Castile Noob

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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.
v9GTieH.jpg

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 **** 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)

R9JaER0.jpg



Diluted 1:3, by weight, with distilled water it looks like this:

WSDmreI.jpg



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.
 
Your soap sounds like it turned out fine.

Don't expect pH to tell you whether the soap is lye-heavy. Properly made soap with no excess KOH will range from about 9 to about 11 depending on the fatty acids in the recipe. Did you zap test the soap paste? What were the results from that?

Fragrances will affect liquid soap in various ways -- thicker, thinner, cloudy, clumpy, etc. The only way to know is to add fragrance to a sample of soap. If your test gives you a result you don't like, then you'll need to look at Plan B.

"...What are my best strategies for reducing that harshness I’m feeling on my face?..."

Hard to say. Try another type of recipe perhaps. Some people's skin does not do well with a 100% olive oil soap.

Also reduce the amount of soap you're using per wash. A foamer dispenser is one way to do that. Remember, liquid soap puts more soap on your skin per wash than a bar of soap will. More soap = more of the natural fats removed from the skin = greater potential for dryness and tightness.

"...Does that whiteness in paste form indicate the presence of lye?..."

No. Learn how to do a zap test.

"...I’d love to hear your thoughts on preservation, alkalinity, thickening and fragrance and any pointers for future batches etc...."

One reason why I have not answered you before now and maybe why others have not jumped in either is that this statement is an overly broad query that defies a simple answer. It seems to indicate you haven't done much studying on your own to find if there are answers already available to you.

There are, for example, literally dozens of threads here on SMF whether or not to preserve liquid soap and if one chooses to do so, then how should it be done. Ditto for thickening liquid soap. And ditto for fragrance. And ditto for tips on making liquid soap.

That said, if you have a specific question that isn't answered by older threads, please ask -- we'll be glad to help.
 

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