Teach Soap

Hello,

I put water as much as 38% of oil(0.38 x oil = water) on CP soaps as all the receipes I saw. However, I doubt the soaps using the amount of water are tend to be soft(quicker to be wore off). One of my friend just use under 30%, and her soaps looks very good. Could anyone tell me what different ratio of water will affect?

Another Q, I got a batch of NaOH from other people and the NaOH is high quality one( made from Merk). Will these kind of "higher quality" NaOH lead to better soaps? However, the NaOH has been expired(over 20 years ago), does it matter for soap making? Thanks in advance!

Using more water with fragrances that can accelerate trace helps. If you know the fragrance won't, then using less water is fine. It should not make the soap softer, unless you are using a lot of soft oils to begin with.

As far as lye, I'm not sure I would want to use something that's 20 years old. Whether soapmaking grade or technical grade of lye, it shouldn't make any difference.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Thanks a lot!