Solid dishsoap recipe

[min]

Hi,

I would like to make a solid dish soap using palm shortening as the main oil, it being the cheapest that I can get.

I have tried making the soap using a 20/80 mix of palm kernel oil/palm shortening but the soap is brittle.
I would appreciate if anyone has any experience or any recipe of solid dish soap cold process.

Thank you.
min

 

[BattleGnome]

Can you post your exact recipe and methods? It helps to know exactly what you’ve done so we don’t ask you to repeat a bad recipe. Also: individual molds or a loaf? How long did you wait to cut? Any scents, colors, or anything else? What are the ingredients on your palm shortening? Sometimes there’s a filler oil mixed in to lower costs, that unknown may be the easy answer to your question.

I don’t make my own dish soap but I think others here have. I know I’ve read some threads about it in the past. If you can answer the questions it will help someone who has made dish soap adapt a recipe to your needs.

 

[Lin19687]

You will get more answers if you post this in the Beginners forum and/or the Recipe thread.
Also might want to search in the recipe thread to see if there is a posting about using Palm in high amounts.
Google search : https://www.google.com/search?clien...1j33i22i29i30j33i10j33i299j33i160.V8N3nja1XWw

 

[min]

Thank you for responding BattleGnome and Lin19687. That was my first question upon joining the forum.
I was at a lost as to where I should post the question then. I will post this in the Beginners forum/ Recipe Thread as advised.

Thank you again.

post moved

 

[Lye-h20-oil]

I want a dish bar recipe too. Please let us know if you find a good recipe.

 

[SaltedFig]

A low superfat, high cleansing recipe would suffice (if you are wearing gloves), so a simple 100% coconut soap would work well enough. If you are using your bare hands to wash, then adding an oil that makes a milder soap can help (I use more olive if I am using it for a hand-washing without gloves - olive oil soap is quite soluable, as is coconut soap, so you don't have to work too hard to get the water all soapy).

 

[lsg]

If you have access to palm oil, then you probably have access to palm kernel oil, which can be used as a sub for coconut oil. Make sure to run your recipe through a lye calculator.

 

[Lye-h20-oil]

I recently tried zote soap to wash dishes. It did a great job but unfortunately I had a skin rection on my hands from it. The reason I need a bar soap for dishes is because I'm allergic to preservatives in commercial liquid soaps. I know I could just wear gloves but they are awkwardly bulky, I can't feel if the dishes are rinsed well, they get holes, roll down and I still end up with water in the gloves. Zote has 66% beef tallow and the other ingredients are coconut oil, citronella, optical brightners and fragrance. I will not be adding citronella and I have no clue what they add as optical brightners or fragrance. I'm not sure how easy it will be to find beef tallow but I have easy access to Lard. Is there a big difference between beef tallow and lard as far as cleaning properties? Should I go the extra mile and hunt down beef tallow to wash dishes? Also If I add borax to this bar would that be a mistake? Is that harsh on hands? Coconut oil will be my other oil.

 

[Saponificarian]

I use beef Tallow @ 60% and coconut @ 40% with a negative super fat of -5 for dish soap. I use Tallow because it doesn't get 'mushy'. I have a 6 year old who likes to spend 5-10minutes washing her plate and a 2 year old who likes to make bubbles with soap, uses every opportunity to wash her hands and I hate mushy soap so Tallow it is. Palm would work as well but it won't be as hard as Tallow. I don't use Lard so can't help with that. Why not try a 1lb batch and see if it works. Experimenting is half the fun with soaping, Playing with fragrance and colors, that's the other half

 

[Lye-h20-oil]

I use beef Tallow @ 60% and coconut @ 40% with a negative super fat of -5 for dish soap. I use Tallow because it doesn't get 'mushy'. I have a 6 year old who likes to spend 5-10minutes washing her plate and a 2 year old who likes to make bubbles with soap, uses every opportunity to wash her hands and I hate mushy soap so Tallow it is. Palm would work as well but it won't be as hard as Tallow. I don't use Lard so can't help with that. Why not try a 1l

I use beef Tallow @ 60% and coconut @ 40% with a negative super fat of -5 for dish soap. I use Tallow because it doesn't get 'mushy'. I have a 6 year old who likes to spend 5-10minutes washing her plate and a 2 year old who likes to make bubbles with soap, uses every opportunity to wash her hands and I hate mushy soap so Tallow it is. Palm would work as well but it won't be as hard as Tallow. I don't use Lard so can't help with that. Why not try a 1lb batch and see if it works. Experimenting is half the fun with soaping, Playing with fragrance and colors, that's the other half

That's awesome that your girls are already helping with the dishes! I have a math question. If I use 16 oz of lard would I use 6.4 oz of coconut oil to get 40% coco 60% lard?

 

[Lye-h20-oil]

I 100% failed at quoting your reply. Not sure how to fix it. Hope you see the question.

 

[Saponificarian]

Why not 16oz total of oil, just in case you don’t like it. If you do like it, you can always make more.

For 16oz of oil

Lard @60% => 0.6 x 16 = 9.6oz
Coconut @40% => 0.4 x 16 = 6.4oz
Total = 16oz of oil. Enter it into a soap calculator at -1 super fat, just cos you are a newbie and get the appropriate lye and Water amount.

I hope my explanation make sense. It’s 10:22pm here so I am beat but let me know if you have any question.

 

[Lye-h20-oil]

Why not 16oz total of oil, just in case you don’t like it. If you do like it, you can always make more.

For 16oz of oil

Lard @60% => 0.6 x 16 = 9.6oz
Coconut @40% => 0.4 x 16 = 6.4oz
Total = 16oz of oil. Enter it into a soap calculator at -1 super fat, just cos you are a newbie and get the appropriate lye and Water amount.

I hope my explanation make sense. It’s 10:22pm here so I am beat but let me know if you have any question.

Thank you! You just saved me 4 weeks of waisted time and material. I will definitely take your advice on the one lb batch. Thank you, thank you!

 

[DawninWA]

I took all my soap scraps and put them in a mold, then made a 50% lard, 50% coconut, -10% superfat (trying to negate the superfat in the scrap soap), and poured it in. Makes an excellent dish soap, and so pretty

 

[earlene]

DawninWA, they are quite pretty. Did you use a chelator? I find that without one, there is just too much soap scum, at least with our water. Even with a water softener, we still need a chelator in our soap.

 

[DawninWA]

No, and honestly, I was expecting soap scum. But there is none, as long as they're washed by hand, they dry clear and residue free. If I try and put real soap (liquid or shredded bar) in the dishwasher, there's a film on everything. This soap works far better for hand washing dishes than I expected.

 

[lsg]

Do you have soft water? Our water is so hard that cp soap is not an option for dish washing.

 

[DeeAnna]

If the water turns milky, that's the visible sign of soap scum. But there's light soap scum and there's bad soap scum, and there's hard water and there's HARD water. How you use the soap will also affect how much scum stays on stuff.

I've been feeling puzzled as I read this thread -- I've been wondering how people use a solid bar for washing dishes. I wouldn't think it would be practical to add soap to the dishwater itself -- I remember my grandmother paring curls off a bar of her 100% lard soap and dropping them into the hot water in her wringer washer. The process was time consuming, and the lard soap was not terribly effective at cleaning clothes. She didn't use washing soda to soften the laundry water either. Over time, soap scum built up in the fabric and left it yellowed, stiff, and scratchy.

For dishes, I guess the way I'd use bar soap is to rub the bar on the washcloth and then use the cloth to wash the dishes. Is that how y'all do it? If so, that might explain some of why you're not seeing much scum on the dishes. You're keeping the scum from depositing on each dish with the scrubbing process. A chelator would be helpful for washing dishes this way.

If you add the soap directly to a basin of water, a chelator won't be as helpful -- you can't pack enough chelator in soap to soften a large amount of hard water. It would be better to add washing soda to the dish water instead, just like you'd do for laundry water.

 

[Saponificarian]

@DeeAnna, I hand wash plates so I make a 60% Tallow with PKO and Coconut and add 10% Washing soda with -5 super fat. I run Water over the soap, lather with a sponge and then use the sponge to wash plates. If the plates are oily or extremely dirty, I repeat the lather, wash cycle like twice or thrice.

 

[Lye-h20-oil]

@DeeAnna, I hand wash plates so I make a 60% Tallow with PKO and Coconut and add 10% Washing soda with -5 super fat. I run Water over the soap, lather with a sponge and then use the sponge to wash plates. If the plates are oily or extremely dirty, I repeat the lather, wash cycle like twice or thrice.

I made a tiny batch last night. It's been about 12 hours. It smells like lard...will the smell go away?