Accidentally used sodium hydroxide instead of potassium hydroxide with glycerin
- Thread starter Angel.iye
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I was going to make liquid soap and accidentally grab sodium hydroxide instead of potassium hydroxide, and combine that with the glycerin. They are the only two ingredients that have been combined so far
It's not possible to make liquid soap from NaOH, at least if you want the soap to be stable over time and pleasant to use. If you do, you'll end up with a liquid-y soap mixture that's going to behave similar to the "grate up a bar of soap and mix it with water" concoction that some people make.
I suppose you could try making a bar (NaOH) soap from this mixture, but the extra glycerin is likely to make the soap softer and more sticky. Glycerin is a common solvent in transparent and melt-and-pour soap. It makes the soap more translucent, but it also absorbs water from the air and contributes to stickiness and softness.
If you try this, you absolutely need to recalculate the recipe so you use enough fat to properly react with the weight of NaOH you used. I am stating the obvious if you're an experienced soap maker, but I don't know know you at all so I'm erring on the side of being cautious. There are some soap makers who don't understand they need to adjust their recipe to compensate for changes like this.
But ... if I were in your shoes ... I would probably discard the mixture by pouring it slowly down the sink drain while running lots of COLD water at the same time. This advice assumes you're got only a relatively small amount of the NaOH and glycerin mixture -- maybe 300 grams or less. If you've got liters of the stuff, you probably need to dispose of this as a hazardous waste.
I suppose you could try making a bar (NaOH) soap from this mixture, but the extra glycerin is likely to make the soap softer and more sticky. Glycerin is a common solvent in transparent and melt-and-pour soap. It makes the soap more translucent, but it also absorbs water from the air and contributes to stickiness and softness.
If you try this, you absolutely need to recalculate the recipe so you use enough fat to properly react with the weight of NaOH you used. I am stating the obvious if you're an experienced soap maker, but I don't know know you at all so I'm erring on the side of being cautious. There are some soap makers who don't understand they need to adjust their recipe to compensate for changes like this.
But ... if I were in your shoes ... I would probably discard the mixture by pouring it slowly down the sink drain while running lots of COLD water at the same time. This advice assumes you're got only a relatively small amount of the NaOH and glycerin mixture -- maybe 300 grams or less. If you've got liters of the stuff, you probably need to dispose of this as a hazardous waste.
