I made my first soap with citric acid a few hours ago. I first had to make some effort to find out exactly what that all meant. If I had waited a bit, my deep dive into citric acid would not have been necessary. What a clear explanation! Great job. 👍👍👍
Yes, I use Washing Soda and grated Olive oil soap, mixed and stored in an old laundry capsule box. Coconut soap would be great too, higher lather. Will have to try 😊🧼
This was an excellent demonstration of a dish soap recipe with citric acid! Well done! I make a dish soap bar nearly identical to this one, I just don’t have any soap nuts to use for the extractives.
I have been using them to wash laundry for over 16 years and they are amazing. In fact that is what they are sold for. They have so many benefits and are so very inexpensive. And I wash in cold water. They will be awesome in what ever temperature you use. You just put 4 or5 nits in the little bag that comes with the order and this is good for up to 5 loads. Try them. You will save a ton of money on laundry soap if nothing else.
Lerak (soap nuts) can be used as it is, without turning it into soap. In Java, Indonesia lerak is usually used to wash batik. Soak 10 pieces of soap nuts (I like to remove the seed first) in 1000ml water (overnight if the soap nuts are dry like in this video). Crush the soaked soap nuts until the solution becomes bubbly. Heat the soap nut & water solution until it reaches boiling point, add 2 tsp salt. At this stage my mum likes to add sliced lime for fragrance. Once it is cooled, strain, then ready for use just as you would liquid soap. Store it in fridge to prolong shelf life.
Thank you for an excellent explanation of how to use citric acid and its affect in soap making. It’s good to know that certain lye calculators allow you to take citric acid as an additive if you want, and they will adjust the amount of lye in the totals.
Yes, Arlo, yet it’s still very worthwhile to know the simple maths involved to be able to make the calculations yourself - should you ever need to 😉😉. Can’t rely 100% on internet functionality…. Same with having a list of SAP Values for your oils and butters 😊 Thus the ability to make manual calculations. A simple method of calculating your water/liquid is to double the lye quotient - you can increase or decrease accordingly 😊
I have never made any dish soap or heard of soap nuts. I watched it from the start to finish, and I felt like I was in the college class again. You explained it so clearly, and it's easy to understand, even for a non native English speaker like myself! You are an amazing teacher, Lisa!
What an amazing explanation of citric acid use in soap. I screenshot the example calculation to use as a reference. I am going to try the dish soap. We have super hard water. Even with a water softener, I still have a hard time when it comes to bubbles and all around washing the dishes. Tons of bubbles at first and then bam gone. Have to run more. Gonna give this a go to see if that makes it any better. (One less thing to buy at the grocery too) thank you for this Lisa!!! It's perfect
A very informative and well done video. You are correct, I was marveling because now I know what sodium citrate is. Because of the spot on verbal and visual elements, I really get it. What's really cool is, now you have a few years worth of some beautiful dish soap pucks!
Nice video Some regulations in UK are pretty stupid. I made a batch of pine tar soap, before realising about all this palava. Most of the assessors will not sign a pine tar soap recipe as it seems it's cancenogenic like cigarettes. Still pine tar it is actually NOT banned for use, but the assessors will not sign it for use, just to cover themselves in case Trading Standards enquiries and they wouldn't be able to justify the use in the soap... Hypocritically, cigarettes that you inhale seems to be OK for sale, but a wash off product no 🤷♂️
I loved your way of explaining the citric acid addition Lisa! You made if very easy to understand - I also found it fascinating to use soap nuts, clever girl!! 😁
Thank you so much, Lisa! I have learned so much from you in the past couple of days. I wish I would have found you a year and a half ago. You would have saved me a lot of money and a lot of tears. Thank you for sharing your videos! God bless you. 🙏
I really enjoyed your techy bit at the end I think I developed a real understanding of the effect of adding citric acid Thank you so much for taking the time to provide this information.
As always a great teacher! I think this made everything perfectly clear and happy to have a video to share on the subject of citric acid as it is so misunderstood.
LOVE the geeky/nerdy explanation! Thank you! it's always great to understand deeply. On that note, due to my Lack of understanding at this point, does the 100% coconut oil dish soap dries out your hand uncomfortably after each use?
Thank you for the wonderful information! My heart skipped a beat seeing the damp spoon dip into the lye though! I did this once and it got very angry with the liquid added to it instead of adding it to a liquid 😅
Super fascinating stuff!! A very information packed video and you explained it all so well, so clearly! Thanks so much for sharing your fountain of knowledge, super helpful and entertaining. Hope you're well! 😊
I use citric acid in all my soaps because I used to have hard water, and when I started soaping, we got tons of soap scum. As soon as I started using 2% CA, our shower drain clogged more slowly and there was less visible scum caught in the TubShroom. The sink also stayed bright white and clean longer after scrubbing. Amazing! It's in my dish soap too of course, even though I don't have hard water in my new home. I've never tried soap nuts before. How interesting! Regarding superfat, I went with -1% SF for my laundry soap because I didn't want any oil at all in my laundry. For my dish soap, I used 0.5% for safety. I forgot about the margin of safety in the SAP value while I was writing it up, though. I'll go for 0% on the next batch. If anyone wants to get fragrance recommendations for dish soap,, I prefer savory herbal fragrances or citrus. I got a basil EO bar from another maker that smelled incredible. I've been using tomato leaf coriander from Nature's Garden and Awaken from Nurture Soap. These fresh but food-based scents don't clash with the smell of my last meal the way that traditional dish soap fragrance sometimes does. I still keep good old Dawn around for household cleaning though. It's what I use to clean my bathroom on the recommendation of a professional housekeeper!
I think I would have been much less frustrated with my college chemistry courses if the lessons had been as clear and thorough as your explanation at the end of the video. Thank you!
Lisa brilliant, i had seen a few i follow include citric acid, considered it but thought i am not knowledgeable enough to include and didnt get around to delving into the aspect further. Now i feel i have a decent understanding and may give it a try next year. Thank you, you are a very good educator.
Hi Lisa, I have used soap nuts in my dish soap but not the citric acid. I may have missed this part, when you add more lye to cover the loss from the citric acid do you also add more water or by not adding extra water is that how you got to the slightly negative so to speak? Also, have you ever made laundry soap and if so would you use the citric acid in that as well for the same reasons? I love the way you explained the process and now I'm having a lightbulb moment and can't stop. Seriously though, I love how you explain everything while you're working. Very enjoyable videos.
I don't change the water used. The amount of water wouldn't affect the superfat at all. You're purely just adjusting the lye to get what you need. I've never made laundry soap. So can't really advise on that
Hi Veronica, thanks so much. The recipe is on my website with full instructions and advice about how you may make any modifications if you need to www.idreaminsoap.co.uk
Thank you for this, Lisa. I buy my washing up liquid (refills) from my local zero waste store but this takes me a step further in my sustainability quest. I could probably figure out the recipe for myself, but why reinvent the wheel when you have already done it? Recipe purchased, I look forward to making & trying it out- I already have all the ingredients.
@@IDreamInSoap It accelerated so quickly I could barely get it in the moulds, but it's only going to sit in a Gü pot on the sink anyway so it doesn't matter. I used it today for the first time & it cleaned my dishes very well.
Great tutorial, as ever Lisa. Just when I needed to check the amount of lye eaten up by the citric acid. I thought it was 0.624 but I have also seen soap makers use .571 ..wanted a definitive amount as I'm preparing for CPSR although I reckon they would come out very similar. Your 0.6 will do for me!
Hello. I enjoyed your video very much. You're accent is lovely! Thank you for explaining in such great detail. I've made several recipes of dish soap bars before, but always ended up with water spots on dishes when I let them air dry. That stopped me from giving them out to co-workers last Christmas. The only solution I found was to rinse in very hot water. This has been a hobby for me, but the spots stump me. I used distilled water and 2% citric acid. Can you please advise what is causing spots and how to eliminate them? Many thanks!
If you have spots that need rinsing in very hot water it's likely that you still have some superfat in your dish soap, therefore you are adding oil. You may need to play with your recipe to properly eliminate the superfat. A lye calculator will only give an estimate
@@IDreamInSoap I never thought about that. That makes a lot of sense! You did talk about that in the video. I was using a 0% SF recipe, but also added some kaolin clay. Do you think the clay altered the SF?
Hello Lisa, this was a great video! I have been watching your channel for about a year and I am a huge fan! I am curious about deciding when to use citric acid in my soapmaking. I only have used it a couple of times, so I am not really sure what to expect. Would it be a good addition to a milk soap?
There's no reason you can't use it in a goat milk soap. I would just consider how you add the goat milk. If you just use part goat milk and therefore still use water to dissolve your lye then it would be fine. If however you use full goat milk and do the ice cube method to make your lye you may have trouble adding the citric as it needs to be dissolved before adding the lye. It's water soluble, so it would dissolve in goat milk, but I sometimes find it needs a bit of warmth as well
@@IDreamInSoap Thank you. I usually do a full water replacement, but I can change it up a bit. I know the citric acid does generate extra heat, do you think I could keep it from scorching the milk?
If I may add my 2 cents? I make ocean water soaps when I travel, and sometimes I'm offered various milks to add to my recipes. What I learned to do is to make my own proportion soaps of 75:25 milk:ocean water or 80:20 depending on the quality of the milk, and breed/species. The quality of the soap was always amazing, it would harden quickly in the individual molds (NEVER use loaf molds w/any salt content soap!), and my hosts/new friends/students would have their best soaps in record time. And I hate to contradict, but saponification completes as soon as the lye and oil/fat mixture has chilled. If you have used the correct proportion of lye to water to fats/oils, the result is soap (a sodium salt) and glycerine (a glycerol, in chemical terms). And it shouldn't take days, unless something has gone wrong, but maybe a few hours as in a pure olive oil soap (Castile is legendary for this! 😢). Most soaps, however, take about an average of an hour, at most. Once you get them out of their molds, or you're able to cut them if you put them in a loaf mold, you can use them... In theory anyway. But you wouldn't want to. They'll last you for a week, and they'll leave you squeaky clean, because though they're NOT raw, they're not very gentle yet. Think your teenage boyfriend, or how YOU were as a teenage boyfriend. Exactly! 😅 Give your soap a chance to mature, those salt crystals to get their act together as the water molecules get yeeted, and generally your bar becomes more gentle. If you have any soaps older than 6 months, and try those vs some that are 6 weeks, you'll see the difference. Sorry for the hijack. I just LOVE soaping... ❤
Does it make a difference if you add the citric acid at trace or with the lye as you did? I've added citric acid to my soaps before but did it at trace instead of earlier in the process. We do have very hard water here but I think I may have done it for another reason at the time like slowing down trace (not sure if it actually does that but I read it is supposed to).
If you add it at trace it's unlikely to dissolve properly as citric acid is water solvable. So at trace there may not be enough free water. Also if your soap has actually come to trace that would imply that the lye is emulsified with the oils naking it difficult for the citric acid to turn into sodium citrate. Citric acid on it's own doesn't reduce soap scum etc. It needs to turn into sodium citrate by combining with lye before it will act as a chealator
My son lives in a hard water area, so I'd like to use citric acid in bath soap for him. It seems easier to just reduce the superfat in my recipe than to add more lye. Is there a formula that tells how much to reduce the superfat to end up with a 5% superfat? Is this a bad idea?
Hi Lisa! I have soap nut powder that I tried mixing with my lye water solution and those batches of soap didn't ever solidify. I guess it's possible my other ratios were off... Before I try again, should the powder work if I brewed it like a tea in a sachet and removed it before adding my lye? I had them all together and strained it before and the batches failed.
It's not stupid at all. I use it 2 ways, if I am running a whole sink of water I put the soap in a cup or something, normally something I'm about to wash up. Turn the tap on so that it runs on top of the soap and helps disperse some into the water. When the water is run I remove the soap. I also just wet a sponger and rub the soap onto it, squeeze the sponge to foam it up and the rub on the dishes etc, rinse as normal.
Hi Lisa, that was an exceptional video! Now though, I am wondering why I see some soapers using both citric acid and sodium citrate in their recipes for solid dish soap. If the lye turns the citric acid into sodium citrate in the first place, can you think of any reason why someone would use both ❓Also, I've always just used sodium citrate, so I am now wondering how that changes things as far as needing to add back 0.6g lye per 1g citric acid. I am assuming I don't need to because the citric acid has already been converted to sodium citrate in the first place. Please untangle these two mysteries' for me if you can 🤣
For a product that's going to be made alkaline with lye, there would never be any reason to use both citric acid and sodium citrate. Just use whichever winds up cheapest (sodium citrate or citric acid and extra lye) or easiest. A mixture of citric acid and sodium citrate might be used in a lower-pH product to adjust the pH, not in soap. This is called a buffer mixture. There are tables of ratios of the two components to arrive at a certain final pH, though in practice you'd usually titrate them, mixing while monitoring pH continuously or at frequent intervals while adding increments of one or the other.
Yes. Just pop to the shop and you xan get it either detailed instructions and information about how to change things if you want to www.idreaminsoap.co.uk
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but WHY would you want a solid dish soap? Every dish soap I've always seen has been liquid. I wouldn't even know how to use a solid soap for dishes but maybe I'm missing something.
Great tips and soaps Lisa 👌 On a separate note, I need some help please. It's for failed purchase from your website. My credit card got charged but I didn't receive the gift card. I've sent you an email as well. It was meant to be a gift for my friend. Kindly help. Thanks a lot.
Ooh, that's very odd. I have seen a gift card purchase come through on the website and it says it was sent to the recipient, make sure you check your spam folder in case the confirmation went in there. But I will email you now as well.
@@IDreamInSoapThanks for your kind attention to this Lisa. Unfortunately I have not received the gift card yet. I've checked my Spam folder as well as checked with the recipient. She hasn't received it either. Would you be so kind as to email it to me at the email ID I have sent you the email from. And please also send it to the intended recipient - her email ID is mentioned in the email I've sent to you. Many thanks.
🤍Hi 🤚🩷 Thank You , Im very curious and interested about Citric acid ... to use instead of lye. I just purchased Lime powder , thinking I wonder if I can make soap with ? I saw a Soap making video with fresh Aloe made without the lye and now cant find the video ( about 3 Years ago ) . I had tried the Soap Nuts before for Laundry with also Dr. Bronners , Baking Soda and different Essential Oils , I really liked but I dont know if Its Ecological Logical , And okay for the machinery ?? 🩷🤍
I'm never sure how good soap nuts are for the washing machine, some people love them some don't and I do hear things about them not being good for the machine and eventually ending up with grey looking clothes, so I don't use them in the washing machine. But I'm not an expert on this and have no 1st hand experience
@@IDreamInSoap , probably as a minimal supplemental maybe , with also a little Vinegar , or budget Vodka so It doesnt get grey , and gunky the lines ?? I would want to try to make Bathroom Hand Soap , and for a Shampoo base ... ?? I liked how It felt , the suds felt Natural , Wholesome and Clean. I Appreciated they were available at TraderJoes in Los Angeles area. I purchased a few Years ago , they had for a while in their Stores. TJs ' is a Farmers progressive Market that grew up , offering awesome products like that. A lot different then Sainsburys and Waitrose in the UK. Though I really Appreciated the Produce and awesome Products that they offered there too , differently . Especially Sainsburys leaving Food out for Society , Humanity 🤍🩷
Powdered lime, calcium hydroxide? It'd be difficult, but at least theoretically possible, to make soap with it...but then the soap won't dissolve in water. The product would be lime soap, the stuff of soap scum.
I love how your purple gloved hands explain things!
He, he. I've always been a big hand explainer
I made my first soap with citric acid a few hours ago. I first had to make some effort to find out exactly what that all meant. If I had waited a bit, my deep dive into citric acid would not have been necessary. What a clear explanation! Great job. 👍👍👍
AW, that's a pain, oh well, never mind, so pleased you found it useful
Never heard a better explanation of the what, how and why that citric acid plays in a soap. Thank you for that!! And I love the graphics 😃
Thank you so much and yippee, excellent mews on the graphics
I make a 100% coconut oil soap that I grate finely and add with washing soda for laundry detergent 😊
OOh yes, I've heard that a bit, never tried it though
@@IDreamInSoap it’s good! And I make little sticks of 100% coconut with 0 super fat as little stain removal bars
Do you use equal amounts of soap and washing soda? Thanks
@@elainem7722 yes 👍
Yes, I use Washing Soda and grated Olive oil soap, mixed and stored in an old laundry capsule box. Coconut soap would be great too, higher lather. Will have to try 😊🧼
This was an excellent demonstration of a dish soap recipe with citric acid! Well done! I make a dish soap bar nearly identical to this one, I just don’t have any soap nuts to use for the extractives.
They're great bars aren't they, thanks so much
I have been using them to wash laundry for over 16 years and they are amazing. In fact that is what they are sold for. They have so many benefits and are so very inexpensive. And I wash in cold water. They will be awesome in what ever temperature you use. You just put 4 or5 nits in the little bag that comes with the order and this is good for up to 5 loads. Try them. You will save a ton of money on laundry soap if nothing else.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Lisa, it's an amazing explanation. You're a wonderful teacher. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
That's so kind of you to say Paty, thank you so much 😊
A friend gave me half a bag of soap-nuts last week and now l know what to do. Thanks so much for the explanations its so helpful .
Excellent timing, glad you found it helpful
Lerak (soap nuts) can be used as it is, without turning it into soap. In Java, Indonesia lerak is usually used to wash batik. Soak 10 pieces of soap nuts (I like to remove the seed first) in 1000ml water (overnight if the soap nuts are dry like in this video). Crush the soaked soap nuts until the solution becomes bubbly. Heat the soap nut & water solution until it reaches boiling point, add 2 tsp salt. At this stage my mum likes to add sliced lime for fragrance. Once it is cooled, strain, then ready for use just as you would liquid soap. Store it in fridge to prolong shelf life.
Thank you for an excellent explanation of how to use citric acid and its affect in soap making. It’s good to know that certain lye calculators allow you to take citric acid as an additive if you want, and they will adjust the amount of lye in the totals.
Thanks a lot. Yes Soapmaker 3 does the adjustment. I think Soapmaker friend does as well, although I've not used that one
Yes, Arlo, yet it’s still very worthwhile to know the simple maths involved to be able to make the calculations yourself - should you ever need to 😉😉. Can’t rely 100% on internet functionality…. Same with having a list of SAP Values for your oils and butters 😊 Thus the ability to make manual calculations. A simple method of calculating your water/liquid is to double the lye quotient - you can increase or decrease accordingly 😊
I have never made any dish soap or heard of soap nuts. I watched it from the start to finish, and I felt like I was in the college class again. You explained it so clearly, and it's easy to understand, even for a non native English speaker like myself! You are an amazing teacher, Lisa!
I'm so pleased you found it useful, thank you so much 💓
What an excellent teacher. Will have to refer to this again when making dish soap.
Thanks so much. I'm so pleased you found it useful 😀
What an amazing explanation of citric acid use in soap. I screenshot the example calculation to use as a reference. I am going to try the dish soap. We have super hard water. Even with a water softener, I still have a hard time when it comes to bubbles and all around washing the dishes. Tons of bubbles at first and then bam gone. Have to run more. Gonna give this a go to see if that makes it any better. (One less thing to buy at the grocery too) thank you for this Lisa!!! It's perfect
I'm so pleased you found it useful, I hope you give it a go
A very informative and well done video. You are correct, I was marveling because now I know what sodium citrate is. Because of the spot on verbal and visual elements, I really get it. What's really cool is, now you have a few years worth of some beautiful dish soap pucks!
That's so kind of you to say @aagie9097, thank you so much, ooh I'll get through tem a bit quicker than that, I do a lot of washing up by hand
Your chemistry lesson is excellent, very comprehensible as chemistry has never been for me. Thank you.
Great to hear!
I bought a large amount of citric acid so I am proud to now know how to use it properly. Thank you
Excellent, I'm so pleased it helped
Nice video
Some regulations in UK are pretty stupid. I made a batch of pine tar soap, before realising about all this palava. Most of the assessors will not sign a pine tar soap recipe as it seems it's cancenogenic like cigarettes. Still pine tar it is actually NOT banned for use, but the assessors will not sign it for use, just to cover themselves in case Trading Standards enquiries and they wouldn't be able to justify the use in the soap... Hypocritically, cigarettes that you inhale seems to be OK for sale, but a wash off product no 🤷♂️
I make a very similar dish soap for my home use but I never used soap nuts. Wonderful lesson on using citric acid. Thank you!
It's a great soap isn't. Thanks so much
I loved your way of explaining the citric acid addition Lisa! You made if very easy to understand - I also found it fascinating to use soap nuts, clever girl!! 😁
Hey Tammy. So pleased you found it useful. Thanks so much 💛
I really appreciated all that information - thank you so much!
You are so welcome!
Lisa that was some very useful information , ❤ and those bars are pretty.
Thanks so much!
Thank you so much, that was sooo helpful!
You're so welcome, thanks so much
Thank you so much, Lisa! I have learned so much from you in the past couple of days. I wish I would have found you a year and a half ago. You would have saved me a lot of money and a lot of tears. Thank you for sharing your videos! God bless you. 🙏
Glad to help.
Happy soaping!
The m you for explaining this in so much detail. I really appreciate it! I am learning so much! Can’t wait to start making my own soap.
Glad it was helpful!
I really enjoyed your techy bit at the end I think I developed a real understanding of the effect of adding citric acid Thank you so much for taking the time to provide this information.
I'm so pleased you found it useful, thanks so much
Me encanta ver los videos siempre aprendo algo nuevo
Gracias 🙏 😊
Muchas gracias por su hermoso comentario
thank you so much! I learn so much from watching your videos
You are so welcome, I'm glad it was useful
As always a great teacher! I think this made everything perfectly clear and happy to have a video to share on the subject of citric acid as it is so misunderstood.
Thank you so much, I'm so pleased you found it useful 😀
I'm REALLY enjoying this video. You should do more videos like this. I don't even know what it is, but it's a highlight of my day. 😊
Thank you so much, that's very kind of you.
Thank you! I learned a lot so much. It would have been nice to see how they work. Ive never seen bar soap used as dish soap before.
Hi Lisa … thanks for this …. I do love your techy stuff … it makes things a bit clearer … thanks
You are so welcome Teresa
LOVE the geeky/nerdy explanation! Thank you! it's always great to understand deeply. On that note, due to my Lack of understanding at this point, does the 100% coconut oil dish soap dries out your hand uncomfortably after each use?
Great explanation!! Thank you
Glad it was helpful!
I love your explanation.thank you
Thanks, appreciate it.
I loved every bit of explanation you gave after the soap making. I would love to see more videos of it in other soap.
Thank you soo much 😘😘😘😘
More to come!
Thank you for this information, yes I do make my own dish soap.
You are so welcome!
That was absolutely fascinating! I loved learning the science behind citric acid and soap.
HicAndi. Thanks for your lovely comment 😘
Thank you so mich for this informative video!!
You are so welcome!🙂
Very informative thank you!!
Glad it was helpful!
These are fabulous! I’m gutted that you can’t sell them, would be wonderfully to try them 😊
I know, the regs are a pain, but I guess they're there to stop people making all sorts of dangerous things.
Thank you for the wonderful information! My heart skipped a beat seeing the damp spoon dip into the lye though! I did this once and it got very angry with the liquid added to it instead of adding it to a liquid 😅
I don't think the spoon was actually damp, it may have just been that the static in the lye granules caused them to stick to the spoon.
This video is just perfect
I'm so pleased you found it useful 😀
Super fascinating stuff!! A very information packed video and you explained it all so well, so clearly! Thanks so much for sharing your fountain of knowledge, super helpful and entertaining. Hope you're well! 😊
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for lovely comment Beck
i cant wait to try your recipe! thank you for all of your teachings
You are so welcome!
Very informative, thank you. x
You're welcome
I use citric acid in all my soaps because I used to have hard water, and when I started soaping, we got tons of soap scum. As soon as I started using 2% CA, our shower drain clogged more slowly and there was less visible scum caught in the TubShroom. The sink also stayed bright white and clean longer after scrubbing. Amazing! It's in my dish soap too of course, even though I don't have hard water in my new home. I've never tried soap nuts before. How interesting!
Regarding superfat, I went with -1% SF for my laundry soap because I didn't want any oil at all in my laundry. For my dish soap, I used 0.5% for safety. I forgot about the margin of safety in the SAP value while I was writing it up, though. I'll go for 0% on the next batch.
If anyone wants to get fragrance recommendations for dish soap,, I prefer savory herbal fragrances or citrus. I got a basil EO bar from another maker that smelled incredible. I've been using tomato leaf coriander from Nature's Garden and Awaken from Nurture Soap. These fresh but food-based scents don't clash with the smell of my last meal the way that traditional dish soap fragrance sometimes does.
I still keep good old Dawn around for household cleaning though. It's what I use to clean my bathroom on the recommendation of a professional housekeeper!
I think I would have been much less frustrated with my college chemistry courses if the lessons had been as clear and thorough as your explanation at the end of the video. Thank you!
Aw, thanks so much. I'm so pleased you found it useful 😀
Thanks!
Aw, that's so kind of you. Thank you so much
Lisa brilliant, i had seen a few i follow include citric acid, considered it but thought i am not knowledgeable enough to include and didnt get around to delving into the aspect further. Now i feel i have a decent understanding and may give it a try next year. Thank you, you are a very good educator.
I'm so pleased. Thanks for your lovely comment 😘
Hi Lisa, I have used soap nuts in my dish soap but not the citric acid. I may have missed this part, when you add more lye to cover the loss from the citric acid do you also add more water or by not adding extra water is that how you got to the slightly negative so to speak? Also, have you ever made laundry soap and if so would you use the citric acid in that as well for the same reasons? I love the way you explained the process and now I'm having a lightbulb moment and can't stop. Seriously though, I love how you explain everything while you're working. Very enjoyable videos.
I don't change the water used. The amount of water wouldn't affect the superfat at all. You're purely just adjusting the lye to get what you need. I've never made laundry soap. So can't really advise on that
thank you, that answered my question. I'm excited to try it. I Always enjoy watching your videos., thank you for sharing them.
Hi Lisa. may I ask the range of negative superfat you use? I would like to try with "-5" but it might be high. Tx
Can I use soap nut powder in place of the nuts?
This was very interesting, could you give the recipe for the first batch you made?
Hi Veronica, thanks so much. The recipe is on my website with full instructions and advice about how you may make any modifications if you need to www.idreaminsoap.co.uk
I wonder if i formulate a citric acid addition to my Marseilles style bar? This might solve my very hard water problem! Thx much for the breakdown.
Yes it will probably help, you can add it to pretty well any bar soap recipe
Thank you for this, Lisa. I buy my washing up liquid (refills) from my local zero waste store but this takes me a step further in my sustainability quest. I could probably figure out the recipe for myself, but why reinvent the wheel when you have already done it? Recipe purchased, I look forward to making & trying it out- I already have all the ingredients.
Thanks so much Carole, I hope it works well for you.
@@IDreamInSoap It accelerated so quickly I could barely get it in the moulds, but it's only going to sit in a Gü pot on the sink anyway so it doesn't matter. I used it today for the first time & it cleaned my dishes very well.
Great tutorial, as ever Lisa. Just when I needed to check the amount of lye eaten up by the citric acid. I thought it was 0.624 but I have also seen soap makers use .571 ..wanted a definitive amount as I'm preparing for CPSR although I reckon they would come out very similar. Your 0.6 will do for me!
It's a good place to start but due to the biological nature of oils it will always be an estimate
if the citric acid is "monohydrate" the amount is 0.571 if it is "anhydrous" the amount is 0.624
Hello. I enjoyed your video very much. You're accent is lovely! Thank you for explaining in such great detail. I've made several recipes of dish soap bars before, but always ended up with water spots on dishes when I let them air dry. That stopped me from giving them out to co-workers last Christmas. The only solution I found was to rinse in very hot water. This has been a hobby for me, but the spots stump me. I used distilled water and 2% citric acid. Can you please advise what is causing spots and how to eliminate them? Many thanks!
If you have spots that need rinsing in very hot water it's likely that you still have some superfat in your dish soap, therefore you are adding oil. You may need to play with your recipe to properly eliminate the superfat. A lye calculator will only give an estimate
@@IDreamInSoap Thank you.
@@IDreamInSoap I never thought about that. That makes a lot of sense! You did talk about that in the video. I was using a 0% SF recipe, but also added some kaolin clay. Do you think the clay altered the SF?
That was wonderful thankyou
Glad you enjoyed it
Thank you
You're welcome👍
Hello Lisa, this was a great video! I have been watching your channel for about a year and I am a huge fan! I am curious about deciding when to use citric acid in my soapmaking. I only have used it a couple of times, so I am not really sure what to expect. Would it be a good addition to a milk soap?
There's no reason you can't use it in a goat milk soap. I would just consider how you add the goat milk. If you just use part goat milk and therefore still use water to dissolve your lye then it would be fine. If however you use full goat milk and do the ice cube method to make your lye you may have trouble adding the citric as it needs to be dissolved before adding the lye. It's water soluble, so it would dissolve in goat milk, but I sometimes find it needs a bit of warmth as well
@@IDreamInSoap Thank you. I usually do a full water replacement, but I can change it up a bit. I know the citric acid does generate extra heat, do you think I could keep it from scorching the milk?
@@IDreamInSoap I'm sure I sound silly saying this, but I am a bit star struck talking to you. Your skill as a soaper is astounding!
If I may add my 2 cents? I make ocean water soaps when I travel, and sometimes I'm offered various milks to add to my recipes. What I learned to do is to make my own proportion soaps of 75:25 milk:ocean water or 80:20 depending on the quality of the milk, and breed/species. The quality of the soap was always amazing, it would harden quickly in the individual molds (NEVER use loaf molds w/any salt content soap!), and my hosts/new friends/students would have their best soaps in record time.
And I hate to contradict, but saponification completes as soon as the lye and oil/fat mixture has chilled. If you have used the correct proportion of lye to water to fats/oils, the result is soap (a sodium salt) and glycerine (a glycerol, in chemical terms). And it shouldn't take days, unless something has gone wrong, but maybe a few hours as in a pure olive oil soap (Castile is legendary for this! 😢). Most soaps, however, take about an average of an hour, at most. Once you get them out of their molds, or you're able to cut them if you put them in a loaf mold, you can use them... In theory anyway. But you wouldn't want to. They'll last you for a week, and they'll leave you squeaky clean, because though they're NOT raw, they're not very gentle yet. Think your teenage boyfriend, or how YOU were as a teenage boyfriend. Exactly! 😅
Give your soap a chance to mature, those salt crystals to get their act together as the water molecules get yeeted, and generally your bar becomes more gentle.
If you have any soaps older than 6 months, and try those vs some that are 6 weeks, you'll see the difference.
Sorry for the hijack. I just LOVE soaping... ❤
Does it make a difference if you add the citric acid at trace or with the lye as you did? I've added citric acid to my soaps before but did it at trace instead of earlier in the process. We do have very hard water here but I think I may have done it for another reason at the time like slowing down trace (not sure if it actually does that but I read it is supposed to).
If you add it at trace it's unlikely to dissolve properly as citric acid is water solvable. So at trace there may not be enough free water. Also if your soap has actually come to trace that would imply that the lye is emulsified with the oils naking it difficult for the citric acid to turn into sodium citrate. Citric acid on it's own doesn't reduce soap scum etc. It needs to turn into sodium citrate by combining with lye before it will act as a chealator
My son lives in a hard water area, so I'd like to use citric acid in bath soap for him. It seems easier to just reduce the superfat in my recipe than to add more lye. Is there a formula that tells how much to reduce the superfat to end up with a 5% superfat? Is this a bad idea?
Hi Lisa! I have soap nut powder that I tried mixing with my lye water solution and those batches of soap didn't ever solidify. I guess it's possible my other ratios were off... Before I try again, should the powder work if I brewed it like a tea in a sachet and removed it before adding my lye? I had them all together and strained it before and the batches failed.
oh I'm sorry, I've never used soap nut powder
@@IDreamInSoap that's ok. I'm sure I can try again, if it still fails then I'll just repurpose it 😂
It was interesting to know. I’ve never used bar soap for washing dishes 😁 I only used the liquid soap . I know it sounds stupid but How do you use it?
It's not stupid at all. I use it 2 ways, if I am running a whole sink of water I put the soap in a cup or something, normally something I'm about to wash up. Turn the tap on so that it runs on top of the soap and helps disperse some into the water. When the water is run I remove the soap. I also just wet a sponger and rub the soap onto it, squeeze the sponge to foam it up and the rub on the dishes etc, rinse as normal.
@@IDreamInSoap Thank you for answering 🙏🏻🌼🐬
Hi Lisa, that was an exceptional video! Now though, I am wondering why I see some soapers using both citric acid and sodium citrate in their recipes for solid dish soap. If the lye turns the citric acid into sodium citrate in the first place, can you think of any reason why someone would use both ❓Also, I've always just used sodium citrate, so I am now wondering how that changes things as far as needing to add back 0.6g lye per 1g citric acid. I am assuming I don't need to because the citric acid has already been converted to sodium citrate in the first place. Please untangle these two mysteries' for me if you can 🤣
For a product that's going to be made alkaline with lye, there would never be any reason to use both citric acid and sodium citrate. Just use whichever winds up cheapest (sodium citrate or citric acid and extra lye) or easiest. A mixture of citric acid and sodium citrate might be used in a lower-pH product to adjust the pH, not in soap. This is called a buffer mixture. There are tables of ratios of the two components to arrive at a certain final pH, though in practice you'd usually titrate them, mixing while monitoring pH continuously or at frequent intervals while adding increments of one or the other.
I follow you with love 🥰I would be very happy if there was a Turkish translation
Ithink you can just turn the automatic subtitles on and that should do it?
Are all your soap videos, bathing soaps or dish/ washing soap❓
Apart from the one in this video, they are all bathing soaps
Hello, can I get the recipe written?
Yes. Just pop to the shop and you xan get it either detailed instructions and information about how to change things if you want to www.idreaminsoap.co.uk
@@IDreamInSoap thank you.
Como me gustaria que pudiera traducirlo al castellano pues me gusta mucho su xanal!!!!
Muchas gracias, deberías poder activar los subtítulos en tu configuración y luego tendrás una traducción.
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but WHY would you want a solid dish soap? Every dish soap I've always seen has been liquid. I wouldn't even know how to use a solid soap for dishes but maybe I'm missing something.
this soap canbe used for laundry cause its zero superfat
You didn't use hand gloves?
❤❤🎉🎉
Thanks so much 💛
Great tips and soaps Lisa 👌
On a separate note, I need some help please. It's for failed purchase from your website. My credit card got charged but I didn't receive the gift card. I've sent you an email as well.
It was meant to be a gift for my friend. Kindly help. Thanks a lot.
Ooh, that's very odd. I have seen a gift card purchase come through on the website and it says it was sent to the recipient, make sure you check your spam folder in case the confirmation went in there. But I will email you now as well.
@@IDreamInSoapThanks for your kind attention to this Lisa. Unfortunately I have not received the gift card yet. I've checked my Spam folder as well as checked with the recipient. She hasn't received it either. Would you be so kind as to email it to me at the email ID I have sent you the email from. And please also send it to the intended recipient - her email ID is mentioned in the email I've sent to you. Many thanks.
@@renujha2431 Hi Renu, as we're sorting this out via email I'll stop the conversation here, so were not trying to chat in 2 places. Best wishes
😶🌫️
Thank you
🤍Hi 🤚🩷 Thank You , Im very curious and interested about Citric acid ... to use instead of lye. I just purchased Lime powder , thinking I wonder if I can make soap with ? I saw a Soap making video with fresh Aloe made without the lye and now cant find the video ( about 3 Years ago ) . I had tried the Soap Nuts before for Laundry with also Dr. Bronners , Baking Soda and different Essential Oils , I really liked but I dont know if Its Ecological Logical , And okay for the machinery ?? 🩷🤍
I'm never sure how good soap nuts are for the washing machine, some people love them some don't and I do hear things about them not being good for the machine and eventually ending up with grey looking clothes, so I don't use them in the washing machine. But I'm not an expert on this and have no 1st hand experience
@@IDreamInSoap , probably as a minimal supplemental maybe , with also a little Vinegar , or budget Vodka so It doesnt get grey , and gunky the lines ??
I would want to try to make Bathroom Hand Soap , and for a Shampoo base ... ??
I liked how It felt , the suds felt Natural , Wholesome and Clean. I Appreciated they were available at TraderJoes in
Los Angeles area. I purchased a few Years ago , they had for a while in their Stores. TJs ' is a Farmers progressive Market that grew up , offering awesome products like that. A lot different then Sainsburys and Waitrose in the UK.
Though I really Appreciated the Produce and awesome Products that they offered there too , differently . Especially Sainsburys leaving Food out for Society , Humanity 🤍🩷
Powdered lime, calcium hydroxide? It'd be difficult, but at least theoretically possible, to make soap with it...but then the soap won't dissolve in water. The product would be lime soap, the stuff of soap scum.