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Baking soda and oil will not create a soap. There is a fascinating process called saponification during which oils and a very alkaline thing like sodium or potassium hydroxide are mixed together to create a soap. We can’t extrapolate this to mean that every alkaline and every oil will mix to create a soap. Lye...
I think it’s important that we know how our ingredients work, so I thought I’d take a look at how to interpret a data bulletin. What is a data bulletin? It’s a document produced by the supplier of an ingredient that gives you all kinds of information, such as the INCI name as well as...
I’ve shown you this picture many times before, but I present it again as an illustration for this post! Both bottles contain the same liquid – my toner recipe – but I added a ton of extracts to bottle 2. When I made the product and added the extracts at cool down (below 45˚C), it...
Mixing two things is all about solubility. If we say that something is water soluble, it means that it will mix or dissolve in water. If we say something is oil soluble, it means it will mix or dissolve in oil. If we try to mix an oil soluble thing in water, it will not...
There seems to be some interest in learning more chemistry (yay!), so I’m resuming the Chemistry Thursday posts next week. In the meantime, here are a few posts that might interest you! The atom! What is an atom? What’s a proton, a neutron, and an electron? The molecule! What is a molecule? Ionic bonding and...