Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Liquid Soap Tutorial Using The Glycerine Method

Thank you to Emma of Spiral Soaps, for sharing this wonderful tutorial on How To Make Liquid Soap.  We had a heck of a time getting this to you.  Enjoy it!  And do let us all know how YOURS comes out.

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This tutorial demonstrates making liquid soap paste prior to dilution, using glycerine in place of water. To calculate your recipe, I suggest doing it here.  Also, hints and tips and makers experiences can be found here on The Dish Forum


Here is how I made it, have fun experimenting! (I used olive and castor oils)

step1. Melt your oils of choice in a crock pot



step 2. Heat up the glycerine (use in place of water amount) in a pan and keep hot on a very low flame. Very carefully add your potassium hydroxide a little at a time, stirring all the time, whilst still on the heat.




You must add the lye carefully and slowly as it tends to volcano if you add too much at a time. Keep stirring it down.





step 4. Once the lye has dissolved completely, carefully pour it into the hot oils in the crock pot and stir with a whisk.




step 5. Keep stirring as it goes through several changes quite quickly, after it forms an emulsion, it starts to thicken and darken.



step 6. Little bubbles start to form as you whisk and fly away into the air (this is my favorite bit!).




step 7.  The next stage is thickens more and gets paler, like liquid caramel.





step 8. Thicker still, keep stirring.
step 9. It is super thick now, and beautifully glossy.





step 10. Too thick to whisk now, time to leave it to cool down.

step 11. Leave overnight, and it hardens to a toffee consistency.



step 12. The next day, heat the crock pot again, until the mix turns clear and golden. Weigh some into a jar ready for diluting.



Finally, add the correct amount of boiling water for your desired dilution. This will take trial and error for your particular recipe.





The soap mixture is left to dissolve in the hot water, stir very gently and slowly, to avoid bubbles forming. It will eventually dissolve and as it cools it will thicken. If it sets too thick, add more hot water and repeat the above, until you have the consistency you desire. make lots of notes about your dilution process, so that you can get the same results each time.  Hopefully, you'll be able to add the correct amount of hot water in one go, once you have figured out how much is right for your recipe.

Good luck and happy soaping!

Emma (spiral soaps)

xx

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Again, Emma, thank you.  You are a trooper!   hugs, Jo


10 comments:

spiral soaps bath & body said...

:) you are most welcome, sorry it was a PITA! x

Mossy Creek Soap said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
LongLeafSoaps said...

Nice tutorial..thanks for sharing! Hope I can find some time to experiment =)

Lisa said...

great post. I use the traditional (non-glyerin) method for liquid soap making, which is much more labour intensive. I might give this a try some time...

spiral soaps bath & body said...

@Mossy Creek, no don't use a blender, you will melt it if it is plastic and it doesn't take long anyway, it moves very fast. a blender would make it bubble too much. :)

John said...

Excellent description of the <a href="http:// glycerin-glycerol.com/glycerin-soap//” >Glycerin Soap</a> technique. Thanks for sharing it with everybody.
Pretty clear pictures.

Steamy said...

I love how you guys have the ability to create such wonderful soaps!

I have experimented but it always ends up in a mess.

Anonymous said...

I used a modified method: instead to dissolve the KOH directly with glycerine, I dissolve the KOH with the minimum amount of water (that is about weight of KOH x 0.85) then mix this KOH solution with glycerine then continue....

Anonymous said...

I'm trying this method right now and had to use a stick blender but it was a metal one. It would have taken ages if I had of used a whisk. With the stick blender it took about 8 minutes. Also was never able to get the potassium hydroxide and glycerin clear even though the glycerine was heated to 225 F. Once the PH was all dissolved in the glycerine it was a milky beige colour and just added it to my oils. I think it will be fine but it probably won't be clear. When do you add the essential oils to it?

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing - but at what point do you add the f/o?