Hi, I'm new here, and I was wondering if anyone can help me with liquid soap? We've been making CP soap for years, and I decided I'd like to try making liquid soap. (Hope no-one minds the LONG post...)
The first two batches were a complete disaster - the first one gave me my first experience with a volcano reaction, and it's not one I ever want to repeat. It felt like the Little Shop of Horrors. After filling every available container with a bubbling mass of soapy fury, it finally started to subside, leaving me terrified and with a huge mess to clear up. We cleaned up, I did a search on the internet which made me think perhaps the oils and the lye were too hot (I don't know about anyone else, but after years of soap making I don't even know where the thermometer is), so we gingerly tried again. This time we made sure everything was cool before adding the lye and to begin will all went well. We reached trace (bit like whipped cream) and put the lid on to let it cook for the next half hour. When we removed the lid we found it starting the volcano action again. Hastily removed it from the heat, put on the lid and hoped. Fortunately it subsided without overflowing, but it then went into a sort of powder and remained a powder from then on.
Another search on the internet had me phoning my supplier to make sure that it was potassium hydroxide and not sodium hydroxide they'd supplied me with. They assured me it was, and the only other thing I could think of was that the pot I'd used (a heavy, very old pressure cooker pot) was not stainless steel as I'd thought, but aluminium. Sounds silly, I know, but really, I thought it was stainless steel!
Threw away the second batch and tried again, this time using a pot I KNEW was stainless steel, and was taken completely by surprise when it went from trace to the vaseline stage in two minutes - a total of 15 minutes from when we first added the lye to the oil. Past (limited - see above) experience seemed to point to something being badly wrong, so we let it cook for an hour (during which time it didn't change at all) before trying the test in water to see if it was clear. It was crystal clear.
We ended up with 2.6kg of paste, and then spent a happy time dissolving .5kg amounts at various percentages and adding different amounts of borax, glycerin and eos. We found it dissolved within 15 minutes of adding it to the water/borax mix, which was another bonus.
Due to the fact that I only ordered a limited amount of supplies (and we are in the middle of nowhere and the supplier is in Durban) I've used it all up and will need to reorder to see if the successful batch was just a fluke. Assuming it wasn't, the soap I've made is really nice - it foams beautifully and works a treat, but I have one problem with it: it's very thin, and I'd like some advice on making it thicker. Glycerin and borax seem one (well, two) solution, although as I understand it, the borax only really works as a thickener if most of your oils are soft oils, and my recipe has a very high percentage of coconut oil. My problem is finding out how much to add. Do you go by the weight of the dilution, or by the weight of the paste? I can't seem to find anything that tells me clearly how to do it, and how much to add. I could reduce the amount of water in the dilution, but if there's another way that makes the paste go further I'd really like to investigate that. Presumably different combinations of oils will give different thicknesses, and if so, can anyone give me advice on this?
As you can tell, I'm a complete beginner with liquid soap, so any advice would be welcome! I do have Catherine Failor's book, but find the need to page backwards and forwards to find anything very confusing.
Anne in South Africa
The first two batches were a complete disaster - the first one gave me my first experience with a volcano reaction, and it's not one I ever want to repeat. It felt like the Little Shop of Horrors. After filling every available container with a bubbling mass of soapy fury, it finally started to subside, leaving me terrified and with a huge mess to clear up. We cleaned up, I did a search on the internet which made me think perhaps the oils and the lye were too hot (I don't know about anyone else, but after years of soap making I don't even know where the thermometer is), so we gingerly tried again. This time we made sure everything was cool before adding the lye and to begin will all went well. We reached trace (bit like whipped cream) and put the lid on to let it cook for the next half hour. When we removed the lid we found it starting the volcano action again. Hastily removed it from the heat, put on the lid and hoped. Fortunately it subsided without overflowing, but it then went into a sort of powder and remained a powder from then on.
Another search on the internet had me phoning my supplier to make sure that it was potassium hydroxide and not sodium hydroxide they'd supplied me with. They assured me it was, and the only other thing I could think of was that the pot I'd used (a heavy, very old pressure cooker pot) was not stainless steel as I'd thought, but aluminium. Sounds silly, I know, but really, I thought it was stainless steel!
Threw away the second batch and tried again, this time using a pot I KNEW was stainless steel, and was taken completely by surprise when it went from trace to the vaseline stage in two minutes - a total of 15 minutes from when we first added the lye to the oil. Past (limited - see above) experience seemed to point to something being badly wrong, so we let it cook for an hour (during which time it didn't change at all) before trying the test in water to see if it was clear. It was crystal clear.
We ended up with 2.6kg of paste, and then spent a happy time dissolving .5kg amounts at various percentages and adding different amounts of borax, glycerin and eos. We found it dissolved within 15 minutes of adding it to the water/borax mix, which was another bonus.
Due to the fact that I only ordered a limited amount of supplies (and we are in the middle of nowhere and the supplier is in Durban) I've used it all up and will need to reorder to see if the successful batch was just a fluke. Assuming it wasn't, the soap I've made is really nice - it foams beautifully and works a treat, but I have one problem with it: it's very thin, and I'd like some advice on making it thicker. Glycerin and borax seem one (well, two) solution, although as I understand it, the borax only really works as a thickener if most of your oils are soft oils, and my recipe has a very high percentage of coconut oil. My problem is finding out how much to add. Do you go by the weight of the dilution, or by the weight of the paste? I can't seem to find anything that tells me clearly how to do it, and how much to add. I could reduce the amount of water in the dilution, but if there's another way that makes the paste go further I'd really like to investigate that. Presumably different combinations of oils will give different thicknesses, and if so, can anyone give me advice on this?
As you can tell, I'm a complete beginner with liquid soap, so any advice would be welcome! I do have Catherine Failor's book, but find the need to page backwards and forwards to find anything very confusing.
Anne in South Africa
