Soap-making Transparent

Before glycerine was applied in soap-making, transparent soaps could only be obtained by dissolving perfectly dry soaps in alcohol, and tho alcohol was then distilled from the soap. These soaps were certainly very transparent, but on account of the small percentage of water contained, were only dissolved with difficulty and, therefore, hardly suitable for toilet purposes, and moreover —owing to the troublesome preparation— could only be obtained at fairly high prices,... 

Glycerin is added as an emollient and texture enhancer. Sorbitol is another emollient that is often used along with glycerin because it makes the soap more transparent. Titanium dioxide is added to make the soap opaque. 

Traditionally, this process has been utilized primarily for low cost soap bars because it produces bars with limited shape options. A derivative of this approach has been utilized for many years to make transparent bars by the so-called cast-mature process. 

Ordinary soap today is simply a mixture of sodium salts of long-chain fatty acids. It is a mixture because the fat from which it is made is a mixture, and for washing our hands or our clothes a mixture is just as good as a single pure salt. Soap may vary in composition and method of processing if made from olive oil, it is Castile soap alcohol can be added to make it transparent air can be beaten in to make it float perfumes, dyes, and germicides can be added if a potassium salt (instead of a sodium salt), it is soft soap. Chemically, however, soap remains pretty much the same, and does its job in the same way. 

As is already known, glycerine soaps can now be obtained quite cheaply, they are quite transparent, and look almost like yellow glass, and also have the quality of making a good lather. 

As soaps made in this manner are very hard and also require a long time to dissolve in water and make a lather, it is advisable from the outset to use a softer soap. If, however, transparent soaps are filled with glycerine as is now almost always the case, and large quantities of glycerine used, then this circumstance is less significant, as glycerine already makes the soap softer and, being itself a substance easily dissolved in water, increases the solubility of the soap. 

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