Glycerin Soap

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I remember back in the early 80s when i had some teenage acne, my mom bought, i think it was neutrogena, glycerin soap. Out of curiosity just now i looked up some background and a recipe that called for, well…glycerin, and some sort of solvent like alcohol, and hot processing it.

I returned here to search, but no hits, although I am the worst at searching the forum. Plus I admittedly give up after a few pages.

Just curious if anybody has tried making glycerine soap and how you liked it.
 
"Glycerin" soap is basically transparent soap. Transparent soap is basically regular soap that is made more-or-less transparent due to adding one or more solvents to the soap and heating the mixture. Glycerin, sugar syrup, grain alcohol, etc. are all solvents used to make this type of soap.

And often two or more solvents are used in an effort to minimize the disadvantages of each solvent. For example, using only glycerin in a transparent soap attracts moisture from the air and the soap gets wet and weepy easily esp in humid weather. And a high amount of glycerin makes the soap feel more rubbery and soft.

Soap becomes more transparent-ish because the solvent breaks up the normal big clumps of soap molecules into very small clumps. Light is able to pass between the small clumps. The smaller the clumps are the more light can pass through and the more transparent the soap will appear.

I made a batch that used sugar syrup and glycerin as the solvents. The soap was .... okay. I wasn't thrilled enough with the results to make a second batch. If I kept going with this idea, I'd probably experiment with solvents other than glycerin or sugar syrup.

IIRC, you're right -- Neutrogena made one. Pears is another classic brand. The original Pears was made transparent with grain alcohol in its early days (late 1800s maybe early 1900s?), but I'm pretty sure they reformulated the soap in later years to use other solvents that were less dangerous and less expensive. The history of Pears soap is fascinating -- Pears (soap) - Wikipedia
 
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I made this last week. Recipe link is below the picture.

Transparent!.png

https://www.ultimateguidetosoap.com/post/easy-diy-transparent-soap
 
"Glycerin" soap is basically transparent soap. Transparent soap is basically regular soap that is made more-or-less transparent due to adding one or more solvents to the soap and heating the mixture. Glycerin, sugar syrup, grain alcohol, etc. are all solvents used to make this type of soap.

And often two or more solvents are used in an effort to minimize the disadvantages of each solvent. For example, using only glycerin in a transparent soap attracts moisture from the air and the soap gets wet and weepy easily esp in humid weather. And a high amount of glycerin makes the soap feel more rubbery and soft.

Soap becomes more transparent-ish because the solvent breaks up the normal big clumps of soap molecules into very small clumps. Light is able to pass between the small clumps. The smaller the clumps are the more light can pass through and the more transparent the soap will appear.

I made a batch that used sugar syrup and glycerin as the solvents. The soap was .... okay. I wasn't thrilled enough with the results to make a second batch. If I kept going with this idea, I'd probably experiment with solvents other than glycerin or sugar syrup.

IIRC, you're right -- Neutrogena made one. Pears is another classic brand. The original Pears was made transparent with grain alcohol in its early days (late 1800s maybe early 1900s?), but I'm pretty sure they reformulated the soap in later years to use other solvents that were less dangerous and less expensive. The history of Pears soap is fascinating -- Pears (soap) - Wikipedia
Thank you for all that, and that was an interesting read on the Pears Soap @DeeAnna

@Misschief I am jealous of your beautiful clear soap!!!
 
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