Soaping 101 liquid soapmaking video?

"...Can I add more lye to the gel now and repair it?..."

Yes, you can add more lye, but do so carefully and slowly. You can estimate the amount of lye needed -- you know how much lye you actually used. Recalculate the recipe with 3% superfat, 90% KOH purity and find out the amount of lye you should have used.

Lye to add = (Lye you should have used) - (Lye you actually used)

Dissolve the lye you want to add in 3 to 4 times the amount of water as KOH. An exact amount of water is not super important -- just get it close.

Example:
You want to add 12 g KOH. Dissolve the lye in 36 to 48 g of water.

Add about half the lye solution to the soap paste. Stir the lye into the paste thoroughly. You may need to heat the paste gently so it becomes softer and easier to stir. Wear your usual safety gear, including eye protection -- stirring the lye solution into soap paste may splash a bit more than you might expect.

Allow the KOH time to react with the excess fats -- let it sit overnight if you have the patience. See what the soap looks like -- is there still separation? If there is, add about half of the remaining lye solution to the soap. Stir well, let sit, see what happens. If needed, add the last bit of lye solution and repeat.

"...if I use soapcalc then can I substitute glycerin to water?..."

Yes, you can. Soapcalc does not care what you use for the "water" in a soap recipe. You can do one of several things:

Use 100% water. The KOH will dissolve in water easily. The recipe will be slow to trace.
Use 100% glycerin. The KOH will be difficult to dissolve. The recipe will trace and saponify quickly.
Use 1/2 water and 1/2 glycerin. Dissolve the KOH in the water. It will dissolve easily. When the KOH is fully dissolved, add the glycerin. The recipe will trace quickly.
Use some other proportion of water and glycerin such as 1/3 water and 2/3 glycerin, etc. Dissolve the KOH in the water. When the KOH is fully dissolved, add the glycerin. The recipe will trace quickly.

My vote is for a mixture of water and glycerin, because I think you get the best of both worlds -- the KOH dissolves easily and the soap traces quickly. I have two tips if you want to try this:

1. To properly dissolve the KOH, use at least as much water as KOH. If you use more water, that's fine, but I would not use less.

2. To make the soap paste easier to work with, the total amount of Water + Glycerin should be 3 to 4 times the KOH weight. You can use less than that -- some recipes call for only 2 times the KOH weight -- but a paste this dry can be hard to stir and dilute.

Example:
A recipe calls for 125 g of KOH.
You choose to use 125 g of water to dissolve the KOH.
You also choose to use 3 times the KOH as your total liquid, so:
Total liquid = 3 x 125 g = 375 g
Glycerin = 375 - 125 = 250 g

I hope this helps!

Liquid soap

I am super new to soap making, so I probably won't be making a liquid soap just yet since I don't have the proper ingredients, and I've still got more CP soaps to make. But, I've saved all your wonderful recipes and instructions, so I can make them in the future.

Thanks so much for such generous sharing. Love our members!

June

I had not ask the question yet, I was thinking how to do it not to use only glycerin, and I already got the answer. Thank you so much DeeAnna

Deanna,

Thanks a lot for the wonderful post. All my questions have been answered.

My soaper friends , I need to start a new thread as suggested by several, regarding how to make a successful liquid bubble bath. My issue is, I'm unable to open a new topic, for some reason. Catherine Failor has several recipes, I've tried a couple, I'll try the pure coconut oil one next. So far, nice big bubbles, but nothing sustainable without using a detergent as an additive. So I'm hoping someone would be willing to start a thread for me

Looks like your new thread is going fine, Tami -- http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=50888

Just got my first batch off the stove. I must admit, the transitions that occur while you stir are really cool, especially the Lawrence Welk stage!

And very fun! The whole process becomes addictive. But in a good way

IrishLass said:

Hi Chef!

I have not tried making the recipe with only water, so I can't say for sure how such a batch would turn out, but if you really have an itch to make the formula without waiting for your glycerin, you may just have to try conducting the experiment for us- and then let us know how it goes in this thread, which, by the way, has turned into an awesome pioneering-type thread with lots of different experiments being conducted! I love it!

Having said that, if you go back and take a look at post #103 in this thread, you'll see where I conducted an experiment with this recipe by using part water and part glycerin to make the paste, instead of using all-glycerin as I normally do. And in post #111, I report my results from the experiment. I think I am actually going to make this formula that way from now on because it was so much easier and quicker to dissolve the KOH in water.


IrishLass

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OK THANKS Irishlass!! I went back and reviewed the posts that you refer to. I DO believe that YES, I will soon go right ahead and do that experiment SOON! I will try making the liquid soap with just water, and not glycerin, and then write here how it all works out.
Yes, I agree that this thread has become a great foundation asset to anyone who would be interested in making Liquid Soap.

I seem to be full of NEW questions. First, let me say what I did, and then I will ask if this was ok....lol

I made YOUR soap(Irishlass), like I have been doing for sometime now with great success each and every time:
To recap, I used the following

Castor Oil 10.00%
Olive Oil 65.00%
Coconut Oil (76 Degree Kind) 25.00%

Used a 3% Superfat and ran everything thru the Summer Bee Meadow Advanced Soap Calculator.

Mixed the Lye (Potassium Hydroxide) with Glycerin Only and cooked to clear.

I had my oils already warmed in a near by crock pot. I added my Cooked to Clear Lye Glycerin Mixture to the warmed oils. I used a stick blender to wiz until I had dancing bubbles all around the room that flew up from the crock pot...that only took about 7 minutes. Then I TURNED OFF the crock pot, placed a lid on it, and walked away. 2 to 7 hours later it turns into paste that I do the ZAP test on. If no zap, I will dilute and bottle.
Okay, now here is where I tried changing things....The first several times diluting the soap paste I have used Distilled Water. The last couple of times I diluted with NO WATER and only used Pure Aloe Vera Gel. Yes, it does leave a cloudy diluted soap, but saying that...I find when I use it for Shampoo, Body wash and Hand-soap, I find that my body and hair feels much more softer and moisturized. My hands enjoy the FEEL of the Aloe Soap so very much!

So, saying that...is this OK to dilute with only Aloe Vera Gel and NOT water? I find that to make sure of things, I have been placing a preservative in my Aloe Vera Soap. That is because my Aloe Vera Gel is organic and raw...I didn't want to introduce any future bad things to happen with my soap. Where when I dilute with Distilled Water, I do NOT add a preservative. I might do that if someday I start selling it, but for home use and gift-giving, no, I don't.

What I found is that diluting with Aloe Vera Gel, my soap becomes more of a luxury soap to the skin and hair. Aloe can do so much good for the body. Where, I love the soap diluted with water, I can tell a huge difference between the two. If a person can get past the cloudy soap part, I do think they will enjoy this soap so much more than just diluted with distilled water.

So, now that I have been doing this...ha ha ha....is this OK to continue to dilute using Aloe Vera Gel over diluting with Distilled Water?

So the dilution process is more labor and time intensive than the paste making process! There must be a more efficient (energy and time) way of doing this. I wonder if the microwave is the tool to use here. Melt the paste in the microwave (a la chocolate melting process) and then pour directly into the heater dilution water? May try that next.

The general rule of thumb is to dilute with distilled water only to minimize the chance of microbial growth. Commercial aloe vera has preservatives in it, but only to preserve just THAT product at its usual pH, not to preserve anything more than that.

I would guess from your words that you're determined to use aloe rather than water, so either use a preservative that is effective at the higher pH of liquid soap or store the diluted LS in the refrigerator and use promptly.

Paintguru said:

So the dilution process is more labor and time intensive than the paste making process! There must be a more efficient (energy and time) way of doing this. I wonder if the microwave is the tool to use here. Melt the paste in the microwave (a la chocolate melting process) and then pour directly into the heater dilution water? May try that next.

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It really is not more labor intensive. If you know how much water to add, you just break the paste up, add the water, and walk away. I use the crock pot to help dilute the paste because I am impatient. It does take a bit more time than making CP liquid soap, but not more time and labor than making HP liquid soap.

I have never tried "melting" the paste in the micro. Let us know how that works, please?

Has anyone try using aloe Vera gel to resolve the KOH and than add it to the oil? Would we still need a preservative?

There are two issues about preservatives in liquid soap -- using a preservative in the paste and using one in the diluted soap.

I'd say the high pH of a soap paste tends to preserve the paste fairly well, as long as you doesn't get too crazy about adding all kinds of stuff to the paste or obsess about reducing the pH with acid or borax to unrealistic levels. I would say most soapers don't add preservative to the paste, but some store their paste in the refrigerator just to be safe. It's my opinion that making paste with aloe as the liquid is reasonably safe. If you use aloe to make the paste but the recipe is otherwise pretty basic, the action of the lye and its high pH will help keep the paste sanitary.

There's no general agreement about adding a preservative in the finished, diluted LS. Some people do, some don't. If the paste is pretty basic -- just water, lye, and oil -- I'd say the preservative is optional. For a paste made with aloe, the aloe will still be food for microbial growth in the diluted soap, so I would still use a good preservative suitable for high pH products in the diluted soap.

People often ask about diluting with goat milk, aloe, tea, or whatever, but I really don't think it is a wise move to dilute with anything but distilled water. If you add a heavy dose of "microbe food" when diluting a liquid soap, you're likely to lose your bet that microbes won't grow. That is especially true if you don't use a preservative, but is also a real concern even if you do. Preservatives can only do so much; they can't work miracles.

Susie said:

It really is not more labor intensive. If you know how much water to add, you just break the paste up, add the water, and walk away. I use the crock pot to help dilute the paste because I am impatient. It does take a bit more time than making CP liquid soap, but not more time and labor than making HP liquid soap.

I have never tried "melting" the paste in the micro. Let us know how that works, please?

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Yeah my issue may have been I had big chunks of paste in my mixture so it took a bit longer. I did attempt a small amount of paste in the micro and it liquified in a few seconds. I can see how one could over-zap it and burn it, but it may be a good way to break apart the larger chunks non-mechanically (blender/spoon). I'll do a trial run later today.

Okay hot water plus melted paste = giant bubble explosion (think superheated liquid) . Will try to heat the combined water/paste in the microwave and see if that goes any faster/better. Maybe just easier to do crock pot with a bunch of jars.

I just make my paste in the crockpot. Makes dilution easier.

Susie said:

I just make my paste in the crockpot. Makes dilution easier.

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Wait, you make your paste directly in the crock pot and then just add water to dilute? Guess that makes sense. I hate pouring stuff out of the crock though, but mine is more oval shaped than circular.

Mine is old(1986) and circular. I just use a soup ladle to ladle out enough to fill the bottles. If I am re-filling the laundry soap, I use a measuring cup to scoop out the liquid soap and pour it into the jug. I only pick up the crock pot to pour the last little bit.

And yes, I just make the soap in there,(not turned on, as I make CP liquid soap), but I turn the crock pot on high as soon as there is no zap(10-15 min), and break it up with a spoon and pour the water in. Then I walk away for an hour or so, and do other stuff. I revisit it as needed to stir, and add water if needed. Just keep an eye on it to not foam out of the top for an hour or so.

DeeAnna said:

The general rule of thumb is to dilute with distilled water only to minimize the chance of microbial growth. Commercial aloe vera has preservatives in it, but only to preserve just THAT product at its usual pH, not to preserve anything more than that.

I would guess from your words that you're determined to use aloe rather than water, so either use a preservative that is effective at the higher pH of liquid soap or store the diluted LS in the refrigerator and use promptly.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the response DeeAnna! I have used the aloe vera gel to dilute, as stated, but I DO, or I DID add the max amount of Preservative. Liquid Germal Plus is what I used. Ok tho, I will make sure to BE AWARE that I run a higher risk using the aloe vera, even with the diluted water. I was using a gallon jug of aloe vera gel that I got from walmart. But, I went to MMS online and found an aloe vera gel POWDER! I might try that. It states that I can mix it with water to make aloe vera JUICE. I dont know if juice and gel are the same thing, but I figure It might help my product to use this powdered aloe vera juice powder due to the fact that I would first dilute it in distilled water. I would then add the distilled water/aloe vera juice mix, into the soap paste. I will still max out on my preservative. I know you are correct, I MUST be extra careful when doing this kind of dilution and I need to understand that my preservative is NOT a miracle worker. Saying that, I do still think overall that the soap is way much better for the skin using aloe vera gel as apposed to just simply distilled water. Just my thoughts, but I do NOW have a better understanding of what you were trying to get across. Thank you for your input as your information is good, I do believe. I will be extra cautiousness in its use and or storage if I do dilute using aloe. Thank you very much, again