Liquid soap

hannahkeenan · Jun 27, 2014

When making liquid Castile soap a video asked me to use KOH.
Am I able to use caustic soda (NaOH) instead of potassium hydroxide (KOH) Or must I use KOH to get the clear liquid effect?

coffeetime · Jun 27, 2014

Sodium hydroxide makes bar soap and potassium hydroxide makes liquid soap. They are not interchangeable. I would suggest you do some more reading before making soap from a YouTube video.

IrishLass · Jun 27, 2014

The proper lye for making liquid soap is KOH (potassium hydroxide), and the proper lye for making hard, bar-type soap is NaCL (sodium chloride). They are quite different from each other, and one cannot be substituted for the other without some pretty messed-up results, I'm afraid.

IrishLass

Yooper · Jul 21, 2014

IrishLass said:
The proper lye for making liquid soap is KOH (potassium hydroxide), and the proper lye for making hard, bar-type soap is NaCL (sodium chloride). They are quite different from each other, and one cannot be substituted for the other without some pretty messed-up results, I'm afraid.

IrishLass

I'm certain that she meant NaOH, sodium hydroxide, and not NaCl, table salt, but I want to post it so that someone new doesn't get confused by that.

LunaSkye · Jul 21, 2014

It is possible to make a liquid soap with NaOH (I have a recipe in a book). However, I failed when I tried to make a liquid soap with some leftovers 2 months back. I ended up with something that felt like snot and would not pour easily into a soap dispenser. This was my result just going on a whim (didn't think to read the recipe until afterwards).

Even though there is a liquid soap recipe for NaOH, it may be best to just use KOH imo.

DeeAnna · Jul 21, 2014

The recipes that require one to dissolve grated NaOH soap in water do not make satisfactory liquid soap. When NaOH soap and water are combined, they eventually form a stringy colloid with a texture is something like uncooked egg white -- that's the "snot" that everyone talks about. If you added enough water to NaOH soap to get rid of that kind of stringy, gloppy texture, you'll end up with gallons of water-thin liquid.

Bottom line -- don't try the shortcuts with NaOH soap if you want to make a good liquid soap. There are recipes for liquid soap that call for a blend of NaOH and KOH, but you can't get around the necessity of at least some KOH to make a decent product.

I also echo the suggestion to do a little more studying on the matter. YouTube videos can be fine if you have a clue about what you're doing, but are not necessarily the best for newcomers.

IrishLass · Jul 22, 2014

Yooper said:
I'm certain that she meant NaOH, sodium hydroxide, and not NaCl, table salt, but I want to post it so that someone new doesn't get confused by that.

Egads! :shock: Thanks for catching that, Yooper! I must've been half asleep when I wrote that. I'll go edit my post!

IrishLass

Edited to add: Drat, I can't go back and edit it, so.... to one and all- yes - Yooper is correct. I meant to write NaOH, not NaCL.

Liquid soap

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