Greetings from New Zealand

I looked it up and found a curriculum for New Zealand science education document in pdf. It mentions soap as part of the learning process in 3 different areas. I am impressed!


It's old as you can see from the forward, but I remain impressed.

FOREWORD
This curriculum statement replaces the syllabuses Science Syllabus and Guide: Primary to Standard Four (1980), Science for Forms One and Two (1961), Science for Forms Three and Four (1968 ), and Science Draft Syllabus and Guide: Forms 1 to 4 (1978 ). It builds on New Zealand research and curriculum development in science education, and provides the basis for science programmes in schools from year 1 to year 13; that is, from junior classes to form 2 in primary schools and from form 3 to form 7 in secondary schools.
The Minister of Education requested the redevelopment of the science curriculum in 1991, as part of a broad initiative aimed at improving primary and secondary school student achievement. The development process involved a small project team and a number of reference groups. A science advisory group provided guidance at key stages of the project. [end quote]

Here's a link if you want to read through it: https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/con...um.pdf#tkibar-Science curriculum pdf-0-link_2

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First, welcome! Second, don't feel bad about how your soaps look! We LOVE to look at other people's soap, no matter what it looks like (and I'm pretty sure every single one of us has made a batch of ugly soap or three). My first batch was pretty hideous- stearic globs all through it from using stearic acid without knowing how to properly use it. It's cured out to be lovely soap, though, and I'm thinking I may make another batch to that recipe (without the globs this time).

I love stainless steel for my soaping equipment. A stainless steel milk frothing pitcher is great for mixing lye solution in, and if you happen to drop it, then you "only" have to deal with the spill, it's not complicated by shards of glass everywhere.

Shampoo is one of those that seems to require synthetic detergents, anything made with lye is going to be damaging to your hair. For several years now, I've been using baking soda mixed with water to clean my hair, followed by a dilute apple cider vinegar rinse (after I rinse the baking soda out) as an alternative to shampoo. Seems to be working well, I'm not noticing any more brittleness than my hair was already prone to and it cleans really well (and very gently).

If it's available there, I recommend you acquire a copy of Kevin Dunn's Scientific Soapmaking, it has tons of really useful info, backed up by practical experiments that you can do at home (mostly). Youngest child would probably be fascinated, and it would certainly help answer some of his difficult questions. I haven't yet made it all the way through my copy, but I've learned quite a bit from it. There's also our resident chemist, DeeAnna, and you've already got links to her articles.

earlene said:

... mentions soap as part of the learning process in 3 different areas. I am impressed!

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Thanks earlene.

From what I have seen so far it's an excellent practical chemistry minitopic. Soap and soap-making embraces quite a few important principles of basic chemistry and organic chemistry.
I studied organic and other chemistry at university, from a biosciences perspective, but am enjoying now seeing so many of the things I learned (and forgot) becoming practical and useful.
I'm still grappling with some of the statements I've read here about superfatting ... not entirely convinced ... and am happy to keep on learning.

Thanks very much Kittish

Kittish said:

First, welcome! Second, don't feel bad about how your soaps look! We LOVE to look at other people's soap, no matter what it looks like ...

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I will post a photo of my Earl Grey effort, and have tasked middle daughter to try find me the desired packaging materials today while I am at work and she is on holidays

I'm idea-ing, if there's such a word, options for rebatching my first effort. If that works I'll post a photo. If it fails I will deny all knowledge.

Kittish said:

... not complicated by shards of glass everywhere.

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Ahhh yes, a benefit that I had not thought of. I have a large heavy rubber pad on my workbench, over a particle board surface. But if something falls from there it is onto hard grey undressed concrete - shatter territory.

Kittish said:

Shampoo is one of those that seems to require synthetic detergents, anything made with lye is going to be damaging to your hair. For several years now, I've been using baking soda mixed with water to clean my hair, followed by a dilute apple cider vinegar rinse (after I rinse the baking soda out) as an alternative to shampoo. Seems to be working well, I'm not noticing any more brittleness than my hair was already prone to and it cleans really well (and very gently).

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lol, penny drop time. I'd made a mental note last night to lookup what syndet meant. I am now suspecting that you ave given me that answer - 'synthetic detergent'?

I need to explore the semantics and definitions of detergents v. soaps etc. I daresay that could be another 'sensitive' topic in this forum ... akin to the use of pyrex in soap-making.

My planned shampoo is going to be based on Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, which is a coconut oil based surfactant, and Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (which gave me quite a chuckle when I saw it was used in microlax enemas) which has a more 'synthetic' petrochemical derivation it seems.

I've read quite a bit about the soda / vinegar shampoo (?nopoo) approach. My counter has been my age-linked hair reduction program, reducing the need for any products, and my daughter and wife are not attracted to that option.

I am not planning to mention the enemas to my wife of daughter when I offer them DH-made shampoo.

Kittish said:

If it's available there, I recommend you acquire a copy of Kevin Dunn's Scientific Soapmaking ...

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I'll go a'searching for that book. Thanks.

Yep, syndet is synthetic detergent, and it actually sounds like you're on pretty much the right track for making decent shampoo bars. The method I use is one of the myriad 'no poo' types, I switched over to it long before I started making soap and related products because I could NOT find a shampoo and conditioner that I liked that wasn't just loaded with artificial fragrance- to which I am allergic. I'm happy enough with it that I haven't given much thought to making proper shampoo bars since I started making soap. Heck, I haven't even gotten around to making a batch of laundry soap yet.

Detergent vs. soap doesn't seem to be too much of a hot button sort of topic, beyond being clear about definitions. I think most folks here generally agree that there is a place for detergents in some types of products.

If 'idea-ing' was not already a word, it is now.

Kittish said:

Heck, I haven't even gotten around to making a batch of laundry soap yet.

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That was my original motivation to try and learn about soaps and their making and I, also, have not gone there yet. It's on 'the list' still.

I have little doubt that I can post this elsewhere in a specific dedicated subforum, and it’s also likely that my questions are not new and have been already addressed elsewhere. But I’m not yet familiar enough with this site, or the associated resources, to make good use of either of those routes … so I am going to ask here, hoping y’all can redirect me, or advise, as appropriate.My first-ever CP batch, ten days curing now, has smelled of olive oil and not the intended rose (rose water) fragrance. It has a pale yellow colour with less of a green hue and less of an olive smell as time passes. It has no rose fragrance at all that I can discern.

Because of this it’s now slated to also be my first rebatching effort and I’d like to try to make something on a peaches and cream, or strawberries and cream, theme. My thought is a majority, perhaps 90% ‘fruit’ layer coloured and scented appropriately, topped with a thinner (?10%) cream layer … and maybe a cinnamon dusting, just coz.My initial plan was to try a simpler lavender rebatching, reasoning that both the scent and the colour would easily dominate over the current situation, but I am liking the idea now of trying something a little more complex. Two layers, ooooh!

My questions …
Should I wait for it to cure fully or can I do the rebatching before that?
Am I correct to believe I should have little difficulty with either peach orange or strawberry pink, and associated fragrances, given the colour and minimal-scent of my current 'base'?
With that base colour can I whiten to simulate cream, say with titanium oxide, or am I going to end up with a pale yellow looking a bit like over-whipped cream?
4. Is there something I can scent the planned top layer with that might provide an impression of cream? The best I can come up with is vanilla and thinking of Chantilly.

Olive soaps take months to fully cure, turn almost completely white, lose most (but not all) of the olive scent and get rock hard.

If you are set on rebatching them, it's much easier to grate and melt them when they are fresh.

The rebatch will still cure out to near white (unless you have other colours at play, of course).

Vanilla (anything) in soap oxidises to brown. It's a neat effect to see the brown exterior and creamy interior when they are first cut, but it will all go brown eventually. For the dusting, cinnamon can be quite scratchy ... you can, however, achieve an almost identical look with cocoa powder.

This was made from first press olive oil (very green oil, and the soap was a dark cream in colour at the start ... it's not now ).
It has been aged about a year.

If you want a peachy color, and don't have any soap colorants, you can use turmeric from your spice rack to obtain yellowish-orange. Infuse a little oil with the powder for a day or so beforehand. Or heat it in a hot water bath to speed up the process. You may need to strain it to get any solid bits out, otherwise you can end up with spots in your soap. You can also use beta carotine oil from a capsule (vitamin supplement) in soap to create a yellowish-orange color. Some say it fades away eventually as it cures, however. Maybe it depends on how much you use; I'm not sure.

TD will whiten the soap, but as has been mentioned, uncolored OO soaps whiten up quite a bit over time unless they are scented with a discoloring fragrance.

For a creamy fragrance, all I can suggest is read the reviews for each fragrance and pay particular attention to if it discolors and if it accelerates. Of course for a re-batch acceleration doesn't matter, but discoloration is always a concern if you want light colored soap.

SaltedFig said:

It has been aged about a year.

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Yes, that is a lovely white colour isn't it. Thanks.

earlene said:

If you want a peachy color, and don't have any soap colorants ...

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I have just ordered several small lots of mica colours. I hope I can use them to make a peachish orange-pink colour.

earlene said:

TD will whiten the soap, but as has been mentioned, uncolored OO soaps whiten up quite a bit over time ...

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I am already checking my babies daily. There's no way I'm going to be able to wait a year, like SaltedFig, to get a nice white colour

earlene said:

For a creamy fragrance, all I can suggest is read the reviews for each fragrance and pay particular attention to if it discolors and if it accelerates. Of course for a re-batch acceleration doesn't matter, but discoloration is always a concern if you want light colored soap.

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Thanks, I will do that. Maybe in the end I will not use a fragrance for the 'cream' layer but just stick with the peach scent for the main layer and the visual suggestion of cream. Psychochemistry, woo hoo.

___

Whatever I do in that area I think tonight's task is going to be to grate that soap batch for further work on the weekend.

I would suggest that you keep one bar of your very first batch, shove it into a back corner of your curing space and forget about it for a few months. It may turn out to be wonderful soap if you just let it sit for a while, plus it's good to have a baseline on how your recipes act over time (even for the ones you don't like).

Kittish said:

I would suggest that you keep one bar of your very first batch, shove it into a back corner of your curing space and forget about it for a few months. It may turn out to be wonderful soap if you just let it sit for a while, plus it's good to have a baseline on how your recipes act over time (even for the ones you don't like).

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Thanks. Yes, I did that. I set two similarly sized blocks aside and returned them to the curing rack unmolested.

The remaining 1.75kg has now been grated into what looks suspiciously like a large plastic container full of grated cheese. It's also back in the curing box while I look up rebatching methods for the weekend ... and await the arrival of the colours, flavours, and other stuff I ordered for it.

I also took some photos and will post something once I've succeeded or failed at my rebatch effort.

dxw said:

My first batch was a simple 70% olive and 30% coconut oil, with around 5% over-fatting.

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This is just me, but I wouldn’t rebatch this soap. I’d put it away and forget about for 8-12 weeks (minimum) to experience how nice a high % of olive oil soap is -- especially for sensitive skin. I think your wife/family will love it, just as it is.

FYI: Soapmaker lingo: “Castile” = 100% Olive Oil soap. “Bastile” = at least 70% olive oil, combined with a little coconut and castor to boost lather. “Castiles” are known for “slimey”, “snotty”, or my personal favorite, “mucusy” lather! LOL

dxw said:

My motivation to start was a "surely I can fix that" response to my wife suffering skin allergy problems with most laundry detergents,

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With this in mind, why a syndet?

dxw said:

My planned shampoo is going to be based on Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, which is a coconut oil based surfactant, and Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (which gave me quite a chuckle when I saw it was used in microlax enemas) which has a more 'synthetic' petrochemical derivation it seems

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I'm a big fan of homemade all natural shampoo bars, i.e., I didn't learn to make my own bath and body products to dump more chemicals into my system! If you decide to go with a syndet, that's your choice. Different strokes for different folks. I just think you should be aware that there are options. You can learn everything about non-syndet, all natural, shampoo bars at Chagrin Valley's excellent web site. Be inspired with the variety of shampoo bars they offer for every type of hair. Find the answers to your questions and what oils/butters/fats may be best for your hair. Here's a link:

Chagrin Valley Shampoo Bar FAQ
https://www.chagrinvalleysoapandsalve.com/products/natural-hair/natural-shampoo-bars/

ETA: Pay special attention to Tips on Adjusting to Using Shampoo Bars.

Zany_in_CO said:

This is just me, but I wouldn’t rebatch ...

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Alas, 'tis a box full of gratings now, with a couple of bars preserved to prove you correct at some later date.

Zany_in_CO said:

With this in mind, why a syndet?

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The shampoo is intended primarily for daughter's use, and the limited reading / searching I'd done steered me in that direction. I also liked the fact that it was a completely different process to try and learn about.

I have not gotten to my initial motivator yet, laundry soap, but have been dallying on he way I guess. I just read some forum posts by someone whose .sig ends with "Ooooh, shiney!" or similar. Guilty your honour

Zany_in_CO said:

I'm a big fan of homemade all natural shampoo bars ...

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I daresay I will get there also, perhaps after a few excursions en route.

Zany_in_CO said:

You can learn everything about non-syndet, all natural, shampoo bars at Chagrin Valley's excellent web site.

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Lovely, thanks. It's in the bookmarks directory and on the study list.

btw, my rebatching searches lead me to an article you'd posted. TYVM

Zany_in_CO said:

You can learn everything about non-syndet, all natural, shampoo bars at Chagrin Valley's excellent web site.

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All read. Those shampoo bars are specialised soap bars. Excellent.

Now I'll head into Google-land and see what recipes I can uncover. My previous searches had found me the syndet recipes I planned to try. I have those ingredients, so am still going to give that a whirl. But now I can also then try soap shampoo bars, as opposed to syndet shampoo bars.

dxw said:

btw, my rebatching searches lead me to an article you'd posted. TYVM

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YWVM. :mrgreen:

It's the weekend in a few hours, and I have many neophyte soap things planned. Hopefully I will manage to get one completed.

A couple more general questions if I may ... concerning colours, flavours, and storage.

1. Colours. How much? I have purchased a few little sachets of mica colours that, hopefully, cover what I want to try but I have no idea how 'powerful' they are. I realise that amounts are gonna vary, especially with how intense a final colour I want, but what sorts of amounts am I looking at? I'll probably be mixing - reds, yellows, and white - but appreciate a steer on where to start. I also got a red and yellow 'Lake' colour sachet, thinking that was the same stuff only a different brand. Oh well, I daresay I will find a use for it all somewhere.

2. Fragrances. How much? I have a commercial not-essential-oil fragrance oil I wanted to try. It's labelled something along the lines of "safe for soap 5%". So does that mean I am looking at 75ml of that oil for 1.5kg of soap? I'm probably not using essential oils for this one ... they seem to be used in tens-of-drops per batch type of quantities.

3. I've been putting my oils and other liquids in an old refrigerator I've rejuvenated, figuring that cold reduces any reaction, including oxidation and therefore spoilage / rancidity. My wife tells me olive oil goes cloudy with refrigeration. Is this a problem? Am I okay to store my liquids in the fridge. What about solids and semisolids like butters and syndet components?

Weigh the ingerdients using a scale, not by volume. Especially your fragrances.

2. When you use your lye calculator it tells you how many grams of fragrance to use. You can change the default setting for your FO to 5% and you will end up with exactly how much FO you need for a given batch.

3. Yes, refrigerating your oils does prolong their life, but you will need to bring them to room temp or gently heat them before you soap with them. I have no idea about refrigeration of syndet components. Perhaps others who do will respond.

1. Colorants vary. Are they lye soap colorants or Melt & Pour colorants? Did the vendors publish how they perform in CP soap and show examples? That would be a clue as to their suitability for CP or HP soap. M&P colorants don't do well in CP or HP soap because the lye eats them up and they often fade to nothing. (Edit: corrected HP typo last sentence.)

Be careful with the red. Not knowing what you have, I can only tell you my experience with what I have used, but red oxide is a powerful colorant that when used too heavily can bleed in use. That means the suds are reddish. Activated charcoal bleeds blackish when the soap is black. Using less creates lighter colors, of course, so the bleeding is less then. I have since used micas for red, but the soap is too young to determine if the bleeding issue is present.

With darker colored batter from some oils, the colorants may need to be used a bit more heavily than with batter that is very white to start with. That's another variable that effects your color outcome.

Just a thought... Weavers Port (of "oh shiny" fame) started a thread you might find interesting. It's full of good general advice from soapers who remember what it's like to be a newbie.:

What advice would you give to your beginning soaping self?

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=62916

ETA: Not many members follow an Intro thread. You'll get more answers if you start a new thread in the appropriate forum, i.e., Beginners Forum, Fragrances, etc. I'm just sayin'...

Zany_in_CO said:

ETA: Not many members follow an Intro thread. You'll get more answers if you start a new thread in the appropriate forum, i.e., Beginners Forum, Fragrances, etc. I'm just sayin'...

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Thanks. Yeah, having a beginners forum section is a great idea ... for just this sort of thing. I will migrate over there more further technical questions.

Thanks earlene

earlene said:

Weigh the ingerdients using a scale, not by volume. Especially your fragrances.

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Okay, thanks. I doubt my scale will work down to ten-drops types of resolutions

earlene said:

When you use your lye calculator it tells you how many grams of fragrance to use. You can change the default setting for your FO to 5% and you will end up with exactly how much FO you need for a given batch.

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I had not seen that feature, excellent.

earlene said:

Yes, refrigerating your oils does prolong their life, but you will need to bring them to room temp or gently heat them before you soap with them. I have no idea about refrigeration of syndet components. Perhaps others who do will respond.

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I am less fussed with solid and semisolid syndet ingrediants, it was the fruit/vege oils I was concerned about. Thanks.

earlene said:

Colorants vary. Are they lye soap colorants or Melt & Pour colorants? Did the vendors publish how they perform in CP soap and show examples? That would be a clue as to their suitability for CP or HP soap. M&P colorants don't do well in CP or MP soap because the lye eats them up and they often fade to nothing.

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Your question sent me back to the vendor's website and, lo, they answer my question.

The micas are advertised for cosmetic use, but they show a nice coloured block of CP soap and text that says: "Magic Pink Mica in cold process soap at 1tsp per 500g of soap".
They also have particle size and ingredients:

Okay, I did say I'd post a picture. Here's my first effort. Needs a lot of work, obviously - both soap and photography, but I like it ... and my wife and I each now have a nice cup of Earl Grey tea courtesy of the props.
The soap is olive, coconut, sunflower, and castor oils. Shea butter, and earl grey tea and ground-up leaves, and bergamot essential oil. It's only a week old, but smells lovely.

The soap bars do not show through the 'teabags' but they're in there. OFC the lovely rice paper I used for the bags cost me more than all the soap ingredients put together - fun, but not economical

FYI: VOLUME CONVERSION TABLE

20 drops 1 ml
40 drops 2 ml
60 drops 3 ml
80 drops 4 ml
100 drops 5 ml 1 teaspoon
300 drops 15 ml 1 tablespoon
600 drops 30 ml 1 fluid ounce

1 fluid ounces 2 Tablespoons (liquid)
2 fluid ounces 6 teaspoons (liquid)
3 teaspoons 1 Tablespoon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is the exact weight to volume conversion if you prefer to make your product without a scale.

0.1 oz by weight = 0.082 US fluid ounces = 2.425 ml
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GOOGLE OZ. TO GRAMS:

For example, type in: 30 oz = ? grams
It will return the answer to you!
It's a built in converter, right in the main Google search window!
Try ANY conversion you want it will most likely know how to do it.
If not it will find the page you need to go to.

Zany_in_CO said:

FYI: VOLUME CONVERSION TABLE

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Thanks very much. I have been using google to de[n]ounce recipes. Copied those into my log/diary now for future reference.