First batch liquid soap, and already in deep trouble

[Darth]

Hi guys,

Well I've been reading for weeks and thought I was ready to make my first soap (never did solid) and now I'm 4 hours late for work and still cant get to trace. I really need your help !!

Recipe:

Sunflower oil: 3.8l (3,340.80g)
KOH: 595g
Water: 1,400g
Blossom honey: 100g
Crockpot on High

Since it's my first time, I wanted to get to know some of the most common oils but it has not been working out.

My stick blender just couldn't take 2 hours of short blasts and has now burned out, my arms hurt from all the manual mixing, but it would seperate while I was changing hands.

Eventually i added 100g of honey after reading that it would help come to trace and it sure did help but the honey caused it to form sort of a curd but that also stays separate from the water.

In desperation i removed as much water as I could (I'd guess about 3 pints) and it certainly does look better, no idea if this is what I should be looking for, but it will stay consistent for 4-5 seconds and look like trace as in the photo below.

After a few more seconds, it will flake out as in the other attached photo.

I'm in a desperate state now because I don't know if it's safe to leave it like this and go to work or if i should fill it with vinegar & dispose, please help !

 

[melstan775]

I"m not experienced with liquid soaps, but from what I am seeing, it looks like you don't have enough emulsifiers. The left picture looks like gravy when it is too much fat, and the right picture looks better, due to removal of water, so I would say your balance of oil to water and emulsifier additives is way way way off. This is speculation however, I am only going by what I see.

 

[lsg]

Turn off the crockpot and go to work. When you come home turn it on low and stir every now and then. See if it will finally cook down. SoapCal calls for 1269 grams of water and 603 grams of KOH.

 

[AlchemyandAshes]

You never want to remove water after it has been mixed with the oils, because you will also be removing KOH (or NaOH if your making bars), since once made into a lye solution you can't remove one without the other. Now you won't know how much lye you have to oil ratio :? And I doubt you'll get it to trace or stay emulsified now, so I would scrap it and start over. I hardly ever say that, because I hate wasting ingredients, but in this case, I don't think it's salvageable :cry:...
Did you run this recipe through a lye calculator set to use KOH?

 

[Darth]

Guys thank you very much for your updates, especially related to the safety of walking away from the solution.

Well I've just come back home and the water has evaporated and it's a big paste at the moment, so I will abandon as you've mentioned.

(un)fortunately, they just do not sell KOH/NaOH in anything less than 200KG quantities so it was a helluva task getting them to sell me a "sample" quantity of 25KG

I probably shouldn't have, but after diping a litmus paper (for aquariums, so really very small range 6.3 -9 only), I put some between 2 wooden spatuals and added a bit of water and it lathered !

The exact calculation I used is below, Tarring the scale as I went. I used a 4g less KOH, thought it would be easier to add a few flakes later if needed, but the water does say 1,400g.

I actually used http://convert-to.com/550/sunflower-oil-measures-conversion-plus-nutrition-facts.html to convert the 2x 1.8l (3.6l) Sunflower bottles into 3,340.8g. My original post say s 3.8, but I calculated 3.6

The honey I just added out of desperation.

• It may be obvious, but do we need LYE to interact with the fatty acids or can the KOH directly safonify them?
• If KOH interacting with H2O is mandatory, then can we use a much higher concentration of it, something like 3:7 Water:KOH (if it's diluted really slowly to avoid high heat) to keep the water needed to a minimum and speed uptrace?

Thanks again everyone for the help, I really appreciate it.

 

[AlchemyandAshes]

Lets start at the beginning:
KOH is lye. It's just POTASSIUM hydroxide as opposed to NaOH which is SODIUM hydroxide. Both are alkali that will saponify a fatty acid.
The amount used is based on the SAP value determined for each individual oil. Using more lye makes for a caustic and unsafe product. Most soap made (in the handcrafted community) for body use has at least a 5% lye discount/superfat, meaning that 5% of the oils used will remain unsaponified. This accounts for mismeasurements and inaccuracies in information of SAP values.
You CAN use less water than a recipe calls for. The strongest lye solution is 1 part lye to 1 part water. You need enough water to dissolve the lye crystals completely, and a 50% lye solution accomplishes this. Water is the vehicle for the lye to get to the fatty acid molecules in the oil. The less water, generally the faster you will reach trace.
Just because it lathers doesn't make it usable soap. A lye heavy soap (with an excess of lye) will still lather.
You should ALWAYS work in WEIGHT measurements, not fluid or volume measurements. Converting the liters to grams was probably an issue. The best investment a soapmaker can make is a digital scale that goes at least to 0.01 oz...grams may be easier.
Most handcrafted soap tests around 10 on the pH scale. A pH strip that only measures 2-9 probably isn't very useful.
Not sure where you are, but you can purchase KOH (or NaOH) pretty inexpensively at www.essentialdepot.com

 

[lsg]

Guys thank you very much for your updates, especially related to the safety of walking away from the solution.

Well I've just come back home and the water has evaporated and it's a big paste at the moment, so I will abandon as you've mentioned.

(un)fortunately, they just do not sell KOH/NaOH in anything less than 200KG quantities so it was a helluva task getting them to sell me a "sample" quantity of 25KG

I probably shouldn't have, but after diping a litmus paper (for aquariums, so really very small range 6.3 -9 only), I put some between 2 wooden spatuals and added a bit of water and it lathered !

The exact calculation I used is below, Tarring the scale as I went. I used a 4g less KOH, thought it would be easier to add a few flakes later if needed, but the water does say 1,400g.

I actually used http://convert-to.com/550/sunflower-oil-measures-conversion-plus-nutrition-facts.html to convert the 2x 1.8l (3.6l) Sunflower bottles into 3,340.8g. My original post say s 3.8, but I calculated 3.6

The honey I just added out of desperation.

• It may be obvious, but do we need LYE to interact with the fatty acids or can the KOH directly safonify them?
• If KOH interacting with H2O is mandatory, then can we use a much higher concentration of it, something like 3:7 Water:KOH (if it's diluted really slowly to avoid high heat) to keep the water needed to a minimum and speed uptrace?

Thanks again everyone for the help, I really appreciate it.

If it is paste, that is where you want to be. You can test for neutralization and if your soap needs it, try these methods. Do not throw away your paste until you have tried to salvage it.

http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/liquidsoap/a/neutralizeliq.htm

 

[Lindy]

I do agree with LSG. Don't give up on it since I see you have a 5% SF which is fairly unusual for liquid soap so you do have some wiggle room. I do SF my liquid soaps and then I add a pearlizer to it because that is my preferred look for liquid soap....

 

[Mildreds.naturals]

I know this is an old post, but I'm curious how things turned out? did you salvage it or just chuck it?

Lindy, are pearlizers naturally derived/

 

[Lindy]

EZ Pearl which is the brand I use is Glycol Distearate which is a chemical compound.

Here are some sites with info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycol_distearate

http://www.naturalwellbeing.com/learning-center/Glycol_Distearate

and of course - Swifty's Blog Post on the subject: http://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.ca/2009/06/better-crafting-through-chemistry_4203.html