Is there something wrong with this?

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

jennyannlowe

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2016
Messages
161
Reaction score
85
Last night I was putting together a recipe and I started but hesitated because i am now unsure. Can someone please look at this and tell me if anything is wrong?

SF 7%
Lye concentration 33%
citric acid 2% plus 9.36g extra lye to compensate.
Sugar 1.5 tablespoons

see pic for recipe details.

I understood that I could add citric acid to my water before i put my lye in at about 2% PPO. In this case its 15g. And that for every 10g of citric acid that i should add an extra 6.24g of lye. If my PPO is 750g, then I understood 15g of citric acid plus 9.36g of extra lye.

and I add sugar to water before the lye at 1 tablespoon PPO.

So I added the citric acid and sugar to my distilled water. When I added the lye...it became yellowish and thicker than ive seen it before. I had planned on adding 15g of sodium lactate to the cooled lye water, but I halted for the night until I could research.

Anything wrong with the process above?

2nd....is it normal to have tiny pieces of debri in my lye water?

Last...the there are a couple of 'luxury oils' I wanted to try out. There on the recipe...i havent used before. Didnt want to use too much, being expensive.

Need insight! Help soapy friends!

thanks!

3-14-16 Recipe.jpg
 
You would do better pulling about an ounce of water out of the total and dissolving your sugar in that. Add that to the oils. Then mix your citric acid and NaOH to the remainder of the water. The heat from the NaOH mixing with the water can caramelize the sugar.

You are not going to know what Jojoba or beeswax brings to the soap at 1% usage rate. Try to at least use 5%. I would, if I were you, make a simple 3-4 oil batch of soap first, then the next batch you can swap in 10% of one oil, then on the following batch, add 10% of the other oil. Then you will know what each brings to the soap.
 
Last edited:
I personally would dissolve the citric acid with a little over equal amount of warm water and add it directly to the oils when dissolved. I hate how it acts when added to NaOH. It has actually bubbled to the top of my pitcher before. Nope never again with that. Deduct the water amount from your total liquid. I master batch my citric acid 50/50 the same as I do my lye so it is always ready. Just remember to double it and deduct half the amount from your required liquid. Master batching leaves you with half water half citric acid. I would nix the beeswax and jojoba. As Susie mentioned it is not enough to know a difference and jojoba is simply more useful in leave-on products.
 
I've used beeswax at 2 or 3% in a lard and palm free recipe, but I'm not sure where you're going with that soap. And I don't know if you'll even notice the effect of that little jojoba. I know that almost every soaper goes through this stage (try ALL THE THINGS!!), so I won't talk you out of it, but maybe scale down a little?

+1 for saving the jojoba for a product you don't wash off. Unless you have a ton of it.
 
I never mix my lye and citric acid in the same water either. The couple times I did I got yellow boiling liquid, scared the heck out of me. I now save out a little water, dissolve the CA in that and mix it into the oils.
 
The heat from the NaOH mixing with the water can caramelize the sugar.

I'm not suggesting your advice isn't good, but I wish I understood what's going on. Far as I know, there's not enough heat from dissolving the NaOH to caramelize the sugar.

Like, seriously, not nearly enough. I just looked it up and sugar caramelizes at 340 F.

If sucrose doesn't react with sodium hydroxide, and it's not caramelizing, then what's the color change? A reaction with some impurity? I suppose that would happen regardless how you combine the ingredients.
 
I do not use citric acid, I make Sodium Citrate, but when I had used, I took some water to warm it, for sugar, all what i needed for colors, then I had add CA to water, mix well, it has to be completely dissolved, then dissolved sugar water, then lye, I had never have any problem with it.
Undissolved particles; I get the lye I do not have to strain, form my local supplier, but one of the supplier have dirty , lye, always I had something undissolved. When I switched to Candora problem dissapeared.
Jojoba and beeswax should be out, it does not bring a lot to soap. CO should be no more than 20% othewise is drying soap. However yours have SF of 7% so maybe it will be ok
 
Hmmm. I use master batched lye (33.333%) at room temp. I also use CA. I weigh the ca add it to my weighed master match and dissolve it, then add the extra NaOH to that and dissolve it. It heats up a little bit, but not enough to cause any problems. Before I switched to the master batch, I dissolved the CA in my water then added the lye. It does turn a little yellow and smells bad(er than usual), but no volcanos or anything like that. However, I do use a big bowl when mixing my solution, just to avoid any mishaps.
 
I'm not suggesting your advice isn't good, but I wish I understood what's going on. Far as I know, there's not enough heat from dissolving the NaOH to caramelize the sugar.

Like, seriously, not nearly enough. I just looked it up and sugar caramelizes at 340 F.

If sucrose doesn't react with sodium hydroxide, and it's not caramelizing, then what's the color change? A reaction with some impurity? I suppose that would happen regardless how you combine the ingredients.

I know, right???

However, every last time I tried adding sugar to the water then the NaOH, I got orangey-brown, then medium brown coloration. The same colors that sugar turns as it caramelizes.
 
I know, right???

However, every last time I tried adding sugar to the water then the NaOH, I got orangey-brown, then medium brown coloration. The same colors that sugar turns as it caramelizes.

I don't add anything to my lye water. (I learnt the hard way.)
I reserve some water to mix additives, colour and warm honey and then add it to the oils and mix well before I add the lye. Saves a lot of worry.
 
Last edited:
I know, right???

However, every last time I tried adding sugar to the water then the NaOH, I got orangey-brown, then medium brown coloration. The same colors that sugar turns as it caramelizes.


That is really weird! I wonder if it's like what TOMH suggested- that maybe there's some impurity in the sugar? Or maybe the lye? In all the times I have ever dissolved sugar in my water before adding lye, my water always remained clear.

There was one time, though, that I experimented by dissolving crystalline fructose in my water before dissolving the lye...... and my water turned red! lol


IrishLass :)
 
That is really weird! I wonder if it's like what TOMH suggested- that maybe there's some impurity in the sugar? Or maybe the lye? In all the times I have ever dissolved sugar in my water before adding lye, my water always remained clear.

There was one time, though, that I experimented by dissolving crystalline fructose in my water before dissolving the lye...... and my water turned red! lol


IrishLass :)

I'll try to figure this out. Reducing sugars like glucose and fructose react with sodium hydroxide, but sucrose does not. However, sucrose can be hydrolyzed to glucose and fructose. If you use distilled water, it's probably a little bit acidic, especially if it's been sitting around a while. I'm wondering if that could trigger a little hydrolysis of the sugar to account for the tint.
 
My sugar always changes color like suzies does :? both raw and powdered white sugar
 
Susie, how much sugar do you use? I don't use it anymore, found aloe juice to produce better lather without all the weird reactions but when I did use sugar, it always turned orangy but never brown. I generally used 1 tsp PPO but occasionally went up to 2 tsp PPO.

I have more trouble with honey turning dark, I won't use it anymore either.
 
My hillbilly theory on the sugar changing color is that it's reacting ( at least the organic part) with the lye. PURE sucrose does not as TOMH said but most commercially available sugars are not pure sucrose. I don't care what the label says. Kinda like Virgin Olive Oil...
 
I also most of the time add salt, sugar and trisodium citrate in all recipe's water before lye and I always get a yellow-brownish color when lye is fully dissolved into this solution.

lyeSaturationSaltSugarSC.jpg

Here water is saturated and cannot fully dissolve all the above ingredients, but you can see the color of the water, which I think will not affect the soap's final color.

All of you that dissolve salt/sugar/citric acid in a small portion of water that will go directly into the oils and you dissolve lye alone in the rest of the recipe's water and inevitably you will drop it lastly in the oils, what makes you think that the same reaction won't happen and you will not get that yellow-brownish color?

I think that the same reaction will also occur that way but it will not be visible as it will be hidden under [the carpet] the soap paste...
 
I also most of the time add salt, sugar and trisodium citrate in all recipe's water before lye and I always get a yellow-brownish color when lye is fully dissolved into this solution.
Here water is saturated and cannot fully dissolve all the above ingredients, but you can see the color of the water, which I think will not affect the soap's final color.

All of you that dissolve salt/sugar/citric acid in a small portion of water that will go directly into the oils and you dissolve lye alone in the rest of the recipe's water and inevitably you will drop it lastly in the oils, what makes you think that the same reaction won't happen and you will not get that yellow-brownish color?

I think that the same reaction will also occur that way but it will not be visible as it will be hidden under [the carpet] the soap paste...

You may be right.
But by the time I have SB'd the additives into my oil mix the lye water has cooled considerably and it doesn't seem to effect the soap. I have always though it was the temperature that did it.

Mind you I use honey (Manuka Honey which is much darker than regular honey) not sugar. I use 1 tsp ppo.

I don't like using lye water that isn't totally dissolved. I maybe paranoid but I want it to be totally clear.
 
Back
Top