Servings: 2 lt of liquid soap
Cost: $3,36 / 2,9€ per liter
Equipment
Ingredients
Soap Paste - Lye Water
- 190 g distilled water
- 80 g potash (99% potassium hydroxide)
Soap Paste - Oils
Extras for Liquid Soap
- 1,5 lt distilled water (using a dilution of 1:3)
- 10 ml Liquid Germall Plus (follow manufacturer's instructions - 0,5% of total liquid soap)
- 200 g vegetable glycerin (optional)
- 10 ml essential oils blend (optional - considering 0,5ml or 10 drops EO / 100 ml liq. soap)
Essential Oil Blend (option 1)
Essential Oil Blend (option 2)
Instructions
Get Ready!
- Wear goggles and gloves, and mask! Look at the Safety Precautions in the video above or in Safety Precautions In Soap Making
- Watch the video above or read the post How To Make Liquid Soap With Potassium Hydroxide for instructions on hoe to make liquid soap. These are generic steps for all recipes.
- Assemble everything: ingredients, equipment, safety equipment. Prepare your workstations. Measure all the ingredients - you may leave the extra ingredients for later. Don’t start the recipe without having everything ready!
Make the Lye Water
- Make the lye solution according to How To Make Lye Water. Lye is this recipe is potash, or potassium hydroxide - it makes a bigger reaction than sodium hydroxide, be ready. Mix the solution until the vapors start to dissipate, and the water is clear.
Heat The Oils
- Heat the oils in the slow cooker under LOW heat. Make sure the solid oils are completely melted.
Making the Soap Paste
- Pour carefully the lye water over the heated oils - be careful as the lye water may corrode your slow cooker metalic parts. There's no need to turn off the heat in this step.
- Set the slow cooker heat to HIGH.
- Start mixing the soap batter with the stick blender. Use short pulses alternated with manual mixing (like a spoon).
- Then every 5 minutes, let the soap rest in heat for 2-3 minutes.
- Repeat the process for around 30 minutes. Check out How To Make Liquid Soap With Potassium Hydroxide to see all the different stick blending stages.
- Don't worry if the soap looks like it's separating, or it remains liquid and seems to be going nowhere. Leave the soap to rest in heat for longer to thicken. It will start to thicken at some point.
- At the end, you should have a soap paste looking like mashed potatoes.
Cooking the Soap Paste
- Set the heat to LOW and let the soap paste cook for 6 hours. Mix the soap paste with a spoon, to avoid soap residue sticking to the slow cooker walls or burning. Do this every 30 minutes in the first 3 hours, then every hour.
- Turn off the heat and let the soap paste rest inside the slow cooker (with lid), until it cools down completely. The final result should be a translucent soap paste, looking like yellow colored vaseline.
Testing the Soap Paste
- Test the soap for superfatting. After the soap has finished cooking, stir a tsp of soap paste into half a cup of scalding hot distilled water. Let it sit and dissolve, giving it another stir if it needs help breaking up. Let it cool completely then have a look.
- Translucent white or clear liquid: your soap is ready.Milky opaque and oils floating: has unsaponified oils, need to cook more in LOW heat.
- Test the soap paste for lye heaviness with a pH strap. Dilute 1g soap paste into 99g of scalding hot distilled water and let it cool to room temperature. Take the pH straps (Litmus test papers) and check to see if the soap is between 9-10. Above 10 your soap is lye heavy. Allow the paper to dry completely for the most accurate result.
Making the Liquid Soap
- If you wish to make all the liquid soap at once, use the quantities in the Extra Liquid Soap ingredients section. The preservative (liquid germall plus) in NOT optional is this case.
- If you wish to make liquid soap by portions in order to avoid using the preservative (liquid germall plus), check out also How To Make Liquid Soap With Potassium Hydroxide in the "Starting your liquid soap". For reference, use the following quantities, for 100ml of liquid soap:- 1 portion of soap paste (25g) and 3 portions of distilled water (75g)- 0,5 ml of essential oil blend- 10 ml of vegetable glycerin
- The essential oils and the vegetable glycerin are optional. Vegetable glycerin is an humectant that will turn the soap softer and more hydrating. In this recipe, I didn't feel the need to add vegetable glycerin, but it's your choice.
- Add the soap paste and water (and vegetable glycerin if that's the case) into the slow cooker. Set the heat to HIGH.
- Let the ingredients heat for one hour and mix/cut the soap paste in small bits to better dissolve in the water.
- Set the slow cooker to LOW and let the soap cook for some hours, until the soap paste is gone. This part does require patience and some trial and error. Add some water if the soap paste doesn't seem to be dissolving after 1 hour of heat.
- When your soap paste only has small bits of soap floating, turn off the heat and let the soap set inside the slow cooker (with lid) until it cools down completely. If you have added enough water, the soap paste will be completely gone. If it's more concentrated, small bits will be present.
- The final result should be a yellow colored slightly viscous liquid. You should be able to use a small portion and wash your hands with it.
- Add your essential oils and the preservative to the liquid soap and mix well. I tend to pour the soap into the jars first, then measure the essential oils and preservative according to the jar quantity - 500g. You can do as you prefer. The quantities in the recipe are set to use 550g pf soap paste and 1,5 liters of water for dilution. If you want to make as I did, use 0,5% of liquid germall plus (500g x 0,5% = 2,5g) and 0,5%-1% (500g x 0,5% or 1% = 2,5g or 5g) of essential oils.
- Your liquid soap most likely will cloud with the addition of essential oils, if it's not already opaque when it cools down. With shea butter, both soap paste and liquid soap are yellowy and opaque. Translucent soap is more likely to happen with olive oil recipes.
- Store your liquid soap in glass jars with lid, or use it in a pump dispenser. Doesn't need curing as all saponification happened when making the soap paste - your liquid soap is ready to use!
Video
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