Teach Soap

I ended up with a hair over one pound of paste. I started my dilution by adding 12 oz of water. That didn't do anything. I added another 12 oz which looked great, until it sat overnight. Then it became a bigger blob of paste with some water around the edges. I let this sit all day yesterday while at work. When I came home it was no different. I heated it up and it melted, but formed a thin skin on top. Per Anne-Marie's directions, I added yet another 12 oz and let it cook a few more hours. This morning - still all liquid but pretty thin.

I made a 20% salt solution and have added 4ml to it so far this morning. I'm not really seeing a change in the thickness though (I added 2ml and let it sit for over an hour, then did the 2nd 2ml). I'm going to work now and will see how it is tonight.

I know someone here said they didn't have much luck with the salt thickening so they go slow with the dilution. I think maybe I should have only added 6oz of water the last time. I'm not sure how much salt should be added.

Ideas?

i never have a problem with the salt solution. I believe i did one time have to add the whole 2 oz. of it though cause I started with her 1:6 dilution.

I've never had any luck with the salt solution.

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

Salt solution will depend on your recipe. Anything high in coconut oil won't thicken with salt.

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

I saw that about the coconut oil.

I had 10% coconut
15% castor
70% olive
5% SAO

I put another ML in when I got home and I'm going out again so I won't be tempted to touch it for awhile

Hmmmm I didn't consider 10% high! I won't add more than the 2 oz of salt solution though.

How about if you take say, half a cup of your liquid soap from the batch and just play with that. Add a teaspoon of your salt mixture and see if that makes a difference, then you will know to add a lot more salt mixture to the main batch or only a little, or if it isn't going to work.

It looks like it's getting a little thicker. I'm going to try and be patient

My recipe is about the same. I needed about 2oz of 20% salt solution to thicken a batch with 1lb of paste! However, and this is the big one, the salt threw off my preservative and my soap went bad. The stuff I left watery and put in foamer bottles is fine at least. So I have 2 10oz bottles left from the entire batch, and lost a bit of money on the bottles! Not sure how to calculate how much salt is too much for the preservative, or if there is a better one than phenonip to use; something the salt won't affect!!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

There was nothing in the instructions about a preservative!

How quickly did it go bad?

Around a month. The general rule of thumb is "if it has water, or will come into contact with water, use a preservative". Not sure how long it would have lasted with no preservative!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

I found this: http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body- ... ervatives/