How long does it take? I had it in with the emulsifying wax and stearic acid at over 200 degrees for about an hour and it barely changed.
Melting SCI temp?
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How long does it take? I had it in with the emulsifying wax and stearic acid at over 200 degrees for about an hour and it barely changed.
Honestly, just grind them - it takes all of five seconds in a blender. You can probably do it in a bullet-type bender with a regular cutting blade. Wear a proper dust mask, and when finished, just rinse out the blender. It'snot poisonous - it's probably the same ingredient that's in your dishwashing liquid.
It takes around 30 minutes. However, if you add other ingredients, like the emulsifying wax and stearic acid, it will not dissolve. It has to be a liquid surfactant such as cocamidopropyl betaine.
You have to dissolve SCI in a surfactant. E-wax and stearic are not surfactants!
I made a new batch of my syndet shampoo bars today since the last bar from my previous batch is down to a tiny sliver. I thought of this thread and decided to pay extra attention to how long it took to dissolve the SCI for this new batch. I used a "sous vide" method to do this, meaning I put the ingredients in a bag and heated the bag in a hot water bath. Here's my report --
I currently have SCI in noodle form. The noodles are small rods about 1/16" / 2 mm wide and about 1/4" / 6 mm long. I mixed these SCI noodles with the two liquid surfactants in my formulation -- C14-C16 olefin sulfonate and cocoamidopropyl betaine (CAPB). The proportion of wet to dry surfactants was 1 part liquid surfs to 1.4 part SCI noodles by weight. I weighed these surfs into a heat-resistant clear plastic bag. No other ingredients were added to the bag at this point.
(True confession -- I have dumped all my shampoo bar ingredients together and tried to dissolve the SCI noodles that way. It seems like this should work, right? Nope.
I learned the hard way that SCI dissolves completely in less time if it's mixed only with liquid surfs, as described here.)
I rolled the top of the bag over several times, clipped it with a metal binder clip, mixed the surfs by massaging the bag, and immersed the bottom part of the bag into a 180-190 F / 80-85 C water bath. I did my best to ensure the surfs stayed submerged in the hot water while keeping the rolled top above the water.
Every 5 to 10 minutes, I pulled the bag out of the hot water, set it in a towel to protect my hands, and massaged the bag to mix the ingredients inside. After 20 minutes of heating and mixing, the noodles were roughly 1/2 their original diameter.
After 30 minutes, I had to look hard to see the noodles, but a careful check showed small fragments were still present. As @KiwiMoose mentioned, the mixture at this point was a lot more runny than it was when I started. I would have been happy to stop dissolving the SCI at this point and move on with the rest of the process, but in the interests of science, I kept going.
At 45 minutes of heating and mixing, I could no longer see any trace of the noodles, even when I spread the mixture into a thin layer inside the bag and held the mixture up to a bright window.
At the 45 minute mark, I opened the bag, added the remaining surfactant (SLSa) and other ingredients, closed the bag and massaged to mix. I always add a small drop or two of colorant (ultramarine blue powder today) to the final ingredients to help me decide when the paste is fully mixed (more in the next paragraph). The mixture was rather stiff and lumpy at this point.
The bag went back into the hot water bath for 10 minutes. After heating, the ingredients were much more pliable, and I spent a solid 5 minutes massaging and mixing until the colorant was fully mixed in and the paste was a uniform color, which is my sign the ingredients are well mixed. Back into the hot water bath to warm up for 5 minutes. I then briefly mixed the paste, squeegeed the paste into the bottom of the bag, clipped a corner off the bag, and piped the paste into my molds.
Conclusion -- SCI noodles dissolve well if combined with liquid surfactants only. Gently heat in a hot water bath while mixing every 5-10 minutes. Using an efficient "sous vide" method to heat the mixture, the SCI dissolved in 30-45 minutes. If another heating method is used, the process may take more time.
I currently have SCI in noodle form. The noodles are small rods about 1/16" / 2 mm wide and about 1/4" / 6 mm long. I mixed these SCI noodles with the two liquid surfactants in my formulation -- C14-C16 olefin sulfonate and cocoamidopropyl betaine (CAPB). The proportion of wet to dry surfactants was 1 part liquid surfs to 1.4 part SCI noodles by weight. I weighed these surfs into a heat-resistant clear plastic bag. No other ingredients were added to the bag at this point.
(True confession -- I have dumped all my shampoo bar ingredients together and tried to dissolve the SCI noodles that way. It seems like this should work, right? Nope.
I learned the hard way that SCI dissolves completely in less time if it's mixed only with liquid surfs, as described here.)I rolled the top of the bag over several times, clipped it with a metal binder clip, mixed the surfs by massaging the bag, and immersed the bottom part of the bag into a 180-190 F / 80-85 C water bath. I did my best to ensure the surfs stayed submerged in the hot water while keeping the rolled top above the water.
Every 5 to 10 minutes, I pulled the bag out of the hot water, set it in a towel to protect my hands, and massaged the bag to mix the ingredients inside. After 20 minutes of heating and mixing, the noodles were roughly 1/2 their original diameter.
After 30 minutes, I had to look hard to see the noodles, but a careful check showed small fragments were still present. As @KiwiMoose mentioned, the mixture at this point was a lot more runny than it was when I started. I would have been happy to stop dissolving the SCI at this point and move on with the rest of the process, but in the interests of science, I kept going.
At 45 minutes of heating and mixing, I could no longer see any trace of the noodles, even when I spread the mixture into a thin layer inside the bag and held the mixture up to a bright window.
At the 45 minute mark, I opened the bag, added the remaining surfactant (SLSa) and other ingredients, closed the bag and massaged to mix. I always add a small drop or two of colorant (ultramarine blue powder today) to the final ingredients to help me decide when the paste is fully mixed (more in the next paragraph). The mixture was rather stiff and lumpy at this point.
The bag went back into the hot water bath for 10 minutes. After heating, the ingredients were much more pliable, and I spent a solid 5 minutes massaging and mixing until the colorant was fully mixed in and the paste was a uniform color, which is my sign the ingredients are well mixed. Back into the hot water bath to warm up for 5 minutes. I then briefly mixed the paste, squeegeed the paste into the bottom of the bag, clipped a corner off the bag, and piped the paste into my molds.
Conclusion -- SCI noodles dissolve well if combined with liquid surfactants only. Gently heat in a hot water bath while mixing every 5-10 minutes. Using an efficient "sous vide" method to heat the mixture, the SCI dissolved in 30-45 minutes. If another heating method is used, the process may take more time.
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Oh My Gosh! When I read your earlier post about using a bag to dissolve the SCI, I didn't even think about using the bag the entire time! What a great idea! This is my new shampoo bar procedure. Thanks for sharing this @DeeAnna !
@Kcryss -- You're welcome; I hope it works well for you. I got the idea from the April 2018 SMF Challenge --
Discussion: SMF April 2018 Challenge - Sous Vide (HP) Soap swirling!
Entries: SMF April 2018 (Sous Vide Soap swirl) Challenge Entry Thread
Here's one of my posts from the discussion thread that has pictures of how I do this sous vide thing --
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/thr...ide-hp-soap-swirling.69725/page-3#post-696351
I don't make large batches of syndet shampoo bars -- this last one was 500 grams total -- so sous vide is very handy for making the whole thing. In the past, it was easy to waste ingredients because the paste stuck to everything and made a big mess. The sous vide method has turned this into an almost waste-free and mess-free process.
Discussion: SMF April 2018 Challenge - Sous Vide (HP) Soap swirling!
Entries: SMF April 2018 (Sous Vide Soap swirl) Challenge Entry Thread
Here's one of my posts from the discussion thread that has pictures of how I do this sous vide thing --
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/thr...ide-hp-soap-swirling.69725/page-3#post-696351
I don't make large batches of syndet shampoo bars -- this last one was 500 grams total -- so sous vide is very handy for making the whole thing. In the past, it was easy to waste ingredients because the paste stuck to everything and made a big mess. The sous vide method has turned this into an almost waste-free and mess-free process.
My kinda method and my go to from here on out!
I'm going to try the bags for soap too!
Thanks for posting the links!
Onerchem
New Member
There is a lot to understand about SCI in the use process, and the conditions required for different forms are different. It is nice to see the real feedback from users about SCI. This helps me a lot. Do thanks.
I use my food processor…it’s basically suds so i have no issue grinding sci, washing it out and then processing food.
Eepa
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I melt my SCI noodles in a glass beaker in semi boiling water bath with Cocamidopropyl Betaine. As long as I remember only put the coca-betaine and the SCI noodles in the beaker, the noodles will dissolve in maybe 20 minutes. I haven't used them for a good long while but it doesn't take that long.
