Lye 98 : 99 %

[mtamam]

Hello
I am from Egypt . There is NO lye 100 % in the market
Only 98: 99 %... is good for handmade soap making ? Bec i read many article says that it bad for handmade soap
I made 4types of soap with 4 different receipt . All with pure oil and extra virgin olive oil . i calculated the lye from soapcalc.net . It curing for one month . The result is very dry and hard skin in my hand
It is because of i am using lye 98 . 99 % ?
Thanks

 

[three_little_fishes]

I'm interesting in hearing any answers to this as well.

 

[JennH]

I used the lye flakes from Brambleberry without problem and they say they are 97% pure. Hopefully someone who's more experienced then me answers and knows more about it.

 

[AlchemyandAshes]

Is your soap crumbling? Did you use a superfat percentage or lye discount? Can you post your recipe? That would be very helpful in troubleshooting the problem.
I'm no chemist, but I am always curious what the other 2-3% remaining product consists of if the package says 97%-98% pure sodium hydroxide. What may be perfectly fine to use in plumbing may have impurities that interact with the soap making process.

 

[mtamam]

my recipe is
olive oil 300 g
coconut oil 400 g
rice ban oil 100 g
soya oil 100 g
castor oil 25
jojoba oil 50
almond oil 25

water 380 gram
Lye 143 gram

Thanks

 

[AlchemyandAshes]

Running your recipe through SoapCalc, you used a 15% superfat...which is more than plenty to account for any lye mismeasurements. Some of you soap qualities were on the high side, like cleansing (your superfat % should make up for that), creaminess (not necessarily a bad thing), and INS (it probably just traced/saponified quickly).
What temperature did you soap at? Did your soap batter accelerate/get thick or clumpy quickly? Did your soap go through gel phase?
My best guess is that your skin is sensitive to the high cleansing factor, or that possibly if you got to trace too quickly, that everything wasn't incorporated evenly in your batch and you have some spots that may be lye heavy. I doubt that with 15% superfat, but it is a possibility...or there may be some impurity in your lye that is causing a problem in your soap?