• Weight of net material (after cooking): 1116g
• Superfat: 1%
• PH: between 8 & 9

For the first dilution test, I took out:

• 116g of soap paste
• 232g of distilled water
• 9g of essential oils (3%)

I diluted the soap in a low-heat pot while mixing it with water. I started with 1:1 water to paste ratio, and kept increasing as I saw the need to based on the consistency and foam I was seeing. Eventually I stopped at 2:1 water to paste ratio but the foam was still there. I let it sit for about 1.5hrs. At this point, it was still cloudy and foamy. I manually removed the foam with a spoon. I then heated it to about 50 degrees celsius and added the essential oils. It became even cloudier. Once it cooled down, a layer of oil formed at the top.

Based on what I've been reading, I think I did the following mistakes:

• Should have had a higher lye concentration (maybe 35-40%)
• Too much olive oil
• Should have kept the water to paste ratio during dilution as 1.5:1 at most.

Any validation on these mistakes would be really appreciated!


I now have 1000g of soap paste left that I'd like to save (if possible). I am not sure how to move forward. Any help/advice would be appreciated

. You can see the bubbles and oils at the top.

First of all, the soap doesn't look very cloudy to me. Just like AliOop said, the clarity will depend on type of oils. Want clear soap - do 100% coconut, that will give you clear soap for sure, but will be very drying.
Second, superfat in liquid soap will cloud the soap, it will be basically fat floating on the surface. When we do clarity test by dropping some paste in the water after the paste is ready - we are checking for fats that did not saponify yet. You see the cloudy water - there is extra fat in the soap, or the lye did not saponify everything yet. If you want to superfat liquid soap - you will need to add PS-80 to make sure that oils will dilute in water.

With scents, I noticed that whenever I added them - it makes soap cloudy no matter how much PS-80 I mix in. Also I feel that the soap feels oily. Last time I made liquid soap - I added FO right after the paste was ready, while it was still hot. I did my best to mix it in, and about 15 min later I started diluting with water. That seemed to work. The diluted soap turned out clear and did not feel oily.

When you are diluting, you are not looking at how much foam left. You are looking at the skin on top of the diluted liquid. I know, some people stick blend paste with water. I tried it, it gets very confusing when the soap is blended with the water, harder to see whether it is just blended or actually diluted. I just add water, put the crop pot on low and keep checking it. It takes a long time to dilute. Don't try to force and finish dilution in 2-3 hours. Give it at least couple days. Start with 60-70 % water/paste. Then every several hours check it and add 10-15 ml if you still see floating pieces of paste or skin formed at the top of the liquid. It takes a lot of patients to not overdilute it. If your are feeling impatient and want to use soap earlier, you can get some diluted soap out of the pot, and keep diluting the rest of it.

And the last tip. Before starting dilution - take couple Tbs of paste out of the pot. Put it aside, and if you end up overdiluting - just add it back to liquid soap, and it will thicken it. Again, it may take a day or so to dissolve that little bit of soap.

Good luck

 

[Susie]

My dilution solution is to start with half of the paste weight of water. Then, once that is absorbed by the paste, add half of the previous water amount. After that is absorbed, use 1/2 of the water amount you just used. Once that is absorbed, continue using half of the previous water amount at the time. Once you figure out how much water you added, WRITE IT DOWN. So you don't have to play the dilution game the next time you make that recipe.

Example: 16oz paste + 8 oz H2O
Then 4 oz H2O
Then 2 oz H2O
Etc

The other issue I see is Jojoba Oil. It does not saponify. Don't use that in liquid soap. The oil you see on top is almost certainly Jojoba Oil. Other than that, why did you cook that soap? There is no need whatsoever.