Teach Soap

Hi All,
I made a batch of liquid soap: 20 oz olive oil, 2 oz coconut, 5 oz lye, 15 oz water. I made it a la Failor, ie purposely lye heavy (using one of her recipes) with the intention of neutralizing. I cooked the paste, and did a quick test of 1 ounce of paste in 2 ounces of distilled water. Since it's a mostly olive oil soap, the result was pretty goopy. But I used the goop to test PH, using phenolphthalein. I took a spoon of the diluted paste, put in a couple of drops of pheno, and... clear. I took some undiluted paste, put some drops on... clear. I expected lye heavy, per the recipe, and for the test to go pink, but it didn't. The pheno does work--I tested it on some lye solution.

Any ideas? I ran it through the lye calc, and 0% superfat would be about 4.5 oz of lye, so I should be over. Unless my lye isn't pure...

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
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I am not that surprised. The problem is that you don't actually know the sap values of the oils. Also, NaOH gradually turns into sodium carbonate when exposed to the air. It could be that the actual sap values are slightly higher than normal and also that your lye may be partly sodium carbonate.

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
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SAP is normally a range. Since soap calc can only handle one SAP number, it's possible for 0 superfat to still be ok for liquid soap. I wouldn't count on it though and the soap might be drying. For example, coconut has a range of 250-264. The actual SAP varies from harvest and season.

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

exactly, thanks Soapbuddy.

I also keep my lye in a sealed glass jar, in my case about 5 Kg of it. The problem is that every time I open it to get some out, air gets in, and so gradually the remainder gets less and less than 100% NaOH. I'm not sure how significant this is; I would have to titrate it. Actually that is a pretty good idea now that I mention it. Soapcalc values are based on pure NaOH I assume.

So if we kept our lye in a vacume seal that would be better? Although it is better to have weak lye that to be lye heavy. I am about to take my old 'seal a meal' to the thrift store.... maybe I should wait?

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

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

Mine are packaged in multiple small containers from the supplier, so they are pretty fresh. I use them within a couple of months.

I thought Failor's 10% lye heavy recipes would be... lye heavy. That's why I'm surprised.

As for drying, I agree, which is why I started out doing a 2 or 3% superfat, but I thought I'd try it according to the book, to see how it would turn out, especially with an all or mostly all olive oil soap.

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
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Does that mean you will not add the borax to neutralize the soap since it is not lye heavy? I am still reading up on this and gathering some supplies. One of these days, oops I should say months. I still feel I need to study a little more before I am ready for this!

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

Mellifera, will you go back to the other method and just do a superfatted soap from now on? It seems like that would be much easier.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

I don't add borax to my liquid soap and superfat around 2%.

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

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

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Yeah, love the foamer bottles! And it's really fun playing with scents, since i can scent every bottle differentky.

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