transparent soap

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freesia792

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I was reading the articles posted on this site and came across this:

By adding sugar and alcohol to a soap recipe, you can get it to gel completely and become fully translucent. "Glycerin soap" is just fully gelled soap. Technically, all homemade soap is "glycerin soap" and any lye soap recipe can be gelled to make it translucent.

The only time I've seen alcohol used for soap it was sprayed on to get rid of bubbles. How would a person use it mixed into the soap? Has anyone made translucent soap? ''


Thanks,
Mary
 
I made glycerin soap a little while back but I didn't use alcohol. How I did it was make an he batch and once it no longer zapped, I added my solvents and kept the soap heated until it had fully dissolved. Then you pour it into the mold. In my case, I used glycerin and sugar water, but alcohol is also a solvent.
 
Seawolfe said:
I havent made it yet, but in my research it seems that Catherine Failors technique is the most commonly referenced. And some people use propylene glycol instead of alcohol and then you basically have melt and pour. Heres a good site to read up on it: http://curious-soapmaker.com/how-to-make-transparent-soap.html
Click to expand...

That is an awesome article! Thank you so much.

Two more questions - Where does a person purchase the type of alcohol mentioned ethenylalcohol of 90%? I didn't understand "of actual soap mass". Does that mean to be included and calculated as if the solvents were an oil?

Sorry if I appear to be needy. Just sometimes the language used isn't obvious to me.
 
"...Where does a person purchase the type of alcohol mentioned ethylalcohol of 90%?..."

High-proof ethyl alcohol is sold in some areas of the US. Check your local liquor store. The most common brand is "Everclear". You will not get the same results with low-proof alcohol. If you want to use denatured ethyl alcohol, it can be found at hardware stores and pharmacies. I don't know where or even if this product can be purchased in other countries.

"...I didn't understand "of actual soap mass". Does that mean to be included and calculated as if the solvents were an oil?..."

Um, the author's next phrase defines this term rather well: "...actual soap mass (defined as oils + solid NaOH in the recipe, without water!..."
 
freesia792 said:
I didn't understand "of actual soap mass". Does that mean to be included and calculated as if the solvents were an oil?
Click to expand...

As DeeAnna said, you would add the weight of your oils to the weight of your lye then multiply by the % they gave you for the alcohol - between 30-35 percent.

So if you used 48 ounces of oil and 6.5 ounces of lye you would do the following:

48+6.5 = 54.5 X 35% = 19.07 ounces of alcohol (I would round it to 19 ounces)

(This is only an example - the oils and lye amounts will vary with your recipe)
 
Dorymae said:
As DeeAnna said, you would add the weight of your oils to the weight of your lye then multiply by the % they gave you for the alcohol - between 30-35 percent.

So if you used 48 ounces of oil and 6.5 ounces of lye you would do the following:

48+6.5 = 54.5 X 35% = 19.07 ounces of alcohol (I would round it to 19 ounces)

(This is only an example - the oils and lye amounts will vary with your recipe)
Click to expand...

This was most helpful. I can't thank you enough Dorymae! :smile:
 
I'm so making this. MP is so expensive when you start making embeds. I have plenty of soaping oils and everclear is inexpensive. I did read in soaping101 comments that you can remelt it but it will lose its translucency. With all that glycerin, I bet it will sweat like crazy. Guess I'll keep getting BB's low sweat mp :(
 
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