Liquid soap using sodium hydroxide

I've been meaning to get some potassium hydroxide to make liquid soap.  I would like to make my own dishwashing liquid and also a liquid handsoap.  Both for me and my daughter who requested some.  The problem is, I have to buy another 25 kg of the stuff and truthfully, I think that really is overkill.  I just want to try the stuff, not set up a production line, for crying out loud!  So I always read a bit wistfully about liquid soap, the ingredients are basically the same and method isn't complicated.  It's just a question of getting my hands on a tiny amount of the other lye.

I've even thought about grating some soap and diluting it with water to see if that can be used in a soap pump, but never got around to doing it.  So I was thrilled when I came accross a recipe for liquid soap that listed good old NaOH rather than KOH as an ingredient.  I was a bit skeptical at first, thinking that it might just be a mistake.  It actually turned out to have been one, but it was explained that the writer had made the soap, both with NaOH and KOH and liked the NaOH better.  So I decided to go for it.

The recipe was on a website called The Little House in the Suburbs and it contained coconut, canola and vegetable shortening.  I fully intended to follow that to the letter (apart from the fuzzily defined vegetable shortening which I can't get here) but circumstance led me to have to devise my own recipe.  The only oil I had was a dark Olive oil so I used that and coconut oil.  The original seems to be pure white and I like that, so I will make another batch soon with white oils.  When I was going to make mine it was 3 o'clock in the morning and the internet wasn't working, I could only load Icelandic sites, but no foreign sites.  This was probably due to some Scottish farmer plowing his field and taking the cable in two (you'd think there were more sophisticated explanations to technological failures!).  So I couldn't use Soapcalc and I wasn't about to start to compute lye at that hour.  The solution was to use an old recipe and measure exactly.

The recipe I used was:
122 g /4.3 oz.  coconut oil  - 30%
298 g /10.5 oz.  olive oil    - 70%

250 g / 8.5 oz  water  -   this is quite a bit more than usual - about 60% of oil weight
56 g / 2.1 oz lye  - I allowed for about 5% SF - which might not be necessary in dishwashing soap.

The process is the same as usual CP.  When the oils and water have been combined the whole thing is insulated (I don't usually do that with CP) and left for 24 hours.  I put the soap in a large stainless steel pot and just shoved it in the cold oven and left it there.  The next evening I started to add more water to it.  A cup or so at a time up to 1.5 liter.  First I did this in the oven at a temperature of 105-120 C and stirred it in a little bit.  When it was starting to look liquid and smooth I put it on the stove and heated gently and added more water and stirred.  There was a bit of foam on the top, so I just skimmed that off and threw it away.  When I felt the soap was the right consistency I let the whole thing cool a bit and added lavender and peppermint EO and then poured it into bottles.

I like the soap.  It feels nice on the skin and it hasn't clogged the soap dispenser yet.  My daughter doesn't like the colour, but it's very olive-oil-soap-green so I figure that can't be bad.

Update:  I think this could be diluted a bit more.  I also put it much diluted into a foam dispenser and it works beautifully in that.  Soft, soft foam.  Much better than what was in there before.

The photo: I paid about 8$ for that candlestick and that is more than I usually spend but I liked it.  The tray is a dime a dozen used in catering quite a lot and I just love old terracotta pots.

Laundry soap, this time with alkanet root

So I did the laundry soap. All sheep fat, like my paternal grandmother would have made. No olive oil in those days!

Well, maybe not 100% sheep fat but very close. I had steeped the alkanet root in sunflower oils, so I measured it (about 35 g.) and put it into the Soapcalc sheet and did the standard 38% water and a 0% discount. I had steeped about a tablespoon of alkanet root in a 1/4 cup, that seemed to be the consensus of my sources.  Then again, they said to used a tablespoon of the coloured oil to a pound of oil.  This recipe was for 500 gr., so just over a pound.  Having stirreed the soap I rather unceremoniously plonked it into a dairy carton, laundry soap is going to be grated anyway so no need for a fancy mold.

The alkanet root infused oil was a beautiful ruby red, so it was quite a surprise to see it turn a delicate baby blue when I started to blend.  I had expected a lavender or a pinkish tone!  But alkanet takes on a different colour depending on the PH of the solution.  It seems that a PH of 6 would give a red colour, 8 should produce a more purple tone and something like my laundry soap (probably very alkaline - I should test it!) will be blue.  The colour also depends on the amount of colourant used according to the many sources that I have read, but in what way is not clear.  So I shall have to continue to experiment, which is a good thing.  I thrive on novelty.

The soap was also very hard, almost crumbly right away.  I'm not used to that, my soaps tend to be on the soft side to start with.  I often don't cut them until a week or more after I pour them.  That is more down to lack of palm oil than by design.  Most often they cure to be very reasonably hard soaps that last well.

I have to say that I love the endless surprises of lye and how the soaps change with time.  I have been watching my laundry bars with excitement because they are beginning to turn in colour.  Going over to the pink side, maybe.  Or it's probably gray.  But anyway, a thoroughly gratifying experiment that will continue all the way to the washing machine.

The photo. The lovely blue of Alkanet. I would be nice if this colour could last, but it is only blue while the soap is very alkaline. Milk and cream cartons are perfect molds for beginners, one more use before it is thrown out.

The dreaded orange spots

When I saw the acronym "DOS" in a soapmaking article I was baffled.  Being a bit of a nerd I knew perfectly well that DOS is an operating system!  So what on earth were they talking about?

I soon discovered that it stood for "Dreaded Orange Spots" orange spots about the size of a pencil eraser that can appear on soaps.  The orange spots are oxidized oils.  They can appear in soap for a number of reasons, apparently.  Some say it's because of too much superfatting.  Others that soaps made with canola and sunflower oils are more prone to it. (Just a side note: I never use canola oil.  It is hybridized rape seed which is not fit for human consumption)Still other blame storage conditions and old or rancid oils.  Still someone attributed the spots to high iodine value in the recipe (over 70).

I had never had this happening so I was a bit surprised when I discovered some of my soaps had indeed developed those spots!  The soaps are very white in colour because I added titanium dioxide to them, so the spots are very noticeable.  I have racked my brain for an explanation, but have found none.  I thought I had a good system for tracking my soaps, but I'm not entirely sure exactly which recipe this is, although I suspect it is the one with about 20% soybean oils and 23% sunflower oil and an iodine level of 71.

What I do know is that is had been stored with all my other soaps, so that is unlikely to be the culprit.  I'm still using the 25 kilos of lye so that isn't to blame.  I usually superfat my soaps by 5%, although I once made a facial soap with 10% superfat at trace with Evening primrose oil.  That soap I used up quickly, so no spots on that.  I have not had the orange spots in any other soaps, so far, so this is an interesting problem.

Apparently it is safe to use the soap.  They just look bad.  And I don't think I'm going to use it on my skin.  I have this thing about oxidized fats.  Never eat butter that has turned yellow!  I might grate it down and use it as laundry soap... or I might just throw it out!

Speaking of laundry soap, I have been meaning to make an old fashioned soap using sheep fat, just the way they did in the old days.  The sheep's fat is white, but it does smell quite a bit.  It is traditionally used in food, but I thought it could make a nice old fashioned soap.  I intend to do the laundry soap with 0% discount as there is no need for oils in laundry detergent.  Since I have just received the alkanet root I also think I'm going to colour it with that to see what colour it turns in a zero discount soap.  Should be interesting.

The photo: I love these old wire baskets. I think they are made for eggs but I'm not sure.  I have a collection of 40's, 50's and 60's kitchenalia among them the wire whisks in different sizes.

Laundry soap

I have just finished making laundry soap, something that I've wanted to do for a long time. It's really amazing how something looks to be very time consuming or complicated before you try to "just do it".
This is laundry soap making for me. It's been over a year since I started to read about green cleaning and alternatives to detergent use in the home. I have been using vinegar and baking soda for weekly cleaning and given up on store bought clenaers, but laundry soap was still a long way away. It just seemed so involved and messy so I kept putting it off.

Until the other day I took a look a my soaps and thought some of the first ones that I still had, looked a bit boring. Just plain and white, actually just perfect soaps. Perfect for laundry! So I grated them down and mixed them with washing soda and borax. That's it!
Laundry soap!
The dry version.
The recipe I used was basically:

2 soap bars (about 200 gr. total)
1 cup washing soda
1/2 cup borax.

Mix and put in a container.
Used 1-2 tablespoons per load.

Since that was easy I started to make the liquid one. That also involved grating soap bars. This time into a pot and on top of that I poured water. I heated this up to a medium heat. Just so it doesn't start to froth to much. When the soap is dissolved into the water I filled a bucket (10 liters or so) up to maybe 3/4 with hot water and poured the soap solution into that. Then I stirred a cup of washing soda and a cup of borax into the solution. Let it sit over night. The instructions that I read warned that this might get "gloopy and lumpy" but I didn't find that. To me it seemed rather smooth, but to make sure I took my stick blender to it.

The next day I poured this into empty detergent bottles. I had ripped off the labels and used a Sharpie to write the recipe on the bottles. Handy for the next time.
So the recipe for the liquid laundry soap is this:

1-2 Soap bar(s) - about 200-250 gr. This isn't an exact science
1 cup Washing soda
1 cup Borax

Grate the soap into a pot. Pour water over and heat gently. Stir to disolve soap flakes, but be careful it doesn't froth too much.
Pour 7 liters hot water into a bucket and add the soapy water. Add the washing soda and borax and stir. Cover (with a plastic bag or a towel) and let sit overnight. This may get "gloopy and lumply", but you can stir it with a stick blender to get a smoother consistency.
Use 1/4 - 1/2 cup in a load.

Now I've been testing these out by doing load after load of laundry. I have to say that the laundry looks fine. I see no difference from the commercial laundry detergents. The smell on the clothes is great: It's really no smell at all and quite like when you hang laundry outside to dry.
It just smells of nothing but CLEAN.
I love it!

The photo: I got that scoop at the Good S.... flea market.  I bought a few boxes like that at IKEA and wrote on them with

a Sharpie.  The little bottle has been rattling around my parents house forever, the large one I bought new.