Puffball-menace - Idkkkkk

Dungeon Meshi - Will Marcille's Recipe Actually Make Soap?

Howdy! I'm basti. I'm a soap maker. I never get to talk about the nitty gritty of making soap, so I'm taking this opportunity while I have it.

We're gonna make Marcille's kelpie soap today.

So let's first take a look at her recipe: -Kelpie Fat - 300 ml -Olive Oil - 300 ml -Plant & Wood Ash - 150 mg -Water - 150 ml

Ignoring the obvious that kelpie fat is not real and we would have to substitute another fat...

This would...

Not make soap.

Okay, okay. Let's get the major flaw out of the way:

150 mg of Plant and wood ash appears to be an error. 150 milligrams is only 0.15 grams or 0.005 ounces.

This small amount of lye would do… nothing. At best, some of the fatty particles would saponify but you’d mostly have a puddle of oil and water.

So let’s assume this was meant to be 150 grams and return to our original question:

Will Marcille's recipe actually make soap?

Well, yes. But actually, no.

This recipe will, chemically speaking, make soap. Will it be soap you want to use? Probably not.

My skin after using Marcille's kelpie soap 🤍

We'll get into that in a moment.

Let's talk briefly about lye.

In modern soapmaking, soapmakers use two different types of lye depending on what product they're making. Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) is used to make bar soaps and Potassium Hydroxide (KOH) is used to make liquid soap.

Back in the day, wood ash was used to make soap. The lye derived from wood ash consisted of mostly Potassium Carbonate with a little Sodium Carbonate. A higher percentage of Potassium Carbonate tends to make a more paste-like soap and not firm bar soap.

The plants used to make ash lye make a huge difference. Coastal and marine plants often produced alkalis with a higher percentage of Sodium Carbonate, which made harder soap. Additionally, salt was often added to make soap even harder. This is why places like Castile, Marseille, Aleppo, and Palestine became known for their soapmaking. The Mediterranean gave the people living there easy access to sea salt, sea water, and marine plants. (And also abundant olive oil)

The fourth floor of the dungeon is a water floor, so it's possible Marcille used marine plants and salt water to make her soap. Therefore, she would be able to make a proper bar soap.

The real issue comes in when we look at the numbers. Marcille's soap is lye heavy.

And majorly so.

Using Lard as our stand-in for Kelpie Oil and Sodium Hydroxide as a stand-in for plant ash, replicating the numbers of Marcille's soap in a modern soap calculator creates a terrifying picture to anyone who has made soap before.

If you look in the top left, there's a section titled 'Super Fat'.

-81% Super Fat is... certainly a number. In layman's terms, you would need 81% MORE oil (1090g instead of 600g) to make this recipe safe.

Lye heavy soaps can majorly wreck your skin and I certainly wouldn't use it on your hair like Senshi does.

(Note: I wouldn’t recommend lye soap for hair at all, but others swear by it. Do research before trying and stop if things feel wrong.)

Okay, so let's throw Marcille a bone and fix her recipe.

First, if we want the rest of the numbers exactly the same (water, oil), we’ll set the Superfat to 0%

Giving us a recipe of: -Lard - 300g -Olive Oil - 300g -Lye - 83g -Water - 150g

Now, most modern homemade soapmakers use a 1-8% Super Fat, which means there's excess oil in the soap. I use 5% in most recipes I make. This excess oil helps soap feel nicer on the skin and helps guarantee the soap won't be lye heavy.

I'm going to add a small (2%) Super Fat to this recipe. Notice how the lye and water numbers go down slightly.

Looks good to me, so let's make some soap.

Left Image - A jug of Distilled Water
Right Image - A white plastic jar of Sodium Hydroxide

First, I measure out my distilled water in a heat and lye safe container.

Next, I measure out my Sodium Hydroxide. Yeah. It's marketed as drain cleaner, but it makes great lye for soaping. It has to be labeled as 100% lye and/or sodium hydroxide and have no additional ingredients.

After measuring out the lye, I add it to the water. I will set the water and lye mixture aside for a while, because it creates a chemical reaction that makes it SUPER hot. Please research lye safety thoroughly if you ever plan to make soap. This post is not a tutorial.

Now, let's get my oils.

Left Image - A bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Right Image - A plastic container of Lard

I'm using Olive Oil. It doesn't need to be extra virgin, it just has to be 100% Olive Oil and not a blend. Olive Oil has gotten really expensive lately, so other oils like Rice Bran Oil or High Oleic Sunflower Oil could be used instead. All substitutions need to be run through a soap calculator.

I also have Lard. I bought this from a local butcher shop. I'm admittedly turned off by the idea of making soap from animal fat... but sometimes one must science.

Left Image - A bottle labeled 'Sodium Lactate'
Right Image - A small fragrance oil bottle labeled 'Red Currant & Ivy'

Other than the items in Marcille's recipe, I'll also be adding Sodium Lactate, a little fragrance oil, and some green colorant. Sodium Lactate hardens soap faster. Fragrance and color just makes it smell and look nice :o). I'll be donating the bars made from this batch to a local charity after they're finished curing. Everyone deserves good smelling soap!

Left Image - a measuring cup with olive oil and melted lard in it.
Right Image - the same measuring cup with emulsified soap batter in it.

My oils are melted and my lye water is back to room temperature, so I'll mix up my soap batter. Marcille uses a spoon to stir her soap to trace but I use an emulsion blender because I value my sanity and my wrists 💀 Olive Oil and Lard are both notorious for taking FOREVER to come to trace when stirring by hand.

The oils and lye water are mixed together to create an emulsion. This emulsified soap batter is what will eventually harden to become soap. Yay, chemistry.

From here, I split the batter in half and added fragrance and color. This is, again, just for fun and not part of the main recipe. Notice how absolutely gross these colors look? Because both olive oil and lard are dark yellow in hue, the batter looks a bit nasty. Green is often a victim of this. It'll look much better later lol

After pouring, the soap will hang out in my soaping room and solidify overnight.

The next day, the soap has solidified and is no longer that nasty yellow color. Lard makes white soap. I cut the loaf into four bars which I further cut in half to make eight bars.

I cured these soaps in a cool, dark place for a minimum of four weeks before I tested them.

The cured soaps are notably VERY hard. When these two bars are clacked together, they sound like dominoes lol.

Physically, these bars developed extreme soda ash (the white-tinged film) on both the tops and the face of the bars. This is harmless, but it definitely makes the bars a little less pretty. It'll wash off when used! It's a pitfall of soapmaking in a very humid climate :D

I've been using my tester bar at the sink for a few weeks now. The bubbles produced are rather small and the lather is creamy. This recipe is not drying at all, which is great.

It's a good 'starting point' recipe, but definitely not one I would make again. When I use up the rest of the lard I bought, I'll be using a more balanced recipe.

Still, not bad for a soap made in a dungeon!