Teach Soap

I was wondering why my soap wasn't tracing after like thirty minutes, then I realized I had used potassium hydroxide instead of lye! So now I'm wondering if there's any way to save this batch. I ran my recipe through soapcalc again, this time with Potassium hydroxide, and it called for 122gm more than the lye I used. Has anyone else ever done this?

Potassium hydroxide is used to make liquid soap. I would cook it, dilute it, then use it for cleaning around the house. Adding sodium hydroxide to this would make your soap lye heavy.

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

But won't I have too little KOH? Soapcalc said 303gm of lye, but 425gm of KOH for the same recipe. Since I used KOH, shouldn't I use 425gm?

I actually bought the KOH a while back, planning to try making liquid soap, but I forgot I had it until the no tracing thing happened. I wasn't planning on trying it by accident though! Lol! Should have read the label!

Thanks for your help

If you have less lye then the recipe called for, the soap will be more superfatted. Since it's already made, I wouldn't mess with it. How does it feel?

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

It's still in the pot and really kind of watery. I was superfatting 8%.

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

I'm thinking if I leave it out I'll end up with like a 30% superfat. I guess I might as well try adding it and see what happens. So far, I've never made a soap mistake I couldn't fix, but I've never made a mistake like this before! I'd better start looking for a big container in case it comes out ok. Was not planning to make 5lb of liquid soap right now. Another adventure!