Orange juice (not from concentrate)
Replaces some or all of the water. Golden, at a quarter of the water. Cable, The Natural Soap Making Book for Beginners primary source
Opens the calculator’s starter recipe, 1000 g of oils, with this additive at the dose it fills in, ready to change.
What it is
Orange juice not from concentrate, as sold chilled: mostly water, with some sugar and some citric and malic acid.
USDA FoodData Central primary source
How much
- 25 % of the water filled in Cable, The Natural Soap Making Book for Beginners primary source
The calculator fills in 25 % of the water: 80.1 g for the 1000 g of oils in its starter recipe.
When and how
- Usually: as the lye liquid.
- Freeze it, and add the lye slowly.
Cable, The Natural Soap Making Book for Beginners primary source
What it does to the recipe
- Every 100 g takes 0.57 g of sodium hydroxide, which the calculator adds to the lye.
- 88.48 % is water, taken off the recipe’s water.
- 0.36 % is fat, which stays in the bar as extra superfat.
- 8.08 % is sugar, which heats the batch.
USDA FoodData Central primary source, Penniston et al. (2008) primary source, Stoichiometry primary source
Worth knowing
- About 0.92 % of it is fruit acid, mostly citric, and the calculator adds the lye that acid takes. USDA FoodData Central primary source, Stoichiometry primary source
- Caution: It heats the batch: work cool and do not insulate it, or it can crack or overflow the mould. Cable, The Natural Soap Making Book for Beginners primary source
- It darkens the soap, to tan or brown. Cable, The Natural Soap Making Book for Beginners primary source, Lovely Greens supplier or guide
- Danger Its sugars, heated above 84 °C with lye, can give off toxic carbon monoxide. Keep it cool and work where air moves. NOAA CAMEO Chemicals primary source
Spoons and drops
- 1 tsp ≈ 5.17 g
- 1 tbsp ≈ 15.5 g
- 1 cup ≈ 248 g
USDA FoodData Central primary source
INCI name
Citrus Aurantium Dulcis Juice
Guides that discuss it
Sources
Kelly Cable, The Natural Soap Making Book for Beginners (Althea Press, 2017): "Replacing 25 percent of the water with juice gives the bar a more golden color without browning or causing sugar difficulties"; most juices "turn a dark color within the soap, typically brown"; juices frozen "to a slush" before the lye; "when adding purées, always remove the same weight in water"; 2 ounces of puréed strawberries at light trace for 33 oz of oils, all of it in half of the batch, where "the sugars from the purée can cause this soap to possibly overheat"; "Beet root powder starts off a pretty, bright pink, but when added to soap, it turns brown"; "most herbs turn brown when added at trace. If you want to avoid this, add them to the top of your soap right before it sets"; "Make sure your herbs are very dry before adding them to the soap, as moisture left within herbs can bleed into the soap over time, leaving a brown halo". "Green can be made with spirulina, comfrey leaf, and parsley leaf". Activated charcoal: "Add 1 teaspoon per pound of soap". Recipes, per 31–35 oz of oils: "2 tablespoons ground turmeric" blended into the whole batch (32 oz), and "3 teaspoons ground turmeric" in one of four equal parts (31 oz); "2 teaspoons woad powder" and "1 tablespoon white kaolin clay", each in one of three equal parts (34 oz); 1 tablespoon of dried nettle leaf, or 2 tablespoons; 1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon; 1 tablespoon of dried peppermint flakes, "plus more to sprinkle on top"; 1 tablespoon of steeped chamomile flowers at light trace and 2 on top; comfrey, "1 heaping tablespoon comfrey leaf powder" infused in 8 ounces of olive oil, 3 ounces of that oil in the recipe.
USDA FoodData Central, food 2003597: Orange juice, no pulp, not fortified, not from concentrate, refrigerated (citric acid 756.6 mg, malic acid 160.3 mg per 100 g).
K. L. Penniston, S. Y. Nakada, R. P. Holmes and D. G. Assimos, "Quantitative assessment of citric acid in lemon juice, lime juice, and commercially-available fruit juice products", Journal of Endourology 22 (2008) 567–570, Table 1, grams of citric acid per litre: lemon juice fresh from the fruit 48.0, lime juice 45.8, orange juice 9.10.
Neutralisation stoichiometry with IUPAC 2013 molar masses: grams of NaOH per gram = protons × 39.997 ÷ molar mass. Disodium EDTA dihydrate (372.24 g/mol) takes 2; sodium bicarbonate (84.007 g/mol) 1; magnesium sulfate heptahydrate (246.47 g/mol) 2; borax decahydrate (381.37 g/mol) 2, to sodium metaborate; malic acid (134.087 g/mol) 2; citric acid (192.124 g/mol) 3. An acidity given in milliequivalents per litre takes that many millimoles of NaOH per litre.
Lovely Greens, herbs and dried flowers in soap: "I tend to use 1-3 tsp of plant material per pound (454 g) of soap. One teaspoon for dense material, like poppy seeds, and three teaspoons for fluffier herbs, like calendula petals"; "Calendula flower petals don’t discolor in soap recipes"; "rose petals will turn rusty brown wherever they touch soap, and almost every herb turns dark brown when mixed in"; lavender, "Inside the soap, the buds turn brown"; "most fruit and vegetable juices or purees will turn your soap brown or fade to an unexciting tan or yellow"; "Botanicals can soften, mold, and rot if kept in moist or humid places"; "Too many dried seeds or herbs stirred in can feel scratchy or stop the soap from lathering properly".
NOAA CAMEO Chemicals, sodium hydroxide solution: "reducing sugars other than sucrose, when heated (above 84°C.), evolve toxic levels of carbon monoxide in the presence of alkalis".
USDA FoodData Central, food 169098: Orange juice, raw (1 cup = 248 g).