Sodium Castor Oil Soap

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Maradapu

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What are the ingredient quantities and the procedure to make 25% castor oil soap with castor oil and caustic soda? Thanks in advance.
 
Do you already know how to make soap?

If you know how to make soap, do you know how to use a soap recipe calculator?

Soap made with just castor bean oil is 100% castor oil. So I do not understand what you mean by the 25%. Can you explain?

Castor oil soap does not lather well and most people would not care to use it for bathing. Why do you want to make castor oil soap?

If you explain your purpose for the soap and your current abilities as a soap maker, we may be able to help you more.
 
Thank you for your kind reply. Castor Oil Soap is one of the ingredients used in Dettol antiseptic liquid. So I want to make Dettol type antiseptic. As per my expertise in soap making, I am an absolute beginner. Kindly guide me making this product. Thanks in advance
 
Dear Misschief, thank you for your response. I noted the view expressed by you. I have already gone through that information. It is a typo. What dettol really has is castor oil soap, though castor oil and NaOH are listed separately. I confirmed from various other sources that it is Castor Oil soap made with castor oil and caustic soda.

https://www.livestrong.com/article/166094-dettol-antiseptic-ingredients/
https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/5633/smpc
Thank you for taking your time to go through my thread.
 
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You need to learn soap making from a book, a class, or in-person teacher. I recommend Anne Watson's book Smart Soapmaking, Anne L. Watson ~ Smart Soapmaking (Making Traditional Handmade Soap, Make Lye Soaps)

Once you know the basic techniques of soap making and how to use a soap recipe calculator, a castor oil soap will be straightforward to make. It will contain castor oil, water, and sodium hydroxide (NaOH).

***

The product labels are clear -- the soap is a castor oil soap. Dettol® First Aid Antiseptic
 
Evik (the curious soapmaker) said her castor oil soap was sticky and gummy. And had zero lather. Alchemy and Ashes didn't mention anything about sticky or gummy, but did say it had zero lather. I think @earlene has tried it too. I can't remember what she said other than it didn't lather.

But this Dettol product is billed as a liquid antiseptic wash, not as a cleanser for general bathing. Maybe having no lather is an advantage here?

Not sure.
 
As DeeAnna mentions, it is true, I did make a single oil soap using only castor oil, back in 2015. I had to take a look at my notes on that particular soap and to report my findings re: soap made with only Castor Oil.

Okay, here's what I wrote over the course of making through using 100% Castor Oil soap (no other oil) at 0% SF:

Made Aug 14, 2015; set up quickly with only hand stirring; hardened within 48 hours; started out fairly translucent, turned somewhat opaque, but became more again as translucent as it cured; went from yellowish at the start to light beige to light tan; at 8 months, it was still partially translucent and a pale tan/beige-ish color. The bar remained hard in spite of producing a slimy lather. It never felt sticky to me when it was dry, however.

I still have it; it is still translucent; it is still hard; it is not at all sticky; it still produces no bubbles and not lather either, but at least the non-existent lather is not slimy anymore. But even now it is too harsh on my skin, too drying.

Maradapou,
The product you are trying to duplicate may be made by adding the ingredients to a liquid soap, which uses a different caustic than we use to make solid soap, so if there is a way to find out which caustic is used by the manufacturer in India, perhaps that would help you on the road to determining a probable formula. If you can't find out positively, then I would suggest using KOH and making a liquid soap to which you add the ingredients.

AND there is another castor that may be used in this as well as certain other liquid soap recipes and that is called Turkey Red Oil or Sulfated Castor Oil, (or Sulphonated Castor Oil), which is a modified Castor Oil with a SAP value of approximately Zero (0) (link), whereas regular Castor Oil has a SAP value of approximately 180 (KOH) / 128 (NaOH) (link).

However, as I gather from some sources that the SAP value for Sulfated Castor Oil, really depends on how long the oil was subjected to sulfuric acid, which is apparently what alters the saponification number of the oil. Other sources suggest that Turkey Red Oil can be partially or fully saponified. It was all very exhausting looking through the material the first time I purchased Sulfonated Castor Oil & I don't really want to look through the material again.

So one would have to obtain the actual SAP value for the oil purchased directly from the vendor or manufacturer, in order to use it in any particular soapmaking formula. SAP value determines how much caustic (NaOH or KOH) one uses in the soapmaking formula; this is calculated via the soap making recipe calculator of your choice.

IMPORTANT: Please, make sure you carefully research the cautions for whatever ingredients you wish to add to a product, especially if you have others in your household, including pets. For example, Chloroxylenol is highly toxic to cats, fish and some amphibians, so allowing it into drainage water may be environmentally dangerous to the ecosystem. And if you have a curious cat like mine, you will need to take some seriously protective precautions to prevent your cat from coming into contact with this chemical.
 
Curious why they'd choose, specifically, castor oil as a soap for that formula.

I know that in liquid soap, castor oil saponifies/dilutes very quickly (faster manufacturing), creates very low suds and has a finished translucent color.

Also, subjective side note: Is Dettol Antiseptic a popular product? Never heard of it. Seems super weird that it's primarily marketed as a antiseptic product for cuts/scratches... that you can also use for all purpose cleaner and laundry? I don't know haha. Odd combo IMO.

From their website – "Dettol Antiseptic Liquid removes germs from skin, safeguards from infections caused by cuts and scratches and can also be used as household disinfectant on home surfaces and in laundry."
 
@earlene Thank you for that fascinating post about castor oil! :)

@Maradapu Learning to make soap requires a serious investment of time and money. Then comes the added challenge of duplicating a product. It's not as easy as you may think -- even with the knowledge and experience of a long-time soaper like myself.

Why do you want to learn to make that product when it is readily available (I suppose) and probably better and less expensive to buy than to try to make? 🤔
 
Is Dettol Antiseptic a popular product? Never heard of it. Seems super weird that it's primarily marketed as a antiseptic product for cuts/scratches... that you can also use for all purpose cleaner and laundry?
Lol, interesting that there's people who never heard of Dettol, to me growing up it was an everyday part of life! I guess it never made it to the States.
Exactly as it says, it's what your mum dabs into a graze (diluted, on a cotton ball) or uses to wipe down surfaces that have been contaminated with one gross thing or another, or to disinfect clothes that a sick child was wearing (now also saturated with something gross). It's even used as a bath additive for some medical purposes.
The very low foaming soap would be a benefit in this case since it's not meant to be a soap-type product per se. I presume the presence of the soap is to assist in separating the thing to be cleaned from whatever it is you want to clean off it.
 

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