Teach Soap

I need some help being that I'm very new to liquid soap making. I make it from scratch using a glycerin/lye mixture to bring it to a fast trace, then let dissolve in my cock pot overnight to turn into liquid. My issue is with fragrance oils. I usually add around 6ml to an 8oz bottle (because I make in small batches) but when I add the fragrance oil to the soap it turns from translucent to this milky white color and never goes back to its translucence. This doesn't bother me so much but i would like to know how to keep the translucence. Also after I bottle it and let it sit to cure for a week it seems to separate. I get a clear liquid at the very top of the bottle while the milky part settles at the bottom. I do intend on making this soap for sale but I can't get these 2 bugs worked out. I have been watching a lot of youtube videos and have asked a couple of soap makers on there with no answer. Can anyone please help and tell me what I am doing wrong? Here is my recipe for the liquid soap. 6oz Glycerin Mixed with 3oz Potassium Hydroxide, heated to over 200 degrees and added to 13oz Olive Oil, and 1.5oz each of Coconut and Castor Oil. It comes to trace very quickly, then I cook the paste for 1.5 hours on low in the crock then check for clarity then add distilled water at a 3:1 ratio. The soap comes out a little thinner than I'd like but I can adjust. I am sorry to send you such a long message but I have been asking people for months now for help and no one will. I am not sure what I am doing wrong to keep the translucency and the soap from separating. Thanks a lot in advance! ~ Jim

You might need to cook it a little bit longer. I would also get some liquid phenophtalein to make sure that lye is no longer present. If a drop of the liquid on a piece of soap that's on a paper towel turns pink, that means the soap is not done cooking yet.

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

I am only guessing here why soapbuddy said anything at all about you testing with the Pheno Drops is because you did not mention if you tested at all to see if your paste is neutrol or not. Saying that, I am SURE you did not write that long post just to here about testing your soap paste. I know this, cuase I had the SAME question myself when I first started doing liquid soap. I re read your post and looked for your questions...I see you are not wondering about testing your paste for neatral, you were asking WHY your fragrance oil made the soap paste cloudy....as ONE of your questions. Well, here is ONE answer that I hope helps. You can have a full table of fragrance oils and essential oils in front of you during the time you want to scent your soap. That is good, but what is bad is thinking that ALL of the fragrance oils or essential oils will "play well" with your soap. Meaning, Many FO or EO will be added to your liquid soap and you will have crystal clear soap. But every so often you will get a Fragrance Oil or an EO that just will not want to play well for you and your soap, meaning, it just for its own reasons, will fight against your liquid soap and will show signs of fighting by making the soap paste cloudy, sometimes thick..and sometimes SEIZING the soap all-together. An example for ME is Lavender Essential Oil. I can add all kinds of fragrance oils and essential oils, but if I get a hold of Lavender Essential Oil and add it to my liquid soap, it will Immediately turn my liquid soap into a full on BLOB. Thats right, for me Lavender Oil will Seize up my soap. This alot of times is found out by trial and error. The same with the Fragrance Oils...you could have 10 FO in front of you and are going along just fine scenting lots of bottles of liquid soap then all of a sudden BAM!! You use a FO that doesn't want to "Play well" and you will get super milky liquid soap or the worser, seized soap. So what do you do about this? Simple....Before I EVER add a NEW Fragrance oil of EO into my liquid soap batch, I will pour about 1 ounce into a little dixie cup and take a few drops of my NEW Fragrance oil or Essential Oil and will stir it into that 1 ounce to SEE what happens. If nothing weird happens, then great and you can use that FO or EO into your bottles of Liquid Soap. But if you get a super thick mixture of soap or super milky when doing this test, well then, you just lost yourself 1 ounce of soap, but SAVED the rest of your Soap to be scented yet another day with another FO or EO. I hope this helps....this does not answer ALL your questions, but it helps I hope with at least ONE of your questions. I am sure soapybuddy ment well by telling you about testing your soap, but at the same time I am sure by reading that answer could of left you feeling like nobody actually read your letter to help you with any of your Questions. It is true that you do need to test with PHENO drops, but you were not asking about testing....saying that, maybe soapybuddy figured that by saying that about testing your soap, maybe somehow she thought that was a way to help you, I dont know. I just figured being new, as you are, hearing a one liner about testing soap was not going to make your frustrations and all your questions about soap making any better. I felt a need here to TRY at least and give you a more thought out answer. I think being a newbie with soap making can be extremely frustrating and for us that have been doing this awhile now, we forget that newbies need ALOT of help. I did agree with soapbuddy tho, if for some reason you are NOT testing , you need to test your soap before dilution altogether, but ya, I think that comment was made ONLY due to the fact you left that part out of your litle story. So, saying that, I do hope in at least ONE of your questions got answered. I will leave the rest of your questions to be answered by another person as I spoke here of what knowledge I had, and nothing more. I hope you have a great day and I hope this helps!!

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You only get One Chance to make a great first impression, but you get MANY Chances to be a Blessing.