Teach Soap

Hi New at making soap I have a batch of lemon soap that didn't work out too well...my fault though I used lemon juice not fresh squezed...is it salvageable or should I toss it??? please help thx Deb

Can you post more info on the recipe? We could help a lot more with more info. =)

the recipe I used is from the book "the best natural homemade soaps" by Mar Gomez.
4 oz mineral water, 3.5 oz lemon juice, 3 oz lye, 1.5 lb olive oil, .35 oz beeswax, lemon zest and .18 oz lemon essential oil.
where I know I made my mistake is using Real Lemon Juice from the bottle...forgetting that I should not use any that are from concentrate.
when trying to cut it just flaked instead and is rock hard. I wanted to check to see if it is still salvageable for home use or should I toss it and start again...I plan on making more anyway but just don't want to throw out the chunks I have if they are usable. Also the book contains recipe's for Orange and Lemon soap, is it possible to combine the 2 and add another batch substituting Grapefruit? a three citrus soap ??

Lemon juice or fresh squeezed is acidic. It neutralizes some of your lye. I would leave it out next time. You can use Lemon essential oil. BrambleBerry has a fragrance calculator that will tell you how much to use depending how much soap you make.

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

thank you I will try again...at least the rest that I made are doing ok I will just have to find another way to make my citrus soap. I will explore your suggestions.

as an update to this post I did get it to work
I quadrupled the recipe but using fresh squeezed lemon, orange and grapefruit juice and topped up with water to get my total weight needed
added the zest of all three but added it during the oil warming process to soften it a bit i.e. have a fussy customer that does not want hard bits in her soap lol
this one worked out much better but I may re do subbing the olive oil for a 4 oil/butter next time to make it more moisturising
thanks for the help
Deb

If you sub an oil or butter, make sure that you run it again through a lye calculator.

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