Source: Pat Prenty-Essence Supply

The Recipe

366 g Coconut Oil
1,424 g Canola Oil or 1,466 g Corn Oil
400 g Potassium Hydroxide (KOH)
1,204 g Water
The Method
This method uses a double boiler system, I use two
pots, one
smaller than the other, the handles on the top pot
hold it suspended over the bottom of the larger pot. I
put water in the bottom one and when the top pot is
on it, the water level is over the bottom of the top pot.
When you add the potassium hydroxide it will sound
like it is going to explode or boil over, but the water
does not bubble up at all and it doesn't even heat us
as much as sodium hydroxide so don't worry.
One more note, I am one of those risk taking
soapers who doesn't even wear gloves when making
soap. (this is not a recommended method of
making soap!). When mixing the water
& potassium hydroxide together and when mixing
the soap there seems to be a very caustic steam that
comes from the mixture. When I make liquid soap I
always wear long sleeves and gloves otherwise my
skin begins to burn.
The Method
- Pre-heat the water in the bottom of your double
boiler
- Heat and mix your oils and fats like you normally
would for cp, using the
temperatures 70
o
C for the oils and 60
o
C for the
Potassium/water mixture, they will get to these
temperatures very fast so be ready with your hot
water in the bottom of your double boiler when you
start.
Try to bring your soap to trace, which even with a
stick blender is pretty long. It will go through a few
stages before it hardens into your paste. It will also
keep trying to separate, but keep mixing it until it is
VERY VERY thick like a very thick custard or maybe
a meringue.
Tip: Try to keep your soap as close to 70
o
C as you
can, if you go over 70
o
C your soap will boil up over
the top of the pot, much less than 70
o
C and your
soap will take forever to trace


The Method
This is not trace, just a good imitation. It has to get
much thicker than this. If you stopped at this point
your soap would separate.
Nope, this isn't it either, keep going.
I am not sure you can tell by this picture, but at some
point your soap may look sort of grainy and like it is
separating. Keep going, this is normal.
Now this is a stage you have to look out for. This is
what your soap looks like just before it starts to puff
up and out of the pot. What happens is that the soap
gets too hot (you notice that it is in the double boiler.)
and it doubles in size.



The Method
If you see this start happening get your pot into your
sink and let it cool off. I have a sprayer in my sink
and I use it on cold and spray the outside of the
pot. I don't have any pictures of the soap puffing up,
because I was just a tad too busy making sure I
didn't get caustic soap all over the counter and the
floor. That is exactly what happened when I tried a
crock-pot to make liquid soap. I guess my crock-pot
is a bit too hot and there is no way to cool it down
quickly as the sides are meant for
insulation. Catherine mentions this in her liquid
soapmaking book, but she says that it is because of
the trapped air in the soap. Through my experience I
disagree with her theory. It does look as though it is
full of air and that is why it is puffing up, but as long
as the pot was too hot, I could not stir it down, while
using a sprayer to cool the side of the pot
immediately made the soap collapse back to it's
original size. Whatever the theory, be aware this
may happen and be prepared.


The Method
I didn't get a picture of the most important part of this
process, trace, as when the soap came down from
it's puffy stage it collapsed into a solid mass. This is
sort of what it looked like, but this is a bit further on in
the process, after it has been heating for a while.
Put the soap into the top of your double boiler and
bring the heat up. It
will make a very stiff paste, I don't bother to try and
mix it, it is far too thick.
Check your mixture twice for separation 20 min
apart. You have to pry the paste away from the
bottom of the pot. If it has separated there will be a
clear liquid on the bottom. If you find this you will
have to mix it up again, which believe me is not that
easy, a very good reason to make sure you get it too
full trace.



The Method
Keep the water in the double boiler boiling for 3
hours. Make sure that your pot is covered, the idea
is to get it as hot as possible. After about 2 hours it
will start to turn translucent, if not keep cooking it at a
very fast boil until it does. Cook for 1 hour after the
translucent stage. I have cooked it for about 4 hours
once, and it made a beautiful clear batch of soap. I
have never tested my liquid soap with phenolthalein
so I don't know how well that works.

Dilution:
Scrape the paste into a pot of 4820 ml of water for
dilution. Break it up a bit to get it into manageable
sized chunks.



The Method
Slowly heat up your water/soap mixture to a medium
heat and then turn it off overnight.
Make sure the pot is covered. If your soap is high in
soft oils (which this recipe is) it will get a skin on it if it
isn't covered. Once you add the borax it will fix this
but until that time, keep the lid on all of the time.
If you have lots of coconut in your soap it will
completely melt overnight. If it is high in soft oils
(again which this recipe is) you will have to reheat it
in the morning to get rid of the last of the chunks. In
the morning heat up your mixture to just warm and
melt any leftover chunks, again making sure you
keep the lid on until it warms up.



The Method
The soap doesn't have to be very hot. Add your
neutralizer, I use borax
Neutralizer:
56 g borax
112 g water
Heat up the water and borax mixture in the
microwave until the borax completely melts. This is
harder than it sounds. Borax will not melt until it is
very hot and it will become solid again as soon as it
cools so you have to heat it up just before you add it
to your soap. When the borax is melted it will be as
clear as water.

When you add your fragrance to the soap it may
cloud the soap., the soap will clear again as it cools.


The Method
Sulfated castor:
This recipe should give you a very clear gel like
liquid soap, but to get it totally clear you have to
make a soap that is at 0% superfat. You are a
soapmaker so you know that soap made with no
superfatting will leave your skin quite dry. The only
thing that will superfat this soap and not make it
opaque is Sulfated castor oil. It is kind of hard to get,
and really if you don't care if your soap is
transparent, you can use any oil that you like. I like
the clear soap so I hunted down the Sulfated
castor. -add 70g of sulfated if you are using it, and
fragrance. If you get the mixture too hot, you may
want to wait for the solution to cool down a bit to add
the fragrance, otherwise it will vaporize. Let it cool
and voila, liquid soap.
It seems complicated at first, but once you do it a few
times it becomes much clearer. Remember what CP
seemed like when we first started.


The Understanding
Now this may seem to be an obvious point, but one
day I got the light bulb and it seemed pretty
important.
Liquid soap is water soluble, when you mix water
and oil, the oil will turn the water white and
eventually migrate out and float on top of the
water. This means that if you want to superfat any
oils left over will, first make your soap cloudy, then
eventually end up as a layer of white on top of your
soap.

Some people may not mind a cloudy soap and may
even want the look of a superfatted liquid soap, the
bottom line is that I have never found a way to keep
the oils incorporated in the soap with out adding
polysorbate 20 which brings us to the next point. If
you want to superfat your liquid soap, you have to
use either turkey red oil (sulfated castor) which is
water soluble, or add polysorbate 20 to your oils to
make them water soluble.


The Understanding
I now make liquid soap at a 0% superfat. When you
add fragrance or essential oils that close to the line,
your soap may turn cloudy due to the oil in the
fragrance. This will not happen if you make your
soap with water soluble fragrances, but water based
fragrances are just regular fragrances with
polysorbate 20 in them, so you might as well add it
yourself.
I have taken pictures of a soap that I made that
turned cloudy and separated, so I took some pictures
to show how well polysorbate 20 works.
This was the cloudy soap. It turned cloudy when I
added the borax, so I suspect that I miss-measured
the lye a bit to get a bit more superfatted soap.
As I added the polysorbate 20 the soap started to
clear. When you first add it, the soap does not seem
to be effected, but as you stir it slowly starts to clear.



The Understanding
Here is the final product, I added 1 drop of green
food coloring to the whole batch and my
fragrance. By the next day it was crystal clear., and
smelled great btw.

Thick soap
I like you have tried everything to thicken soap, bottom line I have
found nothing that will thicken your soap except the mixture of oils.
I have tried, crothix (various ways including neutralizing with citric
acid), xanthum gum, various carbopol's, guar gum, and innumerable
chemicals. The only thing that I have found that will make a thicker
soap is by using no more than 20% coconut oil. I also made a
100% batch of castor oil batch and it was water thin. I have read on
a list that some people are making a thicker soap by boiling down
their soap to evaporate the water out of your solution. I personally
did not find that that works.
As you can tell, my "understanding liquid soapmaking" is pretty low
on information. I have been making cold process liquid for over a
year now, and for me it is much less stressful. I will be updating this
page again with CP liquid soap later in the year (after tax time). If
you have any other insights to liquid soap, let me know and I will put
it on the web page. I have to be able to reproduce your results so it
may take a while to get on the site. I will of course credit you for the
information.