Using fresh lemon or lime juice in soap..?

[earlene]

Earlene,

Earlene,

Yes, you are correct that adjustments need to be made to a formula when you add an acid that will affect the base used in the product,

Hmm.

but you said very little about how you made the calculations to correct the addition of an acid to the base included in your formula. [/QUOTE] No, as it has already been covered elsewhere. Refer to post #14 for instructions how to do so as I would have said had a new person asked.

In the 2nd. portion of my response, I was responding to the scent aspect mentioned below by the original poster, Jerry who created this thread to find out the information about using lemon in his soapmaking process. My reply, as others who have replied to this thread, is to everyone who has posted or who is reading this thread.

That was not apparent to me. Since you quoted me specifically and then in the very same paragraph said, "Besides, the lemon scent won't "... <snipped the rest for brevity>

Earlene, Lemon Juice has a very low pH of around 2 to 3 so in effect you are lowering the pH of your soap meaning that less of the oils would saponify giving you what amounts to a larger superfat which would make the soap softer to cut and not have as good characteristics as your normal soap formula might have. Besides, the Lemon "scent" won't hold up at all because it is a top note and citrus essential oils are notorious for disappearing from the soap scent in a matter of days or weeks!

Perhaps I need to learn to read between the lines better.

 

[DeeAnna]

I remember reading a chart on the mildest rated soap for babies several years ago and one of the highest ph soaps was rated the mildest. Someone here might remember the article, I just do not.

That was probably me. The research paper is -- Baranda L, R González-Amaro, et al. Correlation between pH and irritant effect of cleansers marketed for dry skin. International Journal of Dermatology. 2002, 41, 494–499.

Here is the relevant data from Baranda's article showing the irritation index versus pH values for the commercial soaps they tested. These soaps would not have had excess alkali -- the pH is for the fully neutralized soap. More irritation = higher irritation index. --

 

[valeriemosher]

Has anyone used fresh lemon or lime juice in his or her soaps? I do CP and I have a ton of fresh limes and lemons from my trees and thought about trying it but I don’t know how much to put in and whether I should discount the water with the amount of juice. Maybe the lye water would eliminate the scent of the juice.Maybe the citric acid would compromise the quality of the soap in some way. I've searched around some of the Forums and haven't seen where anyone has tried this.
Jerry

I've made quite a few of lemon juice soaps, as a matter of fact just uploaded a video on one -- people make them a lot with no issues whatsoever, the soap is lovely and it does not neutralize lye, there is so very little citric acid in it that there is really no issues , just lovely

 

[shunt2011]

I've made quite a few of lemon juice soaps, as a matter of fact just uploaded a video on one -- people make them a lot with no issues whatsoever, the soap is lovely and it does not neutralize lye, there is so very little citric acid in it that there is really no issues , just lovely

Merry hasn’t been here since 2015

 

[cmzaha]

I've made quite a few of lemon juice soaps, as a matter of fact just uploaded a video on one -- people make them a lot with no issues whatsoever, the soap is lovely and it does not neutralize lye, there is so very little citric acid in it that there is really no issues , just lovely

And how do you know it is not creating sodium citrate? In other words, lye reacting with the citric acid and raising your superfat? That is exactly what is happening if you are adding in lemon juice and not adding in the necessary extra lye. Some will use such process to raise superfat instead of adding the extra oil or using less lye to adjust superfat. You cannot stop the process from happening. But if you use to much lemon juice as water replacement you will break the soap and have a mushy mess.