Edited my original post and somehow lost it completely so here it is again.......
I am just wondering if anyone regularly uses a 45% (1.2:1) lye concentration? I am finding the latest bars I made using this amount of water are much harder bars and lasting much longer on the sink..... I just haven't come across many other people that use this amount and as a general rule of thumb it appears that most people don't go below 40% (1.5:1), perhaps because of the speed of which it traces at this concentration, which is fine for me as I am a one-coloured soaper anyway.
I found Kevin Dunn's caveman chemistry article interesting when he did experiments using 50% (1:1) ratio.....he talks about just how different the finished soap is to that of other concentrations and I wouldn't have thought going from 40 to 45% would make such a difference but for me its working so well and is definitely displaying a lot of the differences mentioned by Kevin Dunn.
I am just wondering if anyone regularly uses a 45% (1.2:1) lye concentration? I am finding the latest bars I made using this amount of water are much harder bars and lasting much longer on the sink..... I just haven't come across many other people that use this amount and as a general rule of thumb it appears that most people don't go below 40% (1.5:1), perhaps because of the speed of which it traces at this concentration, which is fine for me as I am a one-coloured soaper anyway.
I found Kevin Dunn's caveman chemistry article interesting when he did experiments using 50% (1:1) ratio.....he talks about just how different the finished soap is to that of other concentrations and I wouldn't have thought going from 40 to 45% would make such a difference but for me its working so well and is definitely displaying a lot of the differences mentioned by Kevin Dunn.
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