chemistry

Chemistry experts, please forgive any wrong wording. 😅 After 2 batches that shouldn't develop DOS did in my humid apartment, I've fixed the humidity, but I'm also second-guessing my understanding of DOS, HP, and rancidity in soap. Can soap salts go rancid? Is it only the superfat that...

I assumed my lye was at least a couple percent impure, despite my buying it from a chemical shop and knowing that it didn't sit in a warehouse for a year. (Real estate is too expensive for warehousing chemicals around here.) I did all my soap calculations assuming there would be an implicit...

Hello good people of the Soap Making Forum. This is my first post and i am afraid it might be a bit of a hard one, but first a short introduction: Since a few years i have been making soap for myself because i have irritable skin and none of the store bought soaps did me any good. After a while...

Hello! I've read about adding clay to the lye water to intensify the color. I was wondering though, would the clay absorb some of the lye, and then in turn make the clay itself lye-heavy? I'm not sure about the chemistry regarding this and am hoping someone here may know (so I don't...

Any chemists out there? Does the level of polyunsaturation (and cis or trans) have an impact on the saponification in terms of speed or completeness? I got DOS in my 1st batch of CP soap made using 30% sunflower (no super fatting) - SF is the most unsaturated fat I have used. No sign of...