LS, added essential oils

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chrismaldo

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Dec 9, 2023
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Hello!

First of all, I’m thankful for all of the information on this site!

I tried my first liquid soap back during the early days of the pandemic and thought it would be a good use of my idle time-and it was! I mostly tried different oils, but kept the scents out.

For this batch, I followed the recipe included in the photos and the directions found there for mixing in the essential oils. I wanted to test a bunch of scents and noticed that all the essential oils made the soap a bit cloudy at first, and settled differently.

I am using distilled water, KoH with a minimum 90% purity. The essential oils are certified organic. Crock pots. Silicon spatulas. Tested with pH paper: 9-10.

Before adding the essential oils, I have a great base that is clear and works well. I read in other forums that people get a white film during the initial cook and then dilution-not me, the jar on the left is what I have after initial dilution and it remains this clear. Then, I have like 10 different jars with different floral scents. They all have the same white layer on top, but at different amounts based on the essential oil. Chamomile alone made the mixture thicker so it doesn’t tend to separate like the others that don’t have chamomile because the mixture is more dense. The two jars on the right are examples of the soaps with essential oils added and after sitting for an hour or two.

My questions are:

Is it still safe to use and it just needs a good shake each time if I don’t want to add anything else to it? They smell fantastic. No odd colors beyond the milky cloudy mixture being mixed back into the rest.

Did I mess something up by adding the essential oils? I did have the mixture around 110 degrees when I initially added the essential oils to the various jars. Is it safe to use?

If the soap is thickened, the cloudiness throughout would return but due to the density would keep the mixture from separating as easily as when it is not thickened.

I’ve heard of adding Polysorbate 80 to a mixture, but haven’t played with that ever.

Thanks for any input!
 

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Update: I went ahead and added some PS 80 and it seems to have done the trick. These all have different essential oils so that’s why there is color variation, but the PS 80 made everything uniform. Thanks for the input, @AliOop!
 

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