HELP.... MAKING LIQUID SHAMPOO... 1st timer...

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ninis

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Nov 12, 2018
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HAITI
Hello... I have been making soaps for 6 years now... However, first time doing shampoo (or any liquid soaps) cooking time had me running.

Anyways... so I started with this recipe :
coconut raw/vegan : 24 oz / olive: 13 / PALMA christie from haiti : 11 oz / jojoba : 1.5 / argan 1.5 / water : 50oz / KOH : 11 oz (0% superfat) calculated on brblberry)

processing it on a double boiler / heated my oils to about 160F / added koh-water solution / within 2 minutes bather is hard .... I found it to be really quick after all the 30 minutes other soapers said you would wait... anyways... went for 5 hours of cooking till it became clear vaseline.... tested for clarity... cloudy /milky...
Thought it was my infused boiled water with thyme.. so tried with culligan water no additives.. still cloudy, but less.. throughout cooking I could smell a urine like odor by waves.... lye probably cooking off).
zap test... yeaks ! paste a bit dark, because palma christie is a dark oil here in Haiti, not like clear castor oil(same but different method of extraction).

So I recalculated.. at 3%superfat and added 6 ounces of coconut to it... lye was a bit over on recalculation (12oz).. mixed it in, and cooked it to make sure coconut addition was well mixed in... gave me an incredible vaseline mixture... BUT... clarity test... still cloudy... zap test... zing! not as hard as first try but.. zing...

Can I make it clearer ? its a shampoo....I am sooooo confused, and I do not want to trow it away.

HELP PLEASE !!!
claritytest.jpg
correcte6ozcoco shampoo paste.jpeg
diluted for clarity.jpg
 
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I really do not want to throw it away ! :(
Could it be the Palma Christie (brambelberry has it as an aoption, and they do sell the one from Haiti.. although not all supliers will create the same way/method)
Could it be the jojoba (1.5 ounces)
If I neutralise it with citric acid, will it clear the cloudiness as it lowers/neutralise the excess lye?
Or, do I have to much oil now..?
Could it be the water ... bottled water... no tap, no rain...
 
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If your soap is lye heavy after 5 hours of cooking, you need to look into why your recipe is lye heavy. I haven't run it through a soap calculator myself, so I don't have any specific suggestions at the moment.

Cloudy liquid soap can be caused by several reasons. Unsaponified fat is one, but ONLY one possibility. Another is the jojoba you used -- it can also make soap cloudy. Any unrefined type fat can do this too. I don't know anything about the castor oil you used; you might look into the unsaponifiable content of this oil to see if that might be part of the problem.

If the cloudiness is caused by the jojoba, you won't be able to make this particular batch clear. You need to revise your recipe and make a new batch. But why does this particular batch of soap have to be clear? If it's safe to use (in other words, no zap!), I'd just use it and try a different blend of fats next time.

You do not need to cook soap for 5 hours. 30 minutes to 1 hour is plenty. All you're doing by cooking 5 hours is driving the water out of the soap. Some of us don't cook at all -- we use a cold process method.

edit: This batch will make a LOT of diluted soap. Might want to downsize your next batch.
 
Last edited:
If your soap is lye heavy after 5 hours of cooking, you need to look into why your recipe is lye heavy. I haven't run it through a soap calculator myself, so I don't have any specific suggestions at the moment.

Cloudy liquid soap can be caused by several reasons. Unsaponified fat is one, but ONLY one possibility. Another is the jojoba you used -- it can also make soap cloudy. Any unrefined type fat can do this too. I don't know anything about the castor oil you used; you might look into the unsaponifiable content of this oil to see if that might be part of the problem.

If the cloudiness is caused by the jojoba, you won't be able to make this particular batch clear. You need to revise your recipe and make a new batch. But why does this particular batch of soap have to be clear? If it's safe to use (in other words, no zap!), I'd just use it and try a different blend of fats next time.

You do not need to cook soap for 5 hours. 30 minutes to 1 hour is plenty. All you're doing by cooking 5 hours is driving the water out of the soap. Some of us don't cook at all -- we use a cold process method.

Thank you !!! I will let it rest a bit, zap test it. I will use thi sbatch for myself.

I will recalculate without jojoba, And yes !!! I have read a few of your posts and realize that 5 hours is life threathning ;-) so, I will 1 hour is the way to go ! I will do this tonight !
Thank you again ! I really do appreciate your help.
 

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