Soapy,
Wow, you and me make the most popular thread on this forum in long time, but nobody except you or me says nothing
I take a little break since figuring out this process, but I log onto my computer just to reply to you. Usually I am sitting on my couch sufing the net from my tablet but that is too hard to type from. I am having some Chinese green tea from an unglazed Japanese clay pot. Is good.
So I wanted to make a couple of comments to your comments. Firstly, I think if we actually want to sell this stuff prob we should color it. For myself, I do leave it uncolored bc I like the honey color enough to not need to add preservatives. But consumers do not know this for the most part. Consumers want a pretty transparent bottle w/ brightly colored soap. I need to find a place to buy very pretty almost perfume-level bottles. Alibaba search engine is a good place to buy the foam dispensing bottles for hand soap. They are quite adequate and cheap compared to Amazon or Ebay. I am thinking about adding some food coloring maybe for color. I know it is still a chemical basically, but I wonder if that might be the best option if we must use color, bc the mica will separate after time and most consumers don't want to shake the bottle.
So, more importantly, I want to share w/ you the reason why my soap did not become paste. I made a mistake, but it was a most fortuitous mistake. That first batch that came out like honey rather than paste was beautiful. This is a wonderful way to make a very thick body gel that does not require any dilution w/ water whatsoever. So what i did was I used the BB lye calc, rather than the one Shelly recommends Summer Bee, but I used to wrong number for my liquids. Instead of using the proper number for liquid/water/glycerin, I used the 'Total Yield' value output by the BB lye Calc.
So, for example, using Shelly's proportions, of 10% Castor, 25% Coconut (76 degree), 65% olive (not pomace), inputting 50 ounces of oil for this recipe, the BB lye calc spits out, "Ounces of Liquid Recommended," is 32.5, and, "(Total) Yield," is 93 ounces. So I mistakenly used the 93 ounce measurement for the amount of glycerin. It is a much more expensive formula, but it is awesome. I have not calculated my price per ounce yet glycerin-wise, but for sure it's ain't cheap like distilled water. But it makes an really really beautifully pourable liquid that would be very appropriate for either a body gel or a shampoo. And I do not think this product ever needs a preservative bc like the paste there is no water in it so the shelf life must be nearly indefinite.
I have not had any luck yet diluting Shelly's paste with 75% water and getting a comparable product, altho she says it should make a thick enough soap that you can pour i tinto your hand and put it on your head w/o all the soap running out of the hand. To me I just have to add sufficient water to the paste to get it all into solution and then I reduce it, or evaporate all the water out I possibly can before the soap begins to fall out of solution again. Then I add a tiny little bit more water and stick blend it one more time then unplug the crock pot and let it cool and pour it into a glass mason to sequester for at least a week before adding EOs for fragrance- perish the thought of using FOs.