Welcome to the forum Peggi!
I've found that formulating my batches around oils such as Coconut oil, PKO, Palm oil, Babassu Oil, Tallow, Lard, Grade A Olive Oil, among others, helps to lighten up the color of my soaps.
Also, using titanium dioxide ( 1 tsp. ppo at the most) will help get your soap to be really white.
Re: pH strips: At the risk of stirring up a bees nest 8) - truly, the strips are not necessary and they are known to be highly unreliable. We've had
a lot of discussions about the pH strips on another board I'm a member of, and the consensus of the veteran soapers who have tested their soap in the lab say the strips are pretty much useless when testing bar soaps, and that the only accurate way to measure the pH in bar soaps is to invest in a good pH meter.
Some companies, such as LotionCrafters, sell pH strips that they claim are more suited to test CP soaps, but I have not used them and do not know anyone that has tested them out yet. If you happen to buy the strips and your soap tests out at anything less than 9, you'll know that the strips are not very accurate. Properly made and cured lye soaps are normally alkaline (it's the nature of the beast), and when they are tested with an accurately calibrated pH meter they will always test out between 9 to 10.5 or 11, even if they are highly superfatted soaps. Anything higher than 11 on a meter means you've probably got a lye-heavy soap on your hands.
If you do not want to invest in a pH meter, the next best thing is to do the simple and inexpensive 'lye-zap' test. If you don't have a meter, this test is more accurate than pH strips in letting you know whether or not your soap is safe to use, and it's something I do with all my batches. You can do it either of these 2 ways:
1.) After your soap has cured for at least 4 days to a week*, stick the tip of your tongue to your soap to see if it 'zaps'or stings. If it is lye heavy, it will very unmistakably zap, or sting your tongue. It feels much like the sensation of sticking the tip of your tongue to a 9-volt battery.
2) After wetting a finger, take your week old soap* and work a little lather up with your wet finger. Touch the tip of your tongue to the wet lather on your finger. If it zaps you, your soap is lye-heavy.
* I personally do not recommend doing the zap test on freshly made and unmolded soap. Let your soap cure for about a week first. I say this because I've had 5 to 7 day old ungelled soap zap me before, but then just a day or so later the 'zap' was completely gone and remained gone. It just needed a little longer to saponify more fully since it didn't go through the gel stage.
HTH!
IrishLass
