Recent content by Barquentine

Exactly. Actually my problem is that I am unsure as to whether my citric acid is anhydrous or monohydrate which leads to an innacuracy of 3% if I get it wrong; so, I think I will buy some standardized 0.1N hydrochloric or sulphuric acid to titrate against. I have methyl orange and high-accuracy...

Probably I'll make a 0.1N solution of each and use phenolphthalein as indicator. I'll rely on my lab scales for accuracy. At least it will give me a real-life situation that I can plug in. At the moment I have no idea. :(

I suspect that my NaOH hasn't been stored well at some point, so I intend testing it. Give or take 3%, it takes 0.6g NaOH to neutralise 1 gm citric acid, so I'll use a 10g citric acid sample and test how much NaOH it takes to get pH 7. Then I can adjust my soap recipes accordingly.

shea butter makes a bar so hard that you could use it as a hammer to knock nails into wood. It has no lather to speak of.

Today I rebatched all of it, adding extra glycerin to make up for the lack. Worked out fine. I won't be using free fatty acids in soap again, for sure.

Thanks for the great explanation!

Tried to make a goat's milk soap and decided to try oleic acid rather than the usual high-oleic safflower oil. Very strange. On mixing, I immediately got taffy. Far too thick to use a blender. I broke my electric whisk with it. Got a big stainless spoon and began stirring. In another minute it...

chia. 60% omega-3.

I don't use E-Wax myself but the emulsifiers I use work at a 1:1 ratio. (glycerol monostearate is my low-HLB emulsifier) Having checked, it looks like you could get away with a quarter of the amount of the oil phase. At 6% oils you can use 1.5% ewax by the look of it. Watch out for silicones...

I live in Mexico, so buying FO from outlets in the USA is not an option. There are a large number of chemical factors here, so I find a large number of FOs too, but they are all sold 'at your own risk'. One of the larger manufacturers for instance is Mane, which has a rather spectacular Web site...

That's what I was afraid of. IF it works OK, then the soap might have a film-forming property and a silky after-feel. Please report back if you try it :smile: Rapeseed oil is high in oleic, isn't it, like olive? On the other hand would we want an anti foaming agent in our soap?

I really appreciate all the advice. Partly it might be my clumsiness. I taught my wife to make soap two years ago and since then she's the one who makes it. So, this is the first couple of soaps I made for ages and I had the same problem with both, same recipe different FOs. (Note: FO over here...

Looks interesting. It just occurred to me. The fragrance was vanilla/lavender ... first trial from a new supplier.

Doesn't Crisp n Dry have silicones in it? I've no idea what that will do. Separation, possibly, to judge by my conditioner experiments!

Mix temp was about 42C I believe. Quite comfortable to hold in the hand. Having got it out the mold it has oil-filled voids in it. Well it did have. I microwaved it, and did an experiment I have wanted to do for a while, added 3 dessert spoons of bentonite clay. I want to see if that much clay...