SCI noodles

[TJ]

I bought some SCI noodles and they of course needed to be melted. I put them in a double boiler with about a cup of water (my recipe required water and I thought I should add it to the SCI noodles during the heating) Well within 20 minutes that water was gone. Either it evaporated or the SCI soaked it up. At this point the SCI is a paste. I had no idea what to do because if I add more water that would make my recipe not 100% anymore. So I waited and waited and waited for the SCI to melt down by itself. I even put a lid on to help it heat up more. All I could get was a paste from it. So I decided: Oh well! I'll add more water and I'll add twice as much water as last time so it doesn't all disappear this time AND I'll put the lid on to help keep the water from evaporating. So 20 mins later and the SCI finally melted down into the water and I had a nice clear liquid going on.

Okay my question(s):
Does SCI melt on it's own? Does it just take hours to melt it down into a liquid on it's own?
Can anyone give me a list of surfactants that do not turn the product opaque? I'd like a clear product, or at least a semi-clear product.
Does the SCI re-harden when it cools? Or does it make a liquid product?

Thank you in advance. I've never worked with this kind of stuff before and I'm going off the knowledge I read on the Point of Interest blog.

 

[MychelleC]

SCI is a wonderful surfactant, but it can be hard to work with because of the very high melting point. A few tips I have picked up are:

- SCI isn't very soluble in water. It is easier to solubilize with other liquid surfs, especially cocamidopropyl betaine. Adding a touch of glycerin (1-2%) helps a lot as well.

- Hit it with a coffee grinder first. It is so, so much easier to solubilize when it is ground to a fine consistency! Night and day.

- After trying everything (microwave, double boiler, deep fryer/presto pot, electric skillet, everything) what works best for me is to mix the ground SCI with my other liquid surfs and a touch of glycerin then heat the mix (covered) in the microwave on the lowest power setting. This can take 20-40 minutes depending on the batch size and has to be checked on regularly, but I get the smoothest consistency this way.

Lastly, check out Swifts blog. She loves her SCI and has a lot of info about it. HTH!

 

[TJ]

SCI is a wonderful surfactant, but it can be hard to work with because of the very high melting point. A few tips I have picked up are:

- SCI isn't very soluble in water. It is easier to solubilize with other liquid surfs, especially cocamidopropyl betaine. Adding a touch of glycerin (1-2%) helps a lot as well.

- Hit it with a coffee grinder first. It is so, so much easier to solubilize when it is ground to a fine consistency! Night and day.

- After trying everything (microwave, double boiler, deep fryer/presto pot, electric skillet, everything) what works best for me is to mix the ground SCI with my other liquid surfs and a touch of glycerin then heat the mix (covered) in the microwave on the lowest power setting. This can take 20-40 minutes depending on the batch size and has to be checked on regularly, but I get the smoothest consistency this way.

Lastly, check out Swifts blog. She loves her SCI and has a lot of info about it. HTH!

Thank you so much! This helps a lot. I had no idea you could microwave it. I might try that next time. But it does eventually melt down into a complete liquid? Not just a paste right? I'm wondering when I'll know it's "done" melting.

 

[MychelleC]

Because of the stearic acid in the SCI you won't get an actual liquid, more of a thick/liquid-y glop. It's just too thick a substance to melt down to a thin liquid. I can make a very thin body wash using SCI at 10% and liquid surfs at 20% plus water and other liquids. But the SCI itself will be pretty thick. I'm glad I helped! I really love SCI, I use it almost all of my surfactant mixes.

 

[carebear]

the problem I've had with the SCI is that the melting point is so high that when making a solid shampoo I cannot incorporate the more temperature sensitive ingredients before it thickens up (aka solidifies) again.

 

[MychelleC]

Carebear, I have struggled with this as well. The best method I have found is to heat my cool-down ingredients in a water bath to about 100 F; high enough to help incorporate but not so high that it kills off the goodies. Warming this phase and allowing my surf mix to cool off for about ten minutes before mixing has really helped with that problem. HTH!

 

[TJ]

Thank you so much! This helps a lot. Now I'll know what to expect with it.
Carebear, I had the same issue. :? I wish it was easier to work with. I'm gonna have to try the microwave thing
Thanks again!