my liquid castile turned all white and creamy

[jnl]

what the heck happened?!

i made 100% liquid castile with 3% superfat, 1000g of oils.

i added 2 oz of glycerin because i heard that would thicken it up. and it seemed to work quite well. no glycerin used when creating the paste. the glycerin was added around the same time as the citric acid.

after diluted and it sat for a few days, it would turn slightly pink when pheno added.

so i made a 20% citric acid solution and added 3 tablespoons just to be safe
(tested with pheno after adding 1 tbsp and it was still slightly pink so i added 2 more....i tested at least a couple hours after adding the first tbsp of citric acid). the citric acid looked like scrambled eggs when added.....tho the first tbsp went away after a bit...the other 2 tbsp didnt fully go away after a few hours so i stuck the hot pot in the fridge for a couple days (was busy with a market). last night it was still clear with a little bit of foam on top and a few little "egg" chunks on top.

this morning the entire soap is white and creamy and super thick.
what the heck happened to it?!?!
is it the citric acid that turned it white, or the glycerin?
is this bad?
do i need to do anything to it?

 

[Susie]

Did you zap test it?

Is there clear liquid under the solid colored top?

My theory is that you over-neutralized and "broke" the soap with the citric acid. I could be wrong, though. I need more information.

Glycerin will not thicken liquid soap. It speeds trace if used for water substitute(in whole or in part)and acts as a humectant to draw moisture to the skin if used as a leave on product additive.

As to what to do with it, you need to figure out what went wrong first. If you did, indeed, "break" the soap, you need to mix some KOH and water(stick with the 1:3 ratio, but only use 5-10 gm of KOH), then you can mix about 5-10 gm of the mixture into the liquid soap, and let it sit a few hours before adding more. Stop adding when it goes back together. If it were me, though, I would pitch it and start from scratch. Make the soap without additives like citric acid and see how that does. Zap test. Do NOT pheno test to determine lye safety. But if you use a 3% superfat, there should not be a problem. Still test, though.

The cloudiness could also be caused by the type of OO you used. I have more trouble with EVOO than regular cheap yellow OO.

 

[jnl]

yes i zap tested the paste and there was no zap
i wanted to be sure it wasnt a bit too high in PH because of the pheno

there is no clear soap anymore....its white all the way through


oh i should mention....the whole cook was strange from the beginning
i used triple water, like most people do.
and when it was cooking, it never went to the totally transparent super crazy thick gel.....it went into foamy mashed potato stage and stayed that way the entire time, tho at the end it looked like translucent foamy mashed potatoes and was still totally stirrable the entire time. it acted like a HP solid soap batter, not like a liquid soap paste. definitely NO NaOH was used....my NaOH is beads and my KOH is shards.

the soap was crystal clear and yellow before it turned white



its evenly white throughout....and super creamy like a cream soap.
is it not usable like this?
it looks like jergens cream soap. lol

other people have said that glycerin thickens liquid soap
and my soap was like water before adding the glycerin, then turned super thick after adding the glycerin.
so it worked for me.
i used only water making the paste
and it was diluted to the bare minimum (still a bit of skin on top)

i used costco OO, not pomace, not EVOO. their OO is a mixture of grade a and evoo. it makes a hard white bar for solid soap. this was my first liquid castile.

 

[IrishLass]

yes i zap tested the paste and there was no zap
i wanted to be sure it wasnt a bit too high in PH because of the pheno

If the soap didn't zap, you can be sure that it was in the safe range of pH (8.5 or so to 11.5 to 12).

The problem with testing lye-based soap with pheno is that it turns various shades of pink from 8.2 pH to 12 pH (the safe zone of pH for lye-based soap). It is clear from 0 - 8.2 pH and also clear again over 12 pH.

Also- one needs to make sure to use pheno properly. It will only work in solution. It is recommended to make a 1% solution out of 1 gram of soap dissolved in 99 grams distilled water, and then test that with the pheno. It won't give reliable results if dropped directly onto the paste. I don't know if that's how you tested or not, but I just thought I'd mention that since I've seen lots of people dropping the phenol directly onto the paste on YouTube soap-making videos, and it's the wrong way to test with pheno.


IrishLass

 

[jnl]

i just put a couple drops of pheno into the diluted liqid soap (a tiny portion taken out, of course).

my pheno is a 1% pheno solution...

 

[galaxyMLP]

As IL said, phenothalein will turn pink between a pH of 8.2-12 or 13. That means that almost every soap will be pink. If its not pink it could be too alkaline or too acidic. I would rely on zap testing for liquid soap (and bar soap) and not use phenothalein. You don't want neutral or acidic soap because the basic nature of soap is what cleans you (it is an anionic surfactant that looses it ability to cleanse in acidic environment).

I think in this case the citric acid caused your soap to become acidic (instead of being just below 8.2)

Btw, you might be able to salvage this batch by adding NaOH back to the diluted soap. I'll do the calculation when I get home to account for the citric acid neutralization. Don't throw it away yet!

 

[jnl]

you mean KOH?

I will just make a solution and add a teeny bit back at a time with a long rest between like Susie suggested.

i wont throw it out! almost anything can be saved!

 

[galaxyMLP]

Yes sorry, I mean KOH. There are "3 acids" per one citric acid. This means it might take a little more KOH than you would expect as KOH has "one base". I would make a 20% KOH solution and go from there.

1 acid + 1 base = neutralized, Its a little more complex than that but I'll leave it at that.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

what the heck happened?!

It's white from fatty acids. Add KOH until it clears up again. You just acidified it too much.

If you think there will be too much liquid, you could literally add KOH flakes. Otherwise a concentrated solution maybe.

I wouldn't count on a calculation. The alkali should be fairly fast-acting. You should know when it's enough.

 

[jnl]

im just amazed the citric acid took almost 2 days to do that.....

i will go VERY slow with the KOH just to be safe because i do not have a ph meter.


anyone know of a good PH meter? every one i have looked at has bad ratings. and they are expensive so i dont want to waste $100 on one that will not work well.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

im just amazed the citric acid took almost 2 days to do that.....

i will go VERY slow with the KOH just to be safe because i do not have a ph meter.

anyone know of a good PH meter? every one i have looked at has bad ratings. and they are expensive so i dont want to waste $100 on one that will not work well.

When you had the white streaks that wouldn't go away, you were over. I have been able to correct that instantaneously, but I was at room temperature and already knew the soap was supposed to be clear. You started with hot soap and a whole bunch more stuff came out of solution when it got cold.

If you could measure the pH accurately, you'd still have to know what pH you were shooting for. That would vary with the recipe. Doing it by eye poses the slight problem that you don't know if the soap is clear at room temp unless you've made it before. I guess you may have to feel your way along a little bit with this one, but you'll fix it.

 

[jnl]

it wasnt streaks, it was little chunks like scrambled eggs.
the first tbsp went chunky and after a few hours the chunks went away.
then i added 2 more tbsp and most of the chunks went away after a few hours but there were still a little bit of chunks floating on the top. the soap was still totally clear at that point. and even last night when i went to bed. but this morning it was all white and creamy. lol


someone told me they shoot for a ph of 9.3 for their liquid soaps
but i dont have a meter so i was just trying to make sure the soap was safe
a friend had suggested i add the citric acid just in case because i dont have a meter.

i do zap test....so its not going to burn the skin, but it would still be nice to make sure the ph is lower than 10. so i really should get a meter.


do i heat the soap up to add the KOH mixture or do it at room temp??

 

[Susie]

Save your money unless you are selling(and therefore need to KNOW the pH to add preservative). You can add the KOH at room temp or heated. Your choice. I would do it at room temp and walk away between additions. I hate being on a schedule for soap.

You need to trust your zap test over friends who tell you to add citric acid when there was no zap. Just saying.

 

[jnl]

it could still be higher ph than necessary and not zap...
but yeah, until i get a PH meter im not going to try to mess with PH again LOL



i do sell at some farmers markets once in awhile (3 markets this summer, 2 are done).
but only bar soap and laundry soap and bath bombs and lip balm so far
no liquid soap until i can make some reliable stuff.

 

[Susie]

Then you are going to need a pH meter to be sure your soap is within the pH range for the preservative. Be sure you get one you can calibrate. Otherwise you are wasting your money and time. Mine was only $20 from Amazon, took forever to ship from China, but able to be calibrated, and I have verified it.

Here's one similar to mine:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PU0W35K/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[jnl]

wow thats cheap

some of those chinese sellers take like 3+ months to get the stuff to you. so annoying! are they using a kayak?!


how often should calibration be done? every time you use it? weekly? monthly?

thanks!

 

[Susie]

I don't routinely use mine, so I only check it when I need to be absolutely sure of what the pH of something is...probably only verified it twice since I got it well over a year ago.

 

[jnl]

argh.

all i did was take it out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter. have not tried adding any KOH yet.

and now its almost totally clear again.
what the heck?!?

so is it lye light or not?!

is it because OO is supposed to turn cloudy in the fridge?

now that its clear i wont know if i need to add more KOH

 

[galaxyMLP]

Does it lather? If it does, it isn't acidic. If it doesn't (or is veeery sparse/takes alot of work), it is acidic.

 

[jnl]

this is the best lather it does
i have never used a true liquid castile before so i dont know how much it should lather

there are some floaties in the soap that were not there before the CA


the ph paper looks like a 7 (camera is not good at accurate colors)
tho i dont trust the cheap china test strips
my bar soaps usually show up as a 7/8 and theres no way they are actually that low.