Compeating with Dawn

[Yooper]

How/why does that work? Borax isn't amphoteric, just basic; how do you neutralize alkali with more alkali?

You don't fully "neutralize" to a neutral pH. Soap is still basic- but adding the borax makes it less basic since borax has a lower pH than KOH. You may take the liquid soap from a pH of say, 12 to 9.8 which is safe and is called "neutralizing" as then it isn't lye heavy.

That's an oversimplification, but that's the gist of it.

 

[guiceman]

I have not tried this yet, but a someone in a group I belong to posted this one. She swears by it. I plan to try it but have to get some KOH for it.

the recipe only is here: http://voices.yahoo.com/handmade-liquid-dish-soap-scratch-advanced-soap-8977729.html?cat=22

I made this last night and it turned out great for me...
used lemongrass and orange 15x for scent

 

[Busyfingers]

I was going to give this a try. Can I use my laundry stick as the organic soap?
It has Tallow, CO, Lemon EO and SL so the crayon laundry stick would release out of the mold easy.

I'm concerned about the SL and EO being in there.

 

[guiceman]

I was going to give this a try. Can I use my laundry stick as the organic soap?
It has Tallow, CO, Lemon EO and SL so the crayon laundry stick would release out of the mold easy.

I'm concerned about the SL and EO being in there.

I skipped the organic soap part....

 

[Busyfingers]

Thanks for the input.

 

[Robert]

You don't fully "neutralize" to a neutral pH. Soap is still basic- but adding the borax makes it less basic since borax has a lower pH than KOH. You may take the liquid soap from a pH of say, 12 to 9.8 which is safe and is called "neutralizing" as then it isn't lye heavy.

No, it's just as lye heavy as before, with some add'l alkali.

pH doesn't tell the whole story, especially at high concentrations. There's also total alkalinity.

First you have to consider why you want to lower the alkalinity. You want to have less rxn with the materials of your skin. If you see the pH go down from 12 to 9.8 when you're actually adding alkali, that means nothing; it's just an artifact of the solution's being very concentrated, which is why if you use a pH meter you should use it only on dilute solutions. When dissolved in water, or diluted in more water, the soap will deliver all the alkali it would've without the borax, plus some. True, if it's caustic-heavy, the borax won't add significantly to whatever damage it does to skin (or to fabrics), but it sure won't help, either.

So people may have been doing this for some time, thinking they were making their products safer, when actually it was a false sense of security caused by a misunderstanding of acid-base chemistry.

 

[Robert]

Robert, citric acid is most often used (not cream of tartar), along with sodium bicarbonate to create fizz in bath bombs. Cream of tartar (monopotassium salt of tartaric acid) is added to prolong the life of the bubbles.

It prolongs the production of bubbles, not their life, similarly to the way phosphoric acid is used in some carbonated beverages.

If you check the manufacturer's formulation specs. of most dishwasher and manual dishwasing detergents you will see that salts are used as a stabilizing agent. Here is a link with an example. Look on page one under "Stability and Dispensing Aids"


http://www.lawtongroup.com/resources/documents/cleaning/Dishwashing_Facts.pdf

The "stabilizing agents" used in dishwashing detergents have nothing to do with the type of stabiliz'n being discussed here.

 

[Robert]

Borax is used as a water softener, vinegar is often used as a rinse agent, cream of tartar is used to prolong the suds. I don't know where you are coming from with your analysis, but this works.

I'm sure it works, but is wasteful and would work better without some or all of those ingredients.

Borax works as a water softener (not too well, BTW) only in alkaline solution, so it should not be mixed with vinegar to do that. Vinegar as a rinse aid is useful as an acid, so it should not be mixed with borax to do that. Cream of tartar may soften water in alkaline solution with the alkali provided by the borax, but then should not be mixed with vinegar.

I got the original idea from Kitchen Chemistry with Kayla. She used borax, vinegar and cream of tartar with the surfactant mixture from Essential Wholesale. By the way she is the former formulator and owner of Essential Wholesale.

There are a lot of irrational formulas out there. ISTR I've seen her videos on YouTube and have criticized her formulas there, but it's possible I'm mixing her up with someone else.

If you have more questions, you might contact her for the answers. I am not a chemist.

I am.

 

[lsg]

As a chemist, Robert, I am sure you can come up with some wonderful formulas for a dish detergent. It would be great if you shared those with us. That would be a positive experience for all of us.

 

[green soap]

I have used both borax and citric acid. Citric acid works to neutralize the excess alkali, however, I have not been able to get a clear soap using citric acid. If cloudiness does not bother you, citric acid works fine. Borax acts as a 'buffer' it does not neutralize the excess alkali. This does not sound as good to me, but I have had much better luck with borax.

In any case, I just wanted to mention I have been using 100% coconut oil LS for my dishes and it is working wonderfully. Another thing I do is use about 30-50% recycled frying peanut oil with the coconut oil just to use my frying oils sometimes. I use the excess KOH method so there is no superfat in my LS. Yes, it is perfectly gentle, even the 100% CO oil LS. I have never used Dawn so no idea if it works 'better', but it works very well and lathers wonderfully.

 

[tryanything]

Yes, but some of us have very hard water and soap just doesn't work well for dishes and laundry. I have tried making my own with homemade liquid soap and cp soap and the grease and soil does not emulsify like it does with a detergent. For those of you who have soft water, it is a great idea to use your own liquid soap or cp soap for dishes and laundry.

OMG thank you! I just moved into a place with really soft water and I was wondering how it would affect all my stuff. I planed on making my own laundry soap (powdered though). I might try a dish soap as well. Now I just need to see how soft water affects soapmaking itself or do you use bottled/distilled water for that? I never had a problem making soap with the hard water at my last house. Hope it's not an issue here!

 

[Robert]

As a chemist, Robert, I am sure you can come up with some wonderful formulas for a dish detergent. It would be great if you shared those with us. That would be a positive experience for all of us.

I would, but Green Soap just upthread already explained how: Just make the strongest soap you can stand, such as all-coconut, and forget about the additives. What you've got there is a hard surface cleaner, and it's been found that typical detergent "builders" that improve the cleaning of softer stuff don't have much effect in washing dishes by hand.

Could it be tweaked a little for use with "hard" water? Sure, but it may not be worth your trouble. For example, the "Shine-O-Matic detergent" in Brillo pads is probably soap with a pinch of sodium silicate and a nonionic surfactant of the alkyl ethoxylate or akylphenol ethoxylate kind. But if you wanted to make liquid soap, you wouldn't be able to use sodium salts. In water with considerable "hardness", it would be impracticable to pack enough of any water "softener" into such a formula to work in a sinkful of water, if you wash dishes that way. If you wash them with a cloth rather than soaking them, I'd recommend a cake of soap, handier than liquid or flakes IMO.

 

[lsg]

Liquid soap by itself does not work in our hard water. I did find a recipe using liquid soap and Decyl Glucoside Surfactant from http://www.voyageursoapandcandle.com/Natural_Liquid_Dish_Soap_Recipe_s/311.htm that I am experimenting with.

 

[CaliChan]

I actually did find something that does work well for me
It doesn't lather up like dawn but I gave up on that part of it
I also gave up on making a KOH liquid soap because it was taking up a lot of my time and like lsg said liquid soap doesn't work really well with hard water.
Its simply : 32 oz of water, 4 tablespoons of soap flakes (slightly lye heavy coconut and lard soap), 2 tablespoons of washing soda, 3 tablespoons of borax. I just heat up.the water and add the dry ingredients and let it set overnight. I've been doing it for a month now and it just needs a little bit of tweaking to get the consistancy right. Cause after I stick blend it after its gelled overnight its still pretty thin.