Should I trash this??

[jtbailey1030]

This is my first batch of LS. It's mostly olive oil with some coconut oil and a very small amount of Jojoba. Everything seemed to be fine until I added citric acid to neutralize. At that moment, the soap turned into a milky mess. However, as it heated, it seemed to get clear. But once it gets to room temperature it gets cloudy again and when I bottled it up, this is what it looks like. Definitely looks like separation or something occurred because when I agitate the jug, the top part is like thicker.

Is there anything I can do or should I just throw it out? Please help!!

 

[FGOriold]

Looks like you took the pH too low the the citric acid. You have to be very careful when using it and know what your staring pH is and add it just add the solution a small amount at a time. Once your soaps pH goes below about 8.5 it will start to cloud then break apart. What you can do is dissolve a bit of KOH into distilled water, heat your soap back up and carefully and slowly add the KOH/water solution (a small bit at at time) to bring back up the pH to at least 8.8 - 9.2 or so. You really need to have an accurate way to determine your soap's pH though.

Another thing to keep in mind - if you formulate with no lye excess (a 0 to 3% superfat) and use a calculator that has already taken into account the impurities in KOH, you won't need to neutralize since you will not have a lye excess. Neutralizing in liquid soap is the process of getting rid of the lye excess you will find in older methods/formulations. That is not really necessary anymore unless you want to formulate that way.

 

[jtbailey1030]

Thank you!

When you say a tiny bit of KOH and water, is that literal, or should I be measuring some specific concentration?

My most current batch I used the glycerin method and calculated my recipe at a 0% lye excess and it came out perfect…crystal clear and no need to neutralize. I will definitely be using that from now on…plus it takes so much less time!!

 

[FGOriold]

Yes, you should not need much KOH and you can always add more - easier to do that than add to much KOH and have caustic soap. I don't really measure but add the KOH/water by dropperfuls checking the pH in between additions. Also keep in mind when checking pH, the pH will be lower when the soap is hot.

Another option for making paste if you like the glycerin method is to do a 50/50 method. Use 50% distilled water and 50% glycerin for your lye solution. You get all the benefits of the glycerin method without the mess and danger of needing to heat your glycerin to such a high temp. You can dissolve you lye in the water, then carefully add the glycerin or you can add the glycerin to your oils.

 

[DeeAnna]

If you know about how much citric acid you added to the LS, you can figure the "pinch" of KOH you'll need to add to neutralize the citric acid.

Grams KOH = (Grams Citric Acid) X (0.876)

Another way to say this is 10 grams of Citric Acid will neutralize 8.8 grams of KOH. For this particular purpose, you could round that to a simpler 9 grams of KOH.

I second the suggestion to do 50/50 glycerin and water, by the way.