Getting ready to make my first liquid soap

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I diluted the whole batch, put it in bottles, then added the essential oils to each bottle.

I have no idea about coloring the soap.

When you did this, did you encounter issues like EO not properly mixing with the soap and starting floating?
 
Lankan, the lavender thickened up the soap a tiny bit, the citrus ones thinned it, the mints did nothing. If it floats, I don't think I could tell, because the bottles aren't perfectly clear.

I tried using salt to thicken some soap today, only about a cup. It worked, but it's much weaker soap, I prefer the thinner consistency but stronger soap. Also, it's a little like washing with salt water, it finds all the little scratches you didn't know you had.
 
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Ok, a bunch of my posts in this thread got mashed together by a mod, so now I look like an idiot who doesn't know how to post on forums. Awesome.

Sorry if this causes anyone confusion, I was just trying to post in real time updates, in case anyone wanted to see the process. But now I have a post where I'm diluting soap and then in the same post, it's done. Wasn't supposed to look like that. Sorry people.
 
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I merged ( not mashed)only 2 posts, no.15,16 in this thread, not a bunch, they were on the same day, posted one after the other. I read what was there and the 2nd post that was merged with the top one had a seperate line to say the soap was done.

I did that to tidy up the multiple posts, you diluted the soap and then a seperate sentence which got merged said it was done.
Post 15 got merged with I decided to zap test, easiest soap ever made ......
It didn't alter the reading of it.
 
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Ok, a bunch of my posts in this thread got mashed together by a mod, so now I look like an idiot who doesn't know how to post on forums. Awesome.

Sorry if this causes anyone confusion, I was just trying to post in real time updates, in case anyone wanted to see the process. But now I have a post where I'm diluting soap and then in the same post, it's done. Wasn't supposed to look like that. Sorry people.

It reads fine. If you hadn't said anything, I wouldn't have known and just assumed that you came back and edited your post with updates without noting that it was an ETA.
 
When you did this, did you encounter issues like EO not properly mixing with the soap and starting floating?
I experienced a KOH problem when adding color and FO. Long story, it was a mistake and I really didn’t know what I was doing, but yes. The color stuck to the hard butters, FO did seem to mix fine and then it separated and I had no luck getting it back together. I added the FO and color during the initial oil mix phase, not later.
 
I experienced a KOH problem when adding color and FO. Long story, it was a mistake and I really didn’t know what I was doing, but yes. The color stuck to the hard butters, FO did seem to mix fine and then it separated and I had no luck getting it back together. I added the FO and color during the initial oil mix phase, not later.

why do you consider it as a KOH problem. I was told since we dilute the paste in water, the colorant should be water soluble, not oil soluble. However in my first batch I also mixed the water soluble pigment with in the initial mix and didn't know what exactly is the trace in CPLS and ended up stopping stick blending halfway thru.. I left the mix for about a month and had separation. I don't have much experience with FO. But wonder what would happen if that also not water soluble.
 
why do you consider it as a KOH problem.

I considered it a problem because I inadvertently used KOH and of course, had a unexpected result. The pigment I used was an oxide powder and not water soluble. The FO was fine, but overall it separated and after about a month I disposed of it.
 
I can't see how oxide colors can stick to the butters. By the time the soap is fully saponified, the fats in the batch have been broken into fatty acids and then those fatty acids turned into soap. And the butters, even if they totally survived the saponification process, would still be melted and distributed throughout the soap as individual molecules. Individual fat molecules can't bond with large object like an oxide pigment particle.

What can happen is just simple physics; there's no fat-oxide hanky panky going on. ;) Pigments, including oxides, or mica colorants or ground spices (cinnamon for example) or any similar solid material are insoluble in any liquid. They remain as large and heavy chunks that naturally want to settle out of any sufficiently liquid mixture. This settling would happen whether your liquid soap was made from NaOH or KOH.
 
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