Lye Heavy Mystery

[Mrs Capa]

This has to be the worst soap I have made ever... I'm going to have to grate it up for laundry soap. For some reason it is lye heavy after using the same oil water and lye content as a previous batch that came out wonderfully nourishing with EOs. The difference? I used Fragrance Oils this time. I am normally an Essential Oils soaper exclusively. I hope it wasn't a gremlin in my weighing scales! :shock: Maybe some one here has had a similar experience. :?:

300g Olive
180g Coconut
50g Canola
50g Cocoa Butter
50g Creamed Coconut (63% fat)
220 Water
87 Lye
3% FO + 5ml Nutmeg EO

 

[Lindy]

You lye is sitting at -1% which is why you are so lye heavy plus your lye strength is only 28.2%. :shock: :shock: :shock:

For 5% SF you would want to have 82 grams and your water at 35% lye strength should be 152.4%....

 

[gypsyarmadillo]

I think Lindy meant 152.4g

 

[Mrs Capa]

OMG I should not have trusted the on-line soap calculator! :shock: :shock: :shock: It was the thesoapcalculator.com

It was this plus the 50g of creamed coconut which is 63% fat which was meant to be my superfatting addition as the recipe was 0%

Thanks for that... All my other bars have been fine. I'm sticking to the soap base that works, sod that one. :roll: Thanks for the re-calc. *Hugs* :mrgreen:

P.S. It's great laundry soap I just washed a load. :mrgreen:

 

[Loolee]

I think most people use soapcalc.net

I use it and I've never had a problem. Nor have I read of anyone else using it and having a problem.

 

[Mrs Capa]

Thanks LooLee I will try that and also do my old fashioned calculations too. That's how I originally did it but I have a good base I use other than alkaline disaster above there.

 

[Bill_D]

Mrs Capa,

having created TheSoapCalculator.com myself, I can assure you that the values for lye/water suggested by TheSoapcalculator.com are *CORRECT*.

I know this thread is very old, but I just came upon this thread and just couldn't let it pass by.
I am a professional soap maker with years of experience, and I have spent considerable time and effort trying to make TheSoapCalculator.com a very user friendly and reliable soap calculator. I wouldn't want its reputation to be compromised without proper reason...

Kind regards!

P.S.
As a test, you can feed the same oil amounts to SoapCalc.net and see that it actually produces the same results. I tried it myself, take a look:

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Ah, the problem is more that it defaults to 0% SF, whereas Soapcalc defaults to 5%? So did the OP mis-measure and get a lye heavy soap? With mis-measuring and approximate SAP values being the main reasons why a 0% SF is not often a good idea...............

 

[Dennis]

Ah, the problem is more that it defaults to 0% SF, whereas Soapcalc defaults to 5%? So did the OP mis-measure and get a lye heavy soap? With mis-measuring and approximate SAP values being the main reasons why a 0% SF is not often a good idea...............

The devil is always in the details.

 

[Bill_D]

Ah, the problem is more that it defaults to 0% SF, whereas Soapcalc defaults to 5%?

Efficacious Gentleman,

nope, actually both TheSoapCalculator.com and SoapCalc default to 5% superfatting.

By the way, I totally agree that 0% superfatting is NOT a good idea. It leaves no margin for errors. A slight miscalculation or mis-measuring and your soap is lye-heavy.

 

[DeeAnna]

I think the OP must have changed the SF to 0% to compensate for the coconut cream she was adding ... and maybe just forgot she did it. Just guessing on that one. The coconut cream would have added about 31 g of fat and raised the SF to about 5% if my figuring is correct. That's why I'm puzzled that this soap was supposedly lye heavy -- I don't think it would have been if the recipe was made accurately.

 

[Lindy]

The only time you need to lower you SF from 5% is 1) you are making laundry soap or 2) you are making a soap with citrus juice as your water.

 

[DeeAnna]

Why ~lower~ the SF when adding citrus? Not sure I follow you on that one, Lindy.

I personally would not have lowered the SF for this recipe -- I would have left it at my preferred % and added the 31 g of fat into my recipe so all the fat was accounted for. That would have been more straightforward IMO.

 

[FlybyStardancer]

You would lower the SF in a citrus recipe so that there's more lye, some of which would end up reacting with the acids in the citrus instead of the oils. It's like adding citric acid plus extra lye to a recipe.

 

[Lindy]

Agree with FlybyStardancer. Citric Acid will nullify some of you lye creating a much higher superfat. Soaping 101 tried to make a citrus soap and it failed because she didn't adjust her superfat down.

 

[cmzaha]

I make most soaps with 0-3% superfat depending on how much coconut, pko or babassu I have in my recipe. I find my very mild cleansing soaps will not rinse off well if they are superfatted. I cure for at least 3 months and I do not make or sell lye heavy soap. I would not think the original post would be lye heavy

 

[DeeAnna]

Yes, I was thinking about it backwards. Thanks for the explanation -- I'm set straight again!

In another thread, we came up with 0.6 g NaOH per 1 gram of citric acid.

 

[FlybyStardancer]

I looked up the average amount of citric acid in lemon juice, and man, that would be a lot of citric acid in teh soap if you replace all of the water with lemon juice! Far mare than we would advise someone to use if they were adding pure citric acid. Heck, even at only half-juice, it would still be above that mark.

 

[Lindy]

I made orange juice soap, reduced the superfat and it was a super soap. I really liked it. I also had pureed everything so there was plenty of scrubbiness from the peel and the rind. I want to do the same with lemons and limes. And grapefruit.