pH this and pH that

In my quest for the most satisfying soap I have encountered many mentions of phenolphthalein for testing soap pH. Well, I figured I deserved a treat of a new chemical to play with so I finally got some of the highly touted phenolphthalein. Actually, I love to test pH with red cabbage juice ever so much more than with the phenolphthalein. Red cabbage juice provides an excellent color range based on pH range and that just doesn't happen with phenolphthalein. It has a very small indication range which doesn't suit my curiosity so well. No no no, don't put your phenol p on your nice new bar of soap! There are better ways, if you insist on using it! My solution is 1% in 50/50 alcohol and water. If  I want to see what shade of pink my new soap will produce, I grab a small bit, dissolve it in a few milliliters water and add a drop of the fancy phenolphthalein. If you try too big of a hunk of soap, your water will get a bit cloudy, but the pink will be the same. Now the question: Is this too red or is it O.K.? Ha! Put a drop into your plain old city tap water and notice that it produces a very light pink. Now, try this: Get a red cabbage. Tear up a nice stringy outside leaf or two and put it in a cup. Pour some water over the cabbage to submerge it and stick it in the microwave for a minute. (Cook the rest of the cabbage however you want and enjoy eating it.) Now, let the cabbage leaves steep until your water is a nice purple color. When it's good and deep you are ready to go. Pour a bit of the purple water into another clear container and dissolve a bit of soap in it. Most likely you got a nice blueish aqua color if you measured everything correctly. If you got a deep blue color, I take my hat off to you because your soap and blood may have something in common! Feel free to putter around the kitchen and test some other substances like bleach and vinegar. The cabbage juice pH test is ever so much more satisfying than that boring (and expensive) phenolphthalein. I have rummaged many discourses on the pH of soap and have stumbled upon quite a few whopping bunches of  B.S. too. One such B.S. item is the notion that handmade natural soap can test neutral on the pH scale. Hmpfh! (B.S. is of course the excreted end product of bull digestion) Isn't blood between 7 and 8? ( Much nearer 7 than 8) Isn't distilled water given the title of neutral because it truly has a Ph of 7? Soap is by it's chemical nature destined to be alkaline and that is O.K. and quite normal. Here is a nice little example of the pH scale as it pertains to acid rain among other things: http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/184ph.html Please note that the color values for pH ranges on this scale are not the colors of all pH indicators, and isn't that a great description of pH? Now lets have a look at the scale via red cabbage juice: 
This is but one example of the multitudes of examples available in this delicious cyber world. So far I have never made a soap that gave the juice a green when it was finished, but I certainly use soap every day that falls into the aqua category and have never suffered any ill effects. I have yet to make a soap that produces the pure blue color. This is a simplified scale as well. More color gradients between pH points are quite possible and I just like to go for a rainbow with whatever I can find here at home that I haven't previously put to the test. Gah-but isn't a pH of 10 too high? No, no it isn't according to my experiences of using plenty of aqua test color soaps fresh from the cook pot. Perhaps with more time, that pH 10 soap will come down a little, but if it doesn't it won't peel your skin off. Or, as I like to put it, the aqua is O.K. and never mind the suspected pH because maybe my test materials are off. Did I mention that I love hot process soap making? Did I mention that I never wear gloves when I clean out my pan at the end of a cook? Why not? I don't need to! I know that my soap has cooked fully, that I measured correctly, and that my finished soap has a superfat level no less than 5%. This means that there is absolutely no free lye in my finished soap but there is 5% free oils, thus there is no need for gloves when I wash out my pan. If I really want to, I can take a bath with that soap after I wash out the pot. O.K., let me correct myself since I just tested one of my boring old soaps consigned to the use at will box:

This soap is one of the oldest soaps hanging around and just look at that nice blue it gave me! I still can't say it's neutral though. I can say that this one's pH is between 7 and 9 and feel good about it. So, let's compare it to one of my new ones that I have been bathing with this week:

Wow-another nice blue! When I test them right after a cook they are in the aqua range and like I said, I use them right then with no ill effects. I haven't bothered retesting any until now, silly me! Let's see what this horrid liquid soap I am trying to boil into a thicker state tests like:

Ugh, I need a camera upgrade! In reality this is aqua and I have been fooling with this rascal bare handed since yesterday when I made it. Today, I decided it is too thin and I am experimenting with ways of changing that. I am not even going to pull out the phenolphthalein and demonstrate that one, since the good old cabbage juice is so satisfying, and for me much easier to interpret.(And just how many times can I mis spell 2 letters? Haha I lost count. Took me a while to fix it too!) A really good pH meter would be extremely satisfying, but alas it just isn't in the budget for a while. Today I stumbled onto some more great information about natural soaps and pH: http://www.chagrinvalleysoapandsalve.com/idascorner/soappH.aspx I like what these people say about 'pH balanced' etc, and quite agree. If I didn't make my own, I would buy from them because they aren't trying to hype market and I respect that.