Soap

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Processes

There are two processes as far as I can tell

  • (naoh+water) + oil -> mold @ 100F - 110F
  • (naoh+water) + oil, stir, then add salt -> hard stuf comes to the top (gycern in the bottom bit with the water). The hard stuff is the bar of soap.

I need to flesh this out a bit more. It looks like you get bars in the first process, but where does the gycerin go?

And to make gycerin soap you need to make soap to make the gycerin so huh?

Equipment

  • 2 Old pots - 2$
  • Digital Thermometer - 12$
  • Digital Scale - 28$
  • plastic containers - free - used containers from other stuff , yogurt, wood putty
  • Goggles , Safety Glasses, Apron
  • hand mixer, eg braun hand mixer (10$ at value village). I tried to do this by hand and the mix was unreliable. The hand mixer is a must have. It just changes the quality of your work. Everything comes out smoother ( if frothy ).

Gallery of moulds

  • pavoflex home edition, picked up in NYC for 10$ USD on sale

    pavoflex home edition, picked up in NYC for 10$ USD on sale

  • putty box

    putty box

  • silicone muffin

    silicone muffin

  • packages for: tofu brie applesauce

    packages for: tofu brie applesauce

Consumed

  • olive oil - 3 litre - 11$ - grocery store
  • lye ( sodium hydroxide - NaOH ) - 3kg - 22$ - hardware store
Lye Crystals, easier to find than I thoght, thank you Home Hardware

Oils

hard soft butter all types, why do I want one over another?

  • Olive oil - lower environmental impact, no habitat destruction, sustainable operations. Softer soaps.
  • Coconut oil - less habitat destruction , labour concerns, danger pay , child labour. imparts hardness + lather
  • Palm oil - lots of habitat destruction. imparts hardness and lather.

Tough decisions.

Scents

  • patchouli
  • ginger root
  • vetiver essential oil - no clue what this is , yet.
  • citrus
    • lemon lime orange grapefruit madarine tangerine - extraction? zest? rind? oils?
  • dried fruit?
    • apricot cranberry raisins figs
  • honey
  • oats
  • bacon
  • Herbs
    • lavender, sage, thyme, rosemary, basil , mint ,
  • avacado
  • chillies
  • vanilla
  • trees
    • juniper and fir pine
  • cinnamon
  • anise - like licorice
  • sandal wood - expensive

Resources

Abrasives

  • salt
  • sugar
  • walnut shells
  • corn meal
  • ground luffa

Unit notes

  • 1 ounce = 28.3495231 grams
  • convert KOH Sap value to NaOH Spa values by dividing by 1.403 ( it's the ratio of the molecular weights , see note below )

my Recipes

Not stuff I created ,but stuff I have done or will do.

Used http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp for calculations

Roughly

fat + base ( NaOh or KOH ) = Fatty Acids + Glycerol i.e. soap

100% olive oil take 1

ingredients:

Ingredient Grams
Water 190
Lye - NaOH 66.381
Olive Oil 500


Total oil weight500
Water as percent of oil weight38 %
Super Fat/Discount2 %
Lye Concentration25.892 %
Water : Lye Ratio2.862:1


Sat : Unsat Ratio17 : 83
Iodine 85
INS 105
Fragrance Ratio0
Fragrance Weight 0 Gm


Ingredient Pounds Ounces Grams
Water0.419 6.702190
Lye - NaOH 0.1462.342 66.381
# √ Oil/Fat % Pounds Ounces Grams
1 Olive Oil 100 1.102 17.637 500
    Totals 100 1.102 17.637 500
Soap Bar Quality Suggested Range Your Recipe
Hardness 29 - 54 17
Cleansing 12 - 22 0
Conditioning 44 - 69 82
Bubbly 14 - 46 0
Creamy 16 - 48 17
Iodine 41 - 70 85
INS 136 - 165 105


Lauric 0
Myristic 0
Palmitic 14
Stearic 3
Ricinoleic 0
Oleic 69
Linoleic 12
Linolenic 1

So I was unable to disolve al lthe lye , so added more water until I could get all the lye dissolved. Now I have a spongy caustic soap. Next step: create troubleshooting section , see below.

I've tried this recipe a couple of times and it's starting to work. I believe that the reason why it didn't work the first time was due to poor mixing. The first couple of times I tried this recipe I mixes by hand with a spoon. In later attempts I used an electric hand mixer and got much better results.


100% Coconut oil take 1

calculated at https://www.thesage.com/calcs/LyeCalc.html

  • water: 125 to 188 milliliters of liquid.
  • coconut oil: 500 grams ( 1/2 KG )

naoh:

Lye Table (NaOH)
% excess fat Lye Amount
(grams)
0 91.96
1 91.04
2 90.12
3 89.21
4 88.29
5 87.37
6 86.45
7 85.53
8 84.61
9 83.69
10 82.77

I will be going with a 5% superfat ( 87.37 grams of NaOH )

Results so far

  • worked out really smooth. Stiffened up quickly.
  • I did the saponification test easy peasey. But I felt that the soap was too hot for fragrance, so I let it sit over night. Then I used the microwave to remelt. I used several 30 second burts wathcing closely. In fact at about 15 second it was bubbling over. I would stop the microwave , give it a stir , wait a couple of seconds and hit it again for 15 seconds. After 6 rounds or so, the soap was melted, it was about 125 degrees celcius, still pretty hot for fragrance as far as I was concerned, but I had to give it a try.
  • To one bar I added no fragrance.
  • To three bars I added orange extract.
  • To 4 bars I added a mixed of ground dried junier berries ( about 2 tables spoons ) and some clove ( about 8 flowers ).
  • I used silicone muffin trays.

Lessons Learned / Gotchas

  • Do NOT use aluminium pots for the work. Lye reacts with aluminium.
  • Braun like hand mixers make mixing less work and more effective. Batches made with the mixer are smoother in consistency, and took shorter time to get to the end of the reaction. ( google "braun hand mixer" )

On Scents

I've made a couple of batches of soap now and I'm getting a feel for the chemical reaction, so I'm spending more time thinking about scents.

In a couple of test batches I've put citrus rind in, both Lemon and Orange. Both of which did not work quite as expected. I put the rinds in after making the soap, before I poured it in a mould. I think this is a problem. Two factors I think destroyed the scents. One , the reaction is still going on. This means that there is unreacted NaOH reacting with the scent, rather than with the oil. Two, the temperature is high and that can destroy the scents. The results is that I get a bit of "grit" in the soap, which is not totally undesirable, but more importantly the scent is not there.

So, what to do? I've a different approach. I make the soap sans parfum, let it set, cut it, let it cure. Then I take it to a cheese grater and mix it with the scent and melt it in a double boiler. This addresses the two issues: Once the soap has cured it should not be reacting any more, and the double boiler keeps the heat to a minimum. The soap takes a while to melt using the double boiler method, but it seems to have worked. I tried this with thyme and I have a bar of soap that smells like thyme.

Interesting to note that the colour of the soap changes with the addition of rind , slightly yellowing.

Left to right:Bare soap,Lemon Rind,Thyme

Here are three recent samples. The Bare soap is completely without scent and very white. The soap with the rind has yellow streaks and has a very mild aroma, not clearly citrus. And the Thyme which turned out well, and smelling as expected.

Next up:

Lemon

Tried lemon rind, poor results. Regardless if I added right after missing ( while hot , bad ! ) , or if I added it after cooling.

The effect was very minimal.

Lavender

Just adding bud was nice and mild effect but left problematic "bits" in the soap.

I soak buds in vodka for a couple of days in a jar, which got me a brown vodka and lots of good smells coming from the liquid, but still the effect was minimal. My mom who AHTES lavender could not place the smell it was so weak.

Dec 7th Work

plan:

  • 4 batches
  • Adding some sunflower oil to the basic olive oil I've been doing so far.
  • flavours
    • orange extract
    • Lemon extract
    • cinnamon - 2 x tablespoon
    • cloves
    • Cranberry Hibiscus tea
    • Anise extract
    • Lemongrass tea
    • juniper Berries

I used the internet to figure out how much flavours to add. They are estimates based on what I read on various web pages. Based on my 500 g of oil recipe.

This page http://www.humblebeeandme.com/cinnamon-oatmeal-soap/ indicates 30g of EO ( Essential Oil ) per 500g of oil. so that sounds about right.

' ' olive oil ' Sunflower ' Coconut oil ' '
Batch total grams percent grams percent grams percent grams Total percent Aroma/Flavour/Scent Grams of Lye (@ 5% superfat)
1 500.00 0.80 400.00 0.20 100.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 Christmas Blend 64.44
2 500.00 0.50 250.00 0.50 250.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 Christmas Blend 64.59
3 500.00 0.90 450.00 0.00 0.00 0.10 50.00 1.00 nothing 66.64
4 500.00 0.80 400.00 0.00 0.00 0.20 100.00 1.00 nothing 68.94

Grams of lye calculated here: https://www.thesage.com/calcs/LyeCalc.html

Mls of water: 125 - 188

Christmas Blend is 1 Tablespoon of Ground cloves, 2 tablespoons of Orange Extract.

---

I ended up making 2 of these batches nad ran out of time. Additionally none of the fragrances worked. They all "cooked off". The resulting soap has no fragrance. again added the fragrance when it was too hot.

Resources

Handmade soap makers who aim for bar soap use NaOH (sodium hydroxide). Because saponification values are listed in KOH (potassium hydroxide) the value must be converted from potassium to sodium to make bar soap; potassium soaps make a paste, gel or liquid soap. To convert KOH values to NaOH values, divide the KOH values by the ratio of the molecular weights of KOH and NaOH (1.403).

Troubleshooting

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