Liquid Castile Soap Question

[Leanna]

Hi,

I am new to soap making, and up to now have only made one batch of cold process bar soap. I was following a video tutorial I found online for making Liquid Castile Soap with KOH.

I added the lye mixture to the oils and started blending, and everything seemed fine for about 5 minutes. Then I decided to move the whole operation back inside, so unplugged everything, got it all moved, and by the time I started the hand mixer back up, it had turned to a solid mass. I won't move it again in the future, but my question for now is whether it's possible to save it!

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

-Leanna

 

[melstan775]

That sounds normal. Liquid soaps turn into a paste. You boil the paste down to make the liquid soap.

 

[Leanna]

The instructions had said it would take 15 minutes to come to liquid mashed potato consistency - trace, then through a taffy stage and finally to where it is for me now about 90 minutes later. I hope it recovers. This is the tutorial I watched: http://silverfirsfarm.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/liquid-castile-soap-tutorial/

 

[green soap]

recovers to what? You have a paste quicker than expected, just dilute it, neutralize it and you are done. Liquid soap has to be diluted.

 

[Gryfonmoon]

I just got done making a batch of liquid soap, it took me **** near 3 days to cook and dissolve it, count yourself very fortunate.

 

[Leanna]

Well, I'm still not entirely certain I'm doing this right, but I'm continuing to cook it until it turns transparent. It actually seems like it's starting to change around the edges where the heat is highest (doing this in a crock pot). I do think it was a mistake to take the whole unit outside to do the lye, then stop mixing it for a couple minutes while I moved it back in. That was when it solidified on me. It wasn't to trace yet before it just completely turned to a solid block. I've done some more reading around, and possibly it seized? All I know is that the original recipe had it going through a bunch of stages (trace, taffy, finally too think to stir), and mine just went from liquid to solid with a pulse of the misxer. Anyways, I hope it turns out, but if not I'll try again this weekend. Thanks for the feedback

 

[Leanna]

Haha, it's also possible I jumped the gun trying a liquid castile soap from scratch after doing one very basic Cold Process recipe. But it made so much soap I don't need anymore of that for a while!

 

[green soap]

Liquid soap is forgiving. You will probably enjoy the liquid castille along with your solid soap for a while. Did you use 100% olive oil?

 

[Leanna]

I didn't. I noticed actually reading through the comments on the tutorial I watched that a lot of people were telling her this isn't real castile soap. It's Olive Oil, Soybean Oil and Coconut Oil. Will play with the recipe, possibly eliminating the soybean (which I just bought vegetable oil from the grocery store), on next tries. I have a few people who want me to make them a batch of this stuff, so I will get to play around with it a bit more

 

[Leanna]

Well I figured out what I did wrong last time, and made another batch today that came out perfectly! The problem was a reading comprehension fail. The instructions said to put the crockpot on the 4 hour setting (meaning high heat). I took this to mean heat the oil on high for 4 hours. I think I deep fried my lye