Teach Soap

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The Soapinatrix! *whip-crack*
- Posting the trials and tribulations of my Soaping Journey!

I envy those of you that can use CP soap for your hair. My hair can't use CP soap AT ALL.

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

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Debbie

Okie, so I have made a recipe for my liquid soap/shampoo using SoapMaker 3. I have ordered my KOH and it should be here in a couple of days along with my EOs and shampoo bottles. I have 3 questions! 1) How do I decide how much water I need to use to make my paste into a shampoo? 2) We want to split the batch of paste into 2 scents, how would I do this? Or is it better to make 2 smaller batches and mix my EO blends with my oils before I add my lye water? 3) My recipe calls for ~4cups of water (I do have it in g too, which is what I will use) do I mix my KOH with all of the water of with part and add the rest after? SM3 doesn't let you know that part! And all of my research doesn't really say much about measurements.

Thanks guys! <3

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

1) How much water to paste: there's a table in your book. Use it as a starting point. For instance, the book said that 2:1 water to paste was usually good for olive oil liquid soaps, but I ended up going 3:1 for a good consistency. It's easier to add than subtract, so add water, wait a few hours, add a bit more, and wait... It does help to do it in a double boiler--the process is quicker, though you can just add room temp water and wait overnight, too.

2) Make one batch of paste and split it to scent while diluting. The book says that you can't add EOs after dilution? Wrong. I've done it several times, and they disperse fine. It might be easier to do during dilution, though, when the soap is warm. I'm keeping my paste in a covered bucket in the fridge, and just taking out and diluting as I need it.

3) Do the water and lye just like you would for CP. No reason to keep any back--you'll be cooking the whole thing for 1-3 hours.

When I added my lye to water, it never reached the 150F temps they promised, by the way. Granted, I keep my water cold, but I think it hit about 105F and never went higher. It worried me, but the final result was fine.

So--take everything I've said with a salt bar. It's based on exactly one batch of 90/10 olive/castor and a lot of reading and youtube watching.

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
Like us: http://www.facebook.com/AvitalsApiaries

Thanks Mellifera! Looking forward to making these shampoos/soaps. I kind of like that they can be used for both!

When would I add colloidal oatmeal and silk? To the fats/lye water like I would for CP?

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
Like us: http://www.facebook.com/AvitalsApiaries

My hair is course, super thick, and super heavy. It scares my stylist! Mom is the opposite and has thin, fine hair. I'm sure it will be fine for her hair, not sure about mine though... but we'll see!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

I just gave a sample to a friend with very curly hair. Her two (grown) kids are half African-American, and I asked her to give them some, too. I'm interested in how it would work on really super curly, dry hair.

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
Like us: http://www.facebook.com/AvitalsApiaries

I really like this book, glad I saw it on the BB site! The parts about neutralizing and using borax to neutralize/ thicken are exactly what I was wondering about. The borax will help with bubbles too, which will be good because we have hard water! The resources section (Yay BB is there!) and the recipes are really nice too! Once my KOH, bottles and EOs are here I'll be whipping up a batch of shampoo for my Mom! *excited* Going to make 2 bottles then put the rest of the paste in the fridge with instructions on how to mix it and use the borax solution. She'll be set for a LONG time since these recipes are ~6 lbs of paste! The whole ounces thing is a little intimidating as I'm not used to them at all. Thank goodness for my scale!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

I spent some time today at the supermarket checking lots of shampoos. Started with the cheapest which was two anionic surfactants of the cheapest type. But . . . the mid range stuff (e.g. Caprice) contained SLS as the primary surfactant. So I checked the most expensive ones I could find. It turned out that I could not find a single shampoo that did not rely either on sodium lauryl sulphate or sodium laureth sulphate. Argh. Those people really are cheap. And all the formulae looked pretty much identical apart from trace ingredients. Basically SLS or ALS with a little bit of amphoteric, typically cocoyl betaine.

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

I will check the "organic" shampoo we have at work. I wonder what it has in it!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist