Made some lovely LS

[topofmurrayhill]

This was made with glycerin, though I didn't use as much of it as some do, and I dissolved the KOH in water. Next time maybe I'll try more glycerin or try other solvents. There is, however, a significant twist in the other ingredients I used for this batch.

I hardly used any oils to make this soap. It's mostly made with free fatty acids. The recipe is composed of lauric acid, myristic acid, oleic acid and castor oil. One of the effects of using fatty acids instead of oils is that much of the saponification takes place almost instantly. Just a minute or two of swishing around with a rubber spatula and it was nearly done.

This soap includes a 5% lye discount. You can have a bigger superfat with fatty acids than with oil without affecting clarity because they are more soluble. They also have a good skin feel and actually lower the pH of the product a little.

I had a problem finding an FO that played well with the soap. I don't remember it being so difficult in the past. Maybe I was unlucky with the ones I happened to test out, or maybe there is something about the fatty acid superfat that causes a problem.

No idea, really, but they clouded the soap and had a big impact on the texture, which often thickened to a paste. When I was experimenting on small samples of the soap, Polysorbate 80 mostly seemed to make the problem worse.

 

[Susie]

Very interesting!

 

[IrishLass]

Interesting twist..... and gorgeous liquid soap! That's very curious that the PS80 made things worse. I wonder why that would be?


IrishLass

 

[dingi]

:twisted:

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Interesting twist..... and gorgeous liquid soap! That's very curious that the PS80 made things worse. I wonder why that would be.

I wonder more about why so many FOs messed up the soap. Do you encounter much of that?

Maybe I can't superfat this soap after all. Excess fatty acids are the main difference here. Otherwise soap is soap. The fatty acid profile is slightly unique, like more myristic than lauric and no palmitic/stearic, but it's really not worlds different from your recipe. If anyone is curious, I can post percentages later when I have them handy and don't have to rush.

Guess it might be worth adding KOH to neutralize the superfat and see if that makes a difference.

 

[Susie]

I have never tried using fatty acids, but if it is cloudy, you have many possibilities of what went wrong. Too much superfat ends up separating every time.

 

[Saponomancer]

oh wow, its extremely pretty

 

[topofmurrayhill]

I have never tried using fatty acids, but if it is cloudy, you have many possibilities of what went wrong. Too much superfat ends up separating every time.

Without fragrance it's super clear and stable. My gut feeling is that this amount of fatty acid superfat would never separate. Chemically I think it has a little more affinity for a liquid soap solution than oil does.

The problem is that the soap dramatically clouds up and congeals as soon as FO touches it. I also noticed that I don't actually get much fragrance.

I will do some experimenting later or tomorrow, but what I am thinking is that unlike excess oil, a fatty acid superfat is quite reactive. An interesting and unexpected twist on my twist.

 

[dingi]

:neutral:

 

[doriettefarm]

Very interesting experiment TOMH, thanks for sharing your results. That has to be the most crystal clear LS I've ever seen! Curious if you tried scenting with EOs or just FOs and also what was your sweet spot for the dilution ratio?

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Very interesting experiment TOMH, thanks for sharing your results. That has to be the most crystal clear LS I've ever seen! Curious if you tried scenting with EOs or just FOs and also what was your sweet spot for the dilution ratio?

I have not yet tried with EO. I have plenty on hand so I will do so. I was surprised to go through several FOs that turned my samples into cloudy goop or paste, then I had to give up and go home.

I colored and scented a larger sample to fill a pump bottle, using the one FO that made the soap react less than the others. In 24 hours or less it turned into a Dippity Do sort of gel with little bubbles in it. Still works well and this one has a good scent.

The yield with this formula is pretty high. It required over 100% of the paste weight to dilute to a pleasantly thick consistency.

5% lauric acid
15% myristic acid
70% oleic acid
10% castor oil

5% superfat
2 * KOH weight glycerin
Caustic initially dissolved in water to 50% concentration

I'll try some EO and will also try to neutralize the FA superfat to see if that addresses the FO issue.

 

[ngian]

Great info, thank you topofmurrayhill (do you have a shorter name? ).

The fatty acids you used can be easily found in the soap supplies shops?

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Great info, thank you topofmurrayhill (do you have a shorter name? ).

The fatty acids you used can be easily found in the soap supplies shops?

They are available from chemical suppliers. You can't get them all in one place and the prices vary quite a bit, so you have to hunt around for who has the quantities you need at a reasonable price. There are some small suppliers who sell through eBay, and sometimes you can get them from the specialty places that sell chemicals and ingredients for soap, bath and body products. I would say this is not a cheap way to make soap.