HELP! first time to make soap. i dont know if its right.

[DeeAnna]

Up to a point, a soap will still be soap even if a person adds some type of acid to the recipe such as citrus juice, vinegar, etc. So, yes, it can be done, especially since bar (NaOH) soap is good at hiding the effects of additives like this, unlike liquid (KOH) soap. By adding acid blindly, a soaper is basically playing a guessing game about how much acid she can add and still have useful soap.

When you add citrus juice to soap, you are adding extra water, sugar, and citric acid to the soap. It's hard to say exactly how much citric acid will be added, since various citrus juices vary in their acid content. Lemons are generally the highest in citric acid. I don't have a clue about calamansi.

The bottom line is that if you add 1 gram of pure citric acid to a soap recipe, the acid will neutralize 0.624 g of NaOH and make sodium citrate. If you don't compensate for this by adding the extra lye that the citric acid will consume, then the citric acid will take the lye away from the soap. This will increase the superfat some unknown amount. If you add enough citric acid, the soap won't be very good soap -- there will be so much excess fat, the "soap" will be soft and greasy.

 

[soap_ph]

i see... maybe thats why its soft and greasy because of the calamansi juice that i added. i'm living in a farm here in the philippines and we're growing calamansi. i just thought of it to add in the soap. and here in my country there are calamansi soaps in the market. people here are obsses in whitening products and they say calamansi is good for whitening.

 

[dixiedragon]

Powdered calamansi peel may be an option. Powdered orange and lemon peel have worked well for me.

 

[DeeAnna]

The peel won't have any citric acid, so that is certainly an option.

Another thing to consider is to just learn how much extra NaOH you need to add to neutralize the citric acid in the calamansi juice. Then you could use the juice too and still get good soap. The citrate that is created by the reaction of citric acid and NaOH is a good thing, actually. Citrate helps the soap to have a longer life in storage and it also helps prevent soap scum if the soap is used in hard water.

 

[dixiedragon]

What would happen if you hot process it and added the juice AFTER the cook?

 

[soap_ph]

what can i substitute for castor oil? i cant find any in our grocey stores here. and what does it do?

 

[DeeAnna]

Castor oil is often sold in the pharmacy as a laxative. At least that is where I find it. Try your local pharmacist or drug store?

If it's too expensive or you can't find it, just omit it and increase one or more of the other fats to compensate for the missing castor.

If you want to make a recipe like the one Susie shared (above) and reprinted here...

Lard/tallow/palm oil(one or other, not all) 55%
Coconut Oil 20%
Olive Oil 20%
Castor Oil 5%

...then if you omit the castor, I would add the "missing" 5% to the lard/tallow/palm or to the olive oil.

 

[soap_ph]

ok thank you so much! i appreciate all the help. now im ready to make another batch! thank you all and God bless!

 

[DeeAnna]

"... What would happen if you hot process it and added the juice AFTER the cook? ..."

Dixie, it would still cause problems. Citric acid is stronger than any fatty acid, so it is able to bump the sodium off the fatty acid. So instead of an excess of fat, you'd end up with an excess of fatty acids.