HP vs. CP liquid soap, dilution questions

I've been reading every liquid soap process thread over and over in preparation for trying my first batch of LS. It is so overwhelming! I'm going to try the OO/CO/Castor recipe IrishLass kindly shared in the "big thread" but my question is regarding what happens after you combine the lye and oils.

I've seen some people stick blend/whisk and leave it to form paste, and others cook in the crockpot - I'm assuming this is the fundamental difference between CP/HP?

If that's correct, what's the benefit of HP? It seems like more work, plus you have to have a soap-dedicated crock pot. (As the proud owner of three food-dedicated crockpots, I don't want another sitting around if I don't need it)

Then once you have the paste, what's the best way (in your opinion) to dilute and why? I've seen a few methods, just looking for explanations on why you do what you do. Convince me your way is the best!

I just recently made my first batch of GLS from IL's instructions and they couldn't be more thorough! I did not cook anything after mixing lye and oils and it turned out perfect. I did use a stick blender, and I gotta say....reached the flying bubble stage with both batches I've made, and both times it made me giggle! Went to zap-free paste in less than 2 hours without touching it or cooking it.

I dilute exactly like IL's instructions, as well. I put my paste, distilled water, and SL in a wide-mouth half-gallon sized canning jar and then let it sit in a simmering hot water bath on top of the stove until it's soft enough to stick blend. Then I let it sit to settle, cool, and dissolve and top foam before I add FO and PS80, and then bottle it.

I read forever, too, before I actually took the liquid soap plunge, and it was so much easier than I ever thought it would be, thanks to Irish Lass and her fabulous instructions.

Just do it!

If you're using the glycerin method, there's really no need to HP; everything will come together and saponify on its own. I use a touch or rosin in my LS, which needs more heat to melt, and it reacts with the KOH quickly. I tend to soap warmer than most (150-160F), but I don't use a crock-pot. It all goes into a stainless steel pot and if I need to add heat, I can warm it all up.

I dilute, as needed, in a 1/2 gallon canning jar with a plastic reusable lid. The paste, water, and polysorbate go right in, I put a lid on it, and let it sit for a couple of days. If I think about it, I might give it a couple of shakes. And if I'm feeling impatient, I might put the whole thing into a pot of warm water. All in all, it takes about 2-3 days to dilute.

When it's time to fragrance, I just add my EO/FO to the diluted soap, stir, and wait some more. It'll go cloudy, but between 1 and 24 hours (depending on the fragrance), everything is crystal clear again.

I personally see no benefit to HPing my liquid soap to the paste stage. To me, it's a needless waste of my time and energy/electricity. Other folks can certainly do it if it floats their boat, but my philosophy is, "Why go to the trouble if it will saponify just fine without the added heat and extra attention needed?". I'm not saying my way is the best way for all, but it is most certainly the best way for me, a lass who tends to gravitate towards finding less time-consuming, less fussy ways of doing things.

I just whisk or stick-blend off-heat to the emulsification stage/Lawrence Welk stage, cover my pot and walk away. I have plenty of other things I can find to occupy my time than needlessly hovering over a hot pot for a few hours when I don't have to.

Re: dilution: I'm partial to Carrie's method (3bees~1flower from the Dish), which is the canning jar method. Everything is contained in a sealed environment so that evaporation is kept to the barest minimum, and I am better able to see what is going on as often as I like from the top to the bottom clarity-wise/viscosity-wise without ever un-screwing the lid and causing needless evaporation- by just lifting the jar out of the pot of boiling water and tilting it/swirling it.

In comparison, if I were diluting in a crockpot, the only way I would be able to judge how things were progressing throughout the dilution would be to lift the lid and give things a stir, which would cause evaporation over a large surface area every time I decided I wanted to check on things.... which increases the potential of negatively effecting the overall consistency of my finished soap.


IrishLass

Saranac said:

If you're using the glycerin method, there's really no need to HP; everything will come together and saponify on its own. I use a touch or rosin in my LS, which needs more heat to melt, and it reacts with the KOH quickly. I tend to soap warmer than most (150-160F), but I don't use a crock-pot. It all goes into a stainless steel pot and if I need to add heat, I can warm it all up.

I dilute, as needed, in a 1/2 gallon canning jar with a plastic reusable lid. The paste, water, and polysorbate go right in, I put a lid on it, and let it sit for a couple of days. If I think about it, I might give it a couple of shakes. And if I'm feeling impatient, I might put the whole thing into a pot of warm water. All in all, it takes about 2-3 days to dilute.

When it's time to fragrance, I just add my EO/FO to the diluted soap, stir, and wait some more. It'll go cloudy, but between 1 and 24 hours (depending on the fragrance), everything is crystal clear again.

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Wow that dilution method sounds even *easier* (read: lazier) than the warming one! I thought I remember reading that it should be warm when you put your fragrance in, but maybe that is just some peoples process and I took it as a rule. All the threads run together in my mind!

Side note: what's the polysorbate for? Isn't that an emulsifier?

IrishLass said:

I personally see no benefit to HPing my liquid soap to the paste stage. To me, it's a needless waste of my time and energy/electricity. Other folks can certainly do it if it floats their boat, but my philosophy is, "Why go to the trouble if it will saponify just fine without the added heat and extra attention needed?". I'm not saying my way is the best way for all, but it is most certainly the best way for me, a lass who tends to gravitate towards finding less time-consuming, less fussy ways of doing things.

I just whisk or stick-blend off-heat to the emulsification stage/Lawrence Welk stage, cover my pot and walk away. I have plenty of other things I can find to occupy my time than needlessly hovering over a hot pot for a few hours when I don't have to.

Re: dilution: I'm partial to Carrie's method (3bees~1flower from the Dish), which is the canning jar method. Everything is contained in a sealed environment so that evaporation is kept to the barest minimum, and I am better able to see what is going on as often as I like from the top to the bottom clarity-wise/viscosity-wise without ever un-screwing the lid and causing needless evaporation- by just lifting the jar out of the pot of boiling water and tilting it/swirling it.

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That's kind of what I thought re: all the cooking, but thank you for confirming it for me! I'll take the lazy way, thanksverymuch. And thank you for all your thoughtful and well-written LS posts; I'm not sure I would be trying this without them!

Polysorbate is a solubilizer. It helps the FO mix into the soap and increases your chances of making a clear LS. Some people use it, others don't. Depending on the fragrance, you may not need it. Heat will speed things along (and thin the soap slightly, making incorporation easier), but more often then not, I scent my soap at room temp.

I used to cook my LS paste, not for long though, 30 mins max. Bu after trying CP method, I can't see the point.
You get lighter LS and with much less of that cooked "cooked LS" scent.
I just plop some paste into jar with distilled water and it dilutes within a day.
I honestly don't understand cooking the paste for 3-4h, but each to their own.

That's that- you've made up my mind- the next batch of the olive/coconut/castor that I make, I'm doing the completely-lazy, no-cook-all-the-way-through-dilution method.


IrishLass

To the CPLS makers: do any of you use water, or are you all glycerin users?

I used glycerin but I was thinking of using water as well.
It should work... I can't see why it shouldn't.
It might take a bit longer to saponify though.

IrishLass said:

That's that- you've made up my mind- the next batch of the olive/coconut/castor that I make, I'm doing the completely-lazy, no-cook-all-the-way-through-dilution method.


IrishLass

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Hi Irish Lass! I saw your post on making CP GLS and so ready to try it! Thanks so much for sharing But when I put the numbers on soap calc, what is the % water of oils? Should I use the default 38%? I'm planning to dissolve the lye in the water first for 1:1, and then make up the rest using glycerine. But how do I know the number of the liquid?

Sapo said:

To the CPLS makers: do any of you use water, or are you all glycerin users?

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I have made KOH soap several ways -- 1 part water to 2 parts glycerin, 2 of water to 1 of glycerin, and all water. The only version I have not tried is all glycerin.

In the last month or so, I made two batches using the same basic recipe and general method, except one was made with 2:1 water:glycerin and the other with all water. I did this because there are liquid soap making people on Facebook firmly believe KOH soap cannot be made without hours of cooking, testing, and hovering. Or if one does a batch without cooking, it's a fluke. Or it's due to the magic of using one specific recipe. Or I'm just plain lying.

It had been awhile since I had made KOH soap, and I'd started to belief in their disbelief. I shouldn't have. Both batches both saponified nicely with no surprises.

The main difference between a part-glycerin batch vs an all-water batch is that I like to start warmer with an all-water batch. This helps the saponification move along faster, comparable to soap made with part glycerin. I do not cook the paste even with an all-water batch. The only heating involved is getting the ingredients to the starting temp I want. I don't think others do this nor do I believe this up-front heating is strictly necessary -- I just get impatient.

I shoot for a soap batter temperature of 170-180 F (75-80 C) to start with. Once the soap starts to saponify strongly -- about the time the soap comes to trace -- it will heat up all on its own. If you start soaping cooler than that, the all-water version may take longer to come to trace, but it will still fully saponify without cooking.

There's no magic to this -- it's the same game as making NaOH soap with a CP process. If you make bar (NaOH) soap starting with cold ingredients, it's going to take longer to become zap free (fully saponified) than if the ingredients are warmer.

magali said:

Hi Irish Lass! I saw your post on making CP GLS and so ready to try it! Thanks so much for sharing But when I put the numbers on soap calc, what is the % water of oils? Should I use the default 38%? I'm planning to dissolve the lye in the water first for 1:1, and then make up the rest using glycerine. But how do I know the number of the liquid?

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Hi Magali!

One of the best pieces of advice I can give you in terms of water amount is to avoid calculating your formulas using the 'Water as % of Oils' on SoapCalc. Many of us have found it to be an inferior method of calculating water, as it is prone to causing inconsistencies from formula to formula, sometimes very problematic inconsistencies requiring rebatching.

The better way to calculate water on SoapCalc is to use the 'Lye Concentration' box instead. The difference between the two is that 'Water as % of Oils' calculates water based on the oils, and "Lye Concentration" calculates water based on the lye amount. Here is an excellent post by our DeeAnna explaining the difference between the 2 and why "water as % of Oil" oftentimes proves to be problematic, while figuring the water based on the lye amount gives more consistent/successful results: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=53642&page=2

Having said all that, when I make my liquid soap I use a 25% lye concentration, so completely ignore the 'water as % of oils' and instead go ahead and type the number 25 into the Lye Concentration box (which is a ratio of 3 parts water to 1 part KOH).

At this point I should mention that although I normally use SoapCalc for all my bar soaps, I always turn to SummerbeeMeadows Advanced Lye Calculator when making my liquid soap. They are very experienced in making liquid or cream soaps and have certain automatic/default settings built into their calculator that account for things such as KOH purity (94%) and the best water amount for making liquid soap paste, which just so happens to be a 25% lye concentration (3 parts water to 1 part lye).

If you are using the 65% OO formula that I posted and want your liquid soap to come out as close as possible to how mine comes out- but while using SoapCalc- you are going to have to make some extra adjustments when typing in the formula in order for SoapCalc's resulting ingredient amounts to match the resulting ingredient amounts that Summerbee gives me. They are very different from each other because SoapCalc only allows for either 100% KOH purity or 90% KOH purity, which means that the 3% superfat that I use with SummerbeeMeadows default of 94% purity will end up being a 7% superfat on SoapCalc using their 90% purity setting (or -3.2% superfat if using their 100% purity). It's crazy! That's why I keep pointing folks to Summerbee if they are trying to duplicate how my liquid soap comes out.


IrishLass

I always think in lye concentration when I make cp bar soap. How come my brain thinks differently just because it's liquid now? Perhaps because in my mind I wanted to be able to control the thickness of the ls. It makes sense now. Thanks for the tips, Irish Lass! I'll check the calculator

=magali
Perhaps because in my mind I wanted to be able to control the thickness of the ls

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You can control the thickness or thinness of the finished liquid soap later on at the dilution stage by adjusting your paste's dilution rate.


IrishLass

I do what Irish Lass does -- control the dilution to control the thickness. That works well for soap high in oleic acid (olive oil and other high oleic oils.)

Sometimes controlling thickness by dilution doesn't work very well. One example is a LS that high in coconut oil (high in lauric and myristic acids). It tends to be too thick or too thin with no "just right" thickness in the middle.

The solution in that case is to add a thickener -- HEC and HPMC are names of two I've heard of. Faith (Alaiyna B bath and body) has a good blog that covers how to use these thickeners.

Another reason why you might want to use a separate thickener is to reduce the soap content to a lower percentage to keep heavy-handed people from wasting soap. In that case, the soap itself may be too thin regardless of the recipe, so an added thickener is the best way to build back a nice consistency.

DeeAnna said:

I do what Irish Lass does -- control the dilution to control the thickness. That works well for soap high in oleic acid (olive oil and other high oleic oils.)



Sometimes controlling thickness by dilution doesn't work very well. One example is a LS that high in coconut oil (high in lauric and myristic acids). It tends to be too thick or too thin with no "just right" thickness in the middle.



The solution in that case is to add a thickener -- HEC and HPMC are names of two I've heard of. Faith (Alaiyna B bath and body) has a good blog that covers how to use these thickeners.



Another reason why you might want to use a separate thickener is to reduce the soap content to a lower percentage to keep heavy-handed people from wasting soap. In that case, the soap itself may be too thin regardless of the recipe, so an added thickener is the best way to build back a nice consistency.

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I've never heard them before, I'll check the blog. Can I use xantham gum?

Also on the first step, when the koh is diluted with water at 1:1 before adding the glycerine, you don't need any heat, right? Because the koh is dissolved completely with water.

Xanthan gum works as a thickener, but I understand that it's harder to get good consistent results.

When you dilute KOH in an equal or larger weight of water, you do not need to heat it. It will dissolve fine at room temperature.

You can then add the glycerin to the lye solution, or you can add it to the fats or soap batter. You don't need any heat for this step either.

Sapo said:

To the CPLS makers: do any of you use water, or are you all glycerin users?

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I use water. Old school here. LOL

Another thought -- I said earlier ".... I do what Irish Lass does -- control the dilution to control the thickness. That works well for soap high in oleic acid (olive oil and other high oleic oils.) ...."

And I should have said, "....soap MODERATELY high in oleic acid....." It turns out that if you make a KOH soap with 100% olive oil, there is so much oleic acid that it takes a LOT of water to dilute the paste to a pourable consistency. By the time it is pourable rather than jelly like, there's so much water and so little soap, the product isn't very nice to wash with.

So you want enough oleic acid, but not too much.

If you look at the fatty acid profile of the Irish Lass-Carrie liquid soap recipe (the one with olive, coconut, and castor), you'll see the oleic acid content is about 50%. If you look at the FA profile of pure olive oil, it's closer to 70% oleic acid.

We know the IL recipe works well to dilute to a honey-thick liquid at a reasonable dilution. Recipes for LS I've collected from other soapers range from about 40% to 60% oleic acid. So my theory is recipes with an oleic acid content of 45% to 55% are more likely to be a honey-thick liquid with not too much water and a reasonable % of soap.