My Creamy Cocoa/Shea GLS Tutorial

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Hi Shirley! I only have 2 LS tutorials...the one in this very thread (see posts 1 - 8) is my Creamy Cocoa Shea GLS tutorial, and the other one (my Crystal Clear GLS) is located in the first link that DeeAnna just provided above in post #197 (see posts 8 and 9 in the linked thread).


IrishLass :)
Thank you. I just read through the Creamy Cocoa one and the rest of this thread. The liquid looks creamy and soft. I'd love to try it. I've never made a liquid. I'm still in the beginning stages of CP. But finding something I can use right away will satisfy my impatient need to wait. I'm going to find the Crystal Clear GLS now. Thank you again.

@ShirleyHailstock , the first post in this thread has a recipe from @IrishLass. I didn't read the whole thread to see if there was a followup recipe, but that should get you started. :)

ETA: The recipe is spread across several posts. With lots of pictures.
Got it. Thanks for helping. I read every word. I’m too much of a novice to tackle that right now. I made some lotion bars for Valentines Day and I love them. I feel like my skin is moisturized all the time without being greasy.
 
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@IrishLass
I make lots of liquid soap but have always heated it. The idea of just leaving it alone is extremely appealing. Anyway, I have a question about your photos in first post. Looks like you are using a double boiler? Are you? What is the stainless steel bowl with the pouring lip called? It looks like it has a handle too (think is why I thought double boiler)! I really want a mixing bowl with a lip and a handle but I've not come across one; the closest thing I've seen would be a chocolate pot but a lot of those aren't stainless steel and ones that are usually cost an arm and a leg, was hoping your pot might be a solution. Thanks in advance!
 
@IrishLass
I make lots of liquid soap but have always heated it. The idea of just leaving it alone is extremely appealing. Anyway, I have a question about your photos in first post. Looks like you are using a double boiler? Are you? What is the stainless steel bowl with the pouring lip called? It looks like it has a handle too (think is why I thought double boiler)! I really want a mixing bowl with a lip and a handle but I've not come across one; the closest thing I've seen would be a chocolate pot but a lot of those aren't stainless steel and ones that are usually cost an arm and a leg, was hoping your pot might be a solution. Thanks in advance!

Hi Juggsy- it is indeed a double boiler pot, made by Pampered Chef. It's catalog # is 2405 and it is a discontinued item, but you can find still it on places such as Ebay: Pampered Chef Double Boiler with Dipping Tool #2405 Stainless 2 Handles 99901024055 | eBay


IrishLass :)
 
Hi Juggsy- it is indeed a double boiler pot, made by Pampered Chef. It's catalog # is 2405 and it is a discontinued item, but you can find still it on places such as Ebay: Pampered Chef Double Boiler with Dipping Tool #2405 Stainless 2 Handles 99901024055 | eBay


IrishLass :)
You are amazing thank you. I need a new pot 🙃😉😉😅 (well that's my excuse). I know you don't do the KOH dissolving (over heat) anymore but this morning I thought I'd give this cold process liquid soap ago. I did dissolve over heat just because I (touch wood) am generally careful and I have a tall stainless steel beaker with handle (might be a milk jug but never seen one like one I've got) that fits 1200 mls so it's generally good size for KOH & NaOH.
Pretty impressed with results and not having to cook for a certain number of hours like I was taught (Catherine Failor's method) How I'd never done this before is beyond my understanding.
It looks different to my normal glycerine LS. I'm wondering if I've been overcooking it for years. I will dilute some tomorrow if I get time. Tnank you for linking the information you truly are awesome.
 
This soap is so wonderful! I took the time to write out/consolidate step-by-step instructions that can be printed out as a checklist when you actually make it. I shared my write-up in a Word doc that you can access HERE. In case anyone has trouble with that link, I've also posted it in long form, below. ** Please note that I used the faster method of dissolving KOH in DW before adding room-temp glycerin, and I omitted the EDTA. Both of these changes required adjustments to the dilution water. You will need to readjust your dilution water if you change either of those recipe components back to IL's original instructions.**

Irish Lass’ Creamy Cocoa-Shea GLS Tutorial

Ingredients:
Coconut Oil 35%
Castor Oil 30%
Cocoa Butter 20%
Olive Oil 10%
Shea Butter 5%
3% superfat
Lye concentration: 25% (25% KOH, 25% distilled water, 50% glycerin)

Post-cook dilution ingredients (using baker’s percentage):
100% paste weight
32.96% distilled water
3% SL
3% meadowfoam seed oil (or other SF oil of choice)
3% stearic acid
.15% PS80 (note the decimal point!)
1% max FO per weight of finished soap, mixed with equal amount of additional PS80 (this is separate from the amount of PS80 listed in the line above)

Directions:
1. Weigh and melt hard fats, then add liquid oil. Turn off the heat and cover.

2. Pour KOH into distilled water. Stir to dissolve. Stir in glycerin. Add mix to oils.

4. Stickblend mixture from clear amber to milky opaque. You can stop at the “Flying Bubble Stage,” which is normally ~5-6 minutes. If you don’t see tiny bubbles, a good layer of bubbles on the batter’s surface is fine. You can also SB all the way to the thick cream-cheese/taffy stage if you want.

5. Cover the pot and let it sit (off heat) for 4-6 hours to become a firm, scoopable, sticky, taffy-like paste under a thin layer of dried bubbles.

6. Zap test. When zap-free, proceed to dilution, or store paste in the fridge for dilution later.

7. To dilute: Weigh an empty canning jar with its cover, and note the weight (important for later). Make sure to choose a jar large enough to accommodate all contents. A ½-gallon jar will accommodate a batch with 500g oils and its dilution ingredients.

8. Fill large pot with enough water to come up the sides of your canning jar. Put a heat pad or trivet on the bottom of the pot, and bring to a boil.

9. Weigh out post-cook dilution ingredients as a percentage of paste weight as noted above. Weigh stearic acid into canning jar. Tare scale, and then weigh paste into jar on top of stearic acid. Tare scale and weigh PS80 into the jar.

10. In a separate small pot, weigh out distilled water and SL, and bring to a boil. Alternatively, heat distilled water to boiling in a tea kettle, weigh out what you need into a heat-safe Pyrex measuring cup, tare, then weigh/add SL and stir.

11. Pour the boiling water/SL mixture into the paste jar, tightly cover it, give a little shake, and then place it on the trivet in your large pot of boiling water. Loosen the lid slightly while it is in the hot water (remember to tighten it again if you shake it later).

12. Cover the pot if you can, turn heat to medium, and then let it boil at a gentle roll for ~1 hour. Check water level to maintain it above the jar contents; top off as needed. Occasionally pick up jar with gloved hands, give a gentle swirl, and then return to boiling water.

13. Take the jar out of the pot, set it on a heat resistant pad, and wipe it down with a cloth. Carefully open jar and stir with a long, firm spatula. By this time, the stearic acid should be completely melted, and the jar contents will be a dual mixture of clear, amber-colored liquid (diluted soap), and undissolved globs of paste.

14. Smash the globs against the inside of jar to check firmness. If they are soft like jelly, stick blend the contents to break up the globs so they dissolve more quickly. If they are still quite hard/firm, cook it for additional 20-minute intervals until soft enough. After blending, the contents will be an opaque ivory color (temporarily).

15. After blending, recover the jar and place it back into the pot of water on the turned-off burner to let the jar contents settle and continue dissolving as it slowly cools. After about 30 minutes, the contents should look like amber ale with a bit of a foamy head. As it cools down over the next hours, the foamy head will thin out, gradually getting scantier and wispier. Optional: spray foamy head with alcohol every once in a while, to knock it down a bit. Don’t go overboard with spraying, or it will thin the soap too much.

16. Blobbiness: If your foam takes more than 12 hours to dissipate into mere wisps, and you have a layer of thick, stubborn foam on the surface that just won't dissipate, then open the jar and gently poke at the surface with a chopstick. If you encounter resistance, a blob of undissolved soap is the culprit. Resist the urge to add more water at a time, since a little bit of water goes a very long way at this stage. Add ½ ml of hot distilled water to the jar, warm it in a pot of simmering water, then let it cool down again. Repeat as needed until all soap has dissolved.

17. Leave the covered jar on the counter for 12-24 hours to become opaque and creamy before super-fatting.

18. Super-fat at 3% of starting paste weight, or at 2.053% of the finished soap weight. To calculate your finished soap weight, weigh the covered jar of soap and then subtract the covered empty jar weight that you noted earlier.

19. Multiply the finished soap weight by 2.053% (or the paste weight by 3%) to determine how much MFSO to add.

20. Multiply the MFSO weight by 3% to determine amount of PS80 to mix with MFSO so it solubilizes into the soap.

21. Mix the MFSO with the PS80 and hand-stir the mix into the soap. No heat or stick-blending is needed. Store soap until ready to decant and scent, as desired.

22. Add anywhere from .3% to 1% FO/EO per weight of decanted soap. Mix FO/EO with an equal amount of PS80 before hand-stirring it into the decanted soap.
 
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Today I have finished diluting the Creamy Coco-Shea GLS. Thanks, Irish Lass.
Turned out great, exactly like on the pics.
I followed the tutorial for easy KOH dilution with water. Got "flying bubbles" after 15 minutes of blending, but since it wasn't time to stop according to the tutorial, I kept blending. About 3 min after flying bubbles, the paste all of a sudden goth thick and that is where I stopped blending and left it alone. My paste didn't look exactly the way Irish Lass explained. It was more like a pliable sticky dough with light creamy color. Tested 8 on PH paper (I know it is not accurate... but still). The tong sting test was negative, water clearance test showed some cloudiness, but very slight, I can easily read the newspaper through it (I guess, it was 3% of initial superfatting?)
The positive of overmixing - the paste was soft enough to stick blend 10 min after the hot water bath, and it got mixed very easily into a creamy consistency. It cleared several hours later and a day later changed color to this white creamy liquid (exactly the same color of the original paste)
Now I am waiting for the meadowfoam oil to arrive to superfat my GLS.
Thanks again to Irish Lass for the great tutorial.
 
Reviving this thread…. I have questions!
1) Can I use disodium edta instead of trisodium edta?
2) I can’t wrap my head around the math on this, math is my kryptonite! Can someone spell it out for me please?
3% Sodium Lactate in 60% solution
-1.96% Tetrasodium EDTA in 39% solution
3) If I wanted to add a preservative would phenonip be appropriate? I have rosehip oil and cucumber seed oil on hand that I bought before I learned about shelf life and would like to use them up.
Thanks in advance!
 
The key is to make your solutions in advance, or to buy a premade solution in that percentage. SL for instance can be purchased as a powder, or as a premade solution that is normally 60%. So if you have that dilution of SL already, just plug it into the recipe as 3% of the paste weight.

But if you have powdered SL, it is very easy to make the dilution rate you need. Always use a 100g batch to make the math easy -- because, math!! 😆

Example: Mix 60 grams of SL into 40g of distilled water. That will give you 100g of a 60% SL solution.

Do the same with the EDTA: mix 39g of EDTA with with 61g of distilled water. That will give you 100g of a 39% EDTA solution.

ETA: My recollection is that Liquid Germall Plus is a better option for preserving LS, but I'm not recalling exactly why, sorry. LGP and phenonip are both listed as working up to a pH level of 8. Obviously your soap pH will be higher than that, but apparently it still works, perhaps just not as effectively.

Sorry that I can't answer your question about substituting one type of EDTA for another. I've never used EDTA but hopefully someone else who has will chime in here.
 
The key is to make your solutions in advance, or to buy a premade solution in that percentage. SL for instance can be purchased as a powder, or as a premade solution that is normally 60%. So if you have that dilution of SL already, just plug it into the recipe as 3% of the paste weight.

But if you have powdered SL, it is very easy to make the dilution rate you need. Always use a 100g batch to make the math easy -- because, math!! 😆

Example: Mix 60 grams of SL into 40g of distilled water. That will give you 100g of a 60% SL solution.

Do the same with the EDTA: mix 39g of EDTA with with 61g of distilled water. That will give you 100g of a 39% EDTA solution.

ETA: My recollection is that Liquid Germall Plus is a better option for preserving LS, but I'm not recalling exactly why, sorry. LGP and phenonip are both listed as working up to a pH level of 8. Obviously your soap pH will be higher than that, but apparently it still works, perhaps just not as effectively.

Sorry that I can't answer your question about substituting one type of EDTA for another. I've never used EDTA but hopefully someone else who has will chime in
Thank you for the math help! It sounds so simple the way you explained it! I’m hoping @DeeAnna chimes in with all her sciency knowledge
 
Not been on the forum for a bit.

No, I would not use disodium EDTA in soap. I'd convert it to tetrasodium (not TRIsodium) EDTA first. There's more info at the bottom of this article of mine: https://classicbells.com/soap/EDTA.asp
Thank you!! Now why didn’t I think to go to your website? I’m on it so much I must look like a stalker
 

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