BubbleBubblepop
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- Joined
- May 17, 2018
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Hi Everyone,
Just thought I’d share my first experience with soap making and some subsequent observations & questions. I saw someone catching it in the neck from a senior member for not methodically outlining their process with weights and amounts so I’ll try not to fall into the same trap.
So I followed the Olive oil castile soap recipe from Thethingswellmake.com which, during the process, left me guessing at things like precise temperature etc. So I was a stickler for the amounts but had to make some frankensteined guesses with process.
Ingredients:
Olive Oil – 907gr
Potassium Hydroxide – 185gr
Glycerine (vegetable glycerine from purenature, not sure if the forum norms here prevent me from naming vendors) – 227gr
Distilled Water – 327gr
I mixed my water and glycerine and KOH outside in a getup that looked like I was cooking meth.
Before that, jumped out at my kids from behind a door wearing it. And not pictured are the big safety wear goggles and leather gloves I wore. I stirred intermittently until it was completely clear.
I had been slowly heating my oil in a big stock pot. At a temperature of 43C I added my KOH mixture and started to blend with the baby puree attachment on a Kenwood stick blender. This didn’t do a damn thing. So I switched out for the more standard rotary blade attachment where things suddenly followed the progression outlined in the recipe: Mayonnaise > Cream pudding > Mashed potatoes > Creamy again. Worth noting is at the increased stiffness/viscosity of the mashed potatoes stage, the mixture became much more heat conductive and the temperature started rising quickly at which point, I filled a pan with boiling water and put the stock pot into that as a double boiler and this was really effective at regulating the temperature to the mid-40s. I’m not sure if this materially affected the outcome as I think the temperature got somewhere near 90. I know someone is going to ask about superfatting and I’ll be honest, I didn’t calculate as the recipe states it was calculated using SMB crafters advanced lye calculator to land at 0% and factors in the glycerine usage.
I stirred the mixture every 10 minutes and it dissolved clear in distilled water after about 5 hours of intermittent stirring though I’m still not a million % clear on this aspect, it still seems a little open to interpretation.
Anyway, my paste, in sterilised jars, looks like this (Is this normal? bear in mind, it’s autumn in New Zealand at the moment and our houses are pretty cold by snug European and American insulation standards)
Diluted 1:3, by weight, with distilled water it looks like this:
I added 5 drops of orange essential oil, 2 Lavender, 2 palmarosa, 1 Vetiver to a 100ml diluted mix. This was not great with palmarosa as the main culprit. This works a treat as a shower soap, though too liquid for easy dispensing. One thing I noted is that it was too drying on my face.
To remedy the viscosity I added a 20% solution of salt and distilled water drop-by-drop (probably about 2ml in total) and it thickened up really nicely.
So my next little 200ml batch I used 5 drops orange essential oil and 3 drops pine oil after thickening with saline solution and it went really cloudy and thin in consistency.
Next steps include actually measuring the PH with a digital meter I have coming in. What are my best strategies for reducing that harshness I’m feeling on my face? Does that whiteness in paste form indicate the presence of lye? Sorry, lots of noob questions, and I hope I’ve outlined with enough structure what I did to make it.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on preservation, alkalinity, thickening and fragrance and any pointers for future batches etc.
Just thought I’d share my first experience with soap making and some subsequent observations & questions. I saw someone catching it in the neck from a senior member for not methodically outlining their process with weights and amounts so I’ll try not to fall into the same trap.
So I followed the Olive oil castile soap recipe from Thethingswellmake.com which, during the process, left me guessing at things like precise temperature etc. So I was a stickler for the amounts but had to make some frankensteined guesses with process.
Ingredients:
Olive Oil – 907gr
Potassium Hydroxide – 185gr
Glycerine (vegetable glycerine from purenature, not sure if the forum norms here prevent me from naming vendors) – 227gr
Distilled Water – 327gr
I mixed my water and glycerine and KOH outside in a getup that looked like I was cooking meth.
Before that, jumped out at my kids from behind a door wearing it. And not pictured are the big safety wear goggles and leather gloves I wore. I stirred intermittently until it was completely clear.
I had been slowly heating my oil in a big stock pot. At a temperature of 43C I added my KOH mixture and started to blend with the baby puree attachment on a Kenwood stick blender. This didn’t do a damn thing. So I switched out for the more standard rotary blade attachment where things suddenly followed the progression outlined in the recipe: Mayonnaise > Cream pudding > Mashed potatoes > Creamy again. Worth noting is at the increased stiffness/viscosity of the mashed potatoes stage, the mixture became much more heat conductive and the temperature started rising quickly at which point, I filled a pan with boiling water and put the stock pot into that as a double boiler and this was really effective at regulating the temperature to the mid-40s. I’m not sure if this materially affected the outcome as I think the temperature got somewhere near 90. I know someone is going to ask about superfatting and I’ll be honest, I didn’t calculate as the recipe states it was calculated using SMB crafters advanced lye calculator to land at 0% and factors in the glycerine usage.
I stirred the mixture every 10 minutes and it dissolved clear in distilled water after about 5 hours of intermittent stirring though I’m still not a million % clear on this aspect, it still seems a little open to interpretation.
Anyway, my paste, in sterilised jars, looks like this (Is this normal? bear in mind, it’s autumn in New Zealand at the moment and our houses are pretty cold by snug European and American insulation standards)
Diluted 1:3, by weight, with distilled water it looks like this:
I added 5 drops of orange essential oil, 2 Lavender, 2 palmarosa, 1 Vetiver to a 100ml diluted mix. This was not great with palmarosa as the main culprit. This works a treat as a shower soap, though too liquid for easy dispensing. One thing I noted is that it was too drying on my face.
To remedy the viscosity I added a 20% solution of salt and distilled water drop-by-drop (probably about 2ml in total) and it thickened up really nicely.
So my next little 200ml batch I used 5 drops orange essential oil and 3 drops pine oil after thickening with saline solution and it went really cloudy and thin in consistency.
Next steps include actually measuring the PH with a digital meter I have coming in. What are my best strategies for reducing that harshness I’m feeling on my face? Does that whiteness in paste form indicate the presence of lye? Sorry, lots of noob questions, and I hope I’ve outlined with enough structure what I did to make it.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on preservation, alkalinity, thickening and fragrance and any pointers for future batches etc.
