Soaping 101 liquid soapmaking video?

Sounds good to me, Irish Lass. I have been thinking a bit more liquid in the paste might be nice. From my experiments with "superlye" castile, I know there's a sweet spot in soaping as far as the amount of water goes. Too much water, and it gets too difficult to get the soap batter into a stable emulsion. Too little liquid, and the soap gets physically more difficult to make. But what's too much or too little and what's just right?

For liquid soap, it sounds like 2:1 water:KOH ratio works okay, but can be is a little too dry for most folks. A 3:1 is fine for me, but 4:1 might be really nice. I could see how a "looser" paste would ease dilution later on.

I am also very curious to see how the lather responds to this version. I have been wondering if it's the glycerin in total that's cutting the lather or whether the difference in lathering comes from when the glycerin is added.

Wow, we are all thinking the same thing. But I was going to mix the 1/2 water amount in water to the KOH, then add full amount of glycerin once dissolved. But, waiting for SL to arrive...

Well, that was an interesting soaping session! I went ahead and conducted my little experiment this evening and made paste, although it took a little longer for it to reach paste than yours did, DeeAnna.

I used the exact amounts of everything as stipulated in 3bees' regular recipe, except that I added 3.4 oz./96g of distilled water (in which to dissolve the KOH), which brought my lye solution to about a 20% concentration instead of the usual 25%.

I heated my oils just until they were warm to the touch, then I turned aside to mix up my KOH/water solution.

Once the KOH was completely dissolved (took all of 1.5 minutes or so, maybe less), I then added my 10.19 oz./288.8g glycerin to the solution.

Next, I added the KOH/water/glycerin to my pre-warmed oils and intermittently stirred and stickblended to the paste stage, which took a total of 23 minutes for me.

As I stirred & stick-blended, the batter gradually went from clear to translucent, to apple sauce, to thick, opaque pudding, then (to my surprise) to a thinner creamy/milky consistency with lots of big airy-looking bubbles forming on the surface (but not floating in the air that I could tell). At this point, I turned aside for no more than 5 seconds (if even that) to jot this interesting development down in shorthand on my handy slip of note paper at my side, and when I turned my attention back -BAM!- it was thick, sticky taffy already! I kid you not! I could hardly believe how quickly it went from a stir-able creamy/milky consistency to unmovable terra firma in just a few seconds. That was wild!

After extricating my stick-blender from the pit of thick, sticky goo and scraping the excess taffy off of it back into the pot, I covered the pot with 2 layers of plastic wrap, and I'm letting it alone to sit overnight. By the way, it remained an opaque, creamy color when it turned to taffy. If I didn't know any better, I would swear it was a pot of vanilla pudding. lol

I will dilute tomorrow.


IrishLass

Congrats, Irish Lass!

I don't recall getting the thin creamy/milky stage, but your experience otherwise sounds similar to mine. If I hadn't been stubborn and stayed with my soap, it would have surprised me like that too. Literally seconds to go from a thick but stir-able batter to gooey taffy.

This also sounds very much like the results that Grayce was getting with her glycerin-water LS experiments (my earlier post has a link to her thread). Bring to trace, more or less, then turn one's back, and ... Voila! ... taffy.

IrishLass said:

As I stirred & stick-blended, the batter gradually went from clear to translucent, to apple sauce, to thick, opaque pudding, then (to my surprise) to a thinner creamy/milky consistency with lots of big airy-looking bubbles forming on the surface (but not floating in the air that I could tell). At this point, I turned aside for no more than 5 seconds (if even that) to jot this interesting development down in shorthand on my handy slip of note paper at my side, and when I turned my attention back -BAM!- it was thick, sticky taffy already! I kid you not! I could hardly believe how quickly it went from a stir-able creamy/milky consistency to unmovable terra firma in just a few seconds. That was wild! IrishLass

Click to expand...

That is that "false paste" I was talking about. And I had the same results. Had I not been stubbornly waiting for flying bubbles, I would have stopped right then.

Huh. I find myself confused by the idea of a false paste. Help?

I think my results were similar to Irish Lass' -- the soap went through clear stages that seemed pretty normal up through vaseline/taffy stage. The only thing I didn't see was the flying bubbles thing. My paste had no zap about an hour after it turned into taffy, and the soap is crystal clear upon dilution. The remainder of the paste is still a taffy-like gel. If I'm understanding the no zap and clarity checks properly, the paste has no excess lye and has little or no excess fat.

Can you help me out, Susie? I'm not sure I understand.... :eh:

This part:

"As I stirred & stick-blended, the batter gradually went from clear to translucent, to apple sauce, to thick, opaque pudding, then (to my surprise) to a thinner creamy/milky consistency with lots of big airy-looking bubbles forming on the surface (but not floating in the air that I could tell)."

Mine went through applesauce stage, then pudding, then almost to where the stick blender would not move stage, then thin creamy liquid. I pulled the stick blender out to come to the computer, then turned around to double check for bubbles, and poof, bubbles and thick paste.

Oh, okay, I see the difference now that you're focusing on. Mine didn't thicken-thin-thicken again, at least not in an obvious way. I was paying a lot of attention to the temperature change throughout and was doing a lot of hand stirring with just an occasional SB burst, so it's possible I missed that bit. Next time I'll pay closer attention to that. Thanks, Susie!

No problem. I just don't want new soapers trying this thinking they are done when it gets thick the first time.

Whenever I do part water/part glycerin I get those types of stages. Applesauce, then thick, chunky potato like, then matte smooth and creamy, then glossy smooth and creamy.

Seems I'm not alone with the thinning batter thing, then. I had been wondering if it was because I used a 20% lye solution instead of a 25% solution, but maybe not?

I diluted half of my paste yesterday, using 1 part paste to .62 parts water instead of my usual.75 parts water, due to adding that extra bit of water up front.

Unfortunately I screwed things up by accidentally spilling a bit of my dilution liquid out of my canning jar part-way through the diluting process when I shook the jar upside down in order to dislodge a large chunk of paste that was stubbornly sticking to the inside bottom of the jar (kids, don't do this at home!). I guess I did not have things as tightly battened down as I had thought. :lolno:

Thankfully, I had the foresight to have marked down the weights of my jar and contents beforehand and could therefore calculate how much had spilled out so that I could add the missing weight back as water. But, since the spilled water wasn't 100% water (it was mixed with some diluted soap), I had to guestimate at best as to how much water to add back....... and unfortunately I guessed too high, wouldn't you know it (heavy sigh!). :roll: But I really have no reason to complain too loudly, for although my fully diluted soap is a little thinner than I normally like it, it's not as thin as water by any means, and it's beautifully clear as a bell (and it feels great, too!).


IrishLass

just curious how much scent is added to liquid soap? Barb

Depending on the EO used, I generally stick with the 0.5 oz per pound of oil(not paste) rate. If it is an EO that I know can be irritating(peppermint, cinnamon, clove, etc), then I drop that to 0.2-0.3 oz PPO rate, often with a non-irritating EO to make up the balance. This is the same rate I use for bar soaps, so whatever you use normally should be fine.

Got the SL in finally. Added 2% to 4 oz room temp LGS just to test if it would thicken room temp soap. Gently shook the bottle for about 30 seconds, then walked off to water herbs. Came back 10 minutes later to thick honey consistency soap. This stuff is amazing!

I have been fragrancing about 1% by weight of the diluted LS. In other words, for 500 g of diluted LS => use 5 g of fragrance.

For a very strong fragrance (mint, clove, etc.), I'd be cautious and start with 0.5%.

This is probably pretty close to Susie's recommendations, just coming at the amount from a different direction.

thanks

Just to be sure, by SL you mean sodium lactate, right?


Tami

I use anywhere from .3% to 1% per weight of my finished soap (depending on FO strength).

IrishLass

soapgirltami said:

Just to be sure, by SL you mean sodium lactate, right?


Tami

Click to expand...

Yes, sorry. It does mean sodium lactate. I usually try to define things before abbreviating, but I just re-read half this thread before posting that, so it slid right into my train of thought.

Oh dear gawd is this addictive! I just made a batch with 400 grams of oils, following Irish Lass's first recipe. Easy peasy. I have diluted it and am waiting for it to clear.

Of course I tested it! My skin feels slightly tight, but still really soft at the same time (weird, but true). I had just washed a bunch of stuff with raw batter on it, so that could be part of the issue.

I can't wait to try the pearlized version with added stearic acid.