I was bored tonite and instead of doing stuff I needed (make bar soap, make swap soap, clean) to do I felt like playing around. I was reading some old soap manuals and most of them say to make liquid soap by disolving bar soap in glycerin and alcohol. Some of ya'll probably know to do this...it was news to me. We all know that boiling soap in water gives you snot.
So here's what I did:
11 oz shredded 100% Lard soap
3 oz alcohol (everclear)
5 oz glycerin
.5 oz sugar disolved in 5 oz boiling water
2 g borax disolved in 5 oz water
I'm just going to walk you through how I got the above numbers and my reasons for doing this and that.
I started by putting 6 oz soap, 3 oz everclear and 3 oz glycerin in a pan and brought to a boil. It quickly disolved the soap. I added the .5 oz of sugar disolved in 5 oz of boiling water. It seamed really runny so I added 5 more oz of soap shreds and 2 more oz of glycerin. It was getting really congealy-ish so I thought a little borax would help. I disolved 2 g of borax in 5 oz of water, added it and it thickened up.
It also started to turn from clear to milky again...and the skin was white and wouldn't disolve back into the soap. So I kinda thought it was messed up and I would just throw it out. I let it sit about 4 hours, came back to it and it was clear. Yay! Here's what it looks like.
Clearer after sitting for about an hour...
So here are my thoughts...especially if you want to try it yourself.
This soap didn't have much of a superfat because it is laundry soap. I think I did a 2-3% superfat. If your soap has more of a superfat...it might come out more cloudy? I'm not sure.
Also as with liquid soap...the best oils to try this with are probably olive, coconut, castor, sunflower, safflower...etc.
What about making a soap with a low superfat and adding some sulfated castor oil to superfat (just thinking out loud)?
Anywho...just wanted to share. I'll update tomorrow if I wake up to something wonky tomorrow morning.
**Please use safety when working with everclear or strong alcohol** I bet you could do this in the crockpot also.
ETA: Boil in a pan with a tight lid so the alcohol doesn't immediately escape. I boiled it with the lid off after everything was disolved to boil the alcohol out.
So here's what I did:
11 oz shredded 100% Lard soap
3 oz alcohol (everclear)
5 oz glycerin
.5 oz sugar disolved in 5 oz boiling water
2 g borax disolved in 5 oz water
I'm just going to walk you through how I got the above numbers and my reasons for doing this and that.
I started by putting 6 oz soap, 3 oz everclear and 3 oz glycerin in a pan and brought to a boil. It quickly disolved the soap. I added the .5 oz of sugar disolved in 5 oz of boiling water. It seamed really runny so I added 5 more oz of soap shreds and 2 more oz of glycerin. It was getting really congealy-ish so I thought a little borax would help. I disolved 2 g of borax in 5 oz of water, added it and it thickened up.
It also started to turn from clear to milky again...and the skin was white and wouldn't disolve back into the soap. So I kinda thought it was messed up and I would just throw it out. I let it sit about 4 hours, came back to it and it was clear. Yay! Here's what it looks like.
Clearer after sitting for about an hour...
So here are my thoughts...especially if you want to try it yourself.
This soap didn't have much of a superfat because it is laundry soap. I think I did a 2-3% superfat. If your soap has more of a superfat...it might come out more cloudy? I'm not sure.
Also as with liquid soap...the best oils to try this with are probably olive, coconut, castor, sunflower, safflower...etc.
What about making a soap with a low superfat and adding some sulfated castor oil to superfat (just thinking out loud)?
Anywho...just wanted to share. I'll update tomorrow if I wake up to something wonky tomorrow morning.
**Please use safety when working with everclear or strong alcohol** I bet you could do this in the crockpot also.
ETA: Boil in a pan with a tight lid so the alcohol doesn't immediately escape. I boiled it with the lid off after everything was disolved to boil the alcohol out.
