Soap Making

Last year I tried my hand at making soap.  I tend to have really dry skin and many of the storebought brands of soap tend to make it irritated.  I discovered that old fashioned home made soap was less harsh on my skin than any of the special soaps that I have tried from the store.  I have a friend that dabbles in soap making and she let me try some of the varieties she had made.  I fell in love with an aloe and oatmeal variety that was just about as basic as you could make soap. When I moved away from her I had to ask for the recipie. 

When I found out what sorts of things go into soap I was a little surprised.  How can something that cleans you with little soapy bubbles be made with a caustic chemical like lye?  Here is where the amazing science of chemistry comes into play.  It is all about saponification.  When lye is mixed with fats they combine to form soap.  If you want to know all the ins and outs of it you can google it, but I didn't do that well in organic chemistry, so my explaination powers are moot.  What I can explain is what I did to make soap.  So here we go.....

The first step of soap making is to make sure that you have everything you need before you get started.  This includes seperate utensils, cookware and mixing containers that will never touch anything besides soap making ingredients.  You need to make sure that nothing that touches the lye will ever be used in food preparatation again because lye is toxic and caustic and well, just plain nasty stuff.  I have most of my equipment labeled and stored away from the kitchen.

Once you have gathered all of your materials it is time to get started.  Make sure that you wear the appropriate safety attire for soap making:  goggles, gloves and long sleeved clothing are a must when working with lye.  It is also a good idea to keep some vinegar close by to neutralize the lye in case you spill.

 Safety isn't always pretty, but it does the job

 

Step one is to mix your lye with your water (or other watery liquids).  I do this outside because the fumes are not good to breathe in.  Always add your lye to the water, never the other way around.  Lye can be very reactive and the last thing you need is for it to blow up in your face.  Another side note - adding lye to water is an exothermic reaction meaning that it gets hot - up to 200 degrees hot.  Make sure that the container you are mixing them in can withstand the high temps before you use it!

 

After mixing the lye and the water you will need to let it cool down to about 110 degrees or so which can take awhile, so I use an ice bath and monitor the temperature closely.

 

While the lye mixture is cooling is a good time to heat up your fats.  Fat usually heats up a lot quicker than it cools off, so don't let it get over 110 degrees.  Different kinds of fats also have different melting points so some of the fats you use may be solid at room temperature.  These are the fats that make your soap harder.  Liquid fats (at room temp) like olive oil can make your soap soft, so you can try different combinations of fats to see how they affect the outcome of your soap.  The fats I've tried so far are combinations of coconut oil, palm oil, and olive oil.  I've also made a batch using beef tallow and olive oil.  There are so many different combinations you could use that the possiblities are endless. 

 

One very important thing I will mention is that I measure all of my ingredients by weight.  This is important because the amount of oils you use will determine how much lye you will need in order to make soap.  There are dozens of lye calculators on the internet that can help you with this calculation.  The one I like to use is https://www.thesage.com/index.html .  You basically put in the amounts of everything in your recipie except the lye, and it will tell you how much lye you should use to make soap.  It even gives you slight variations depending on how much "extra" fat you want in your soap.  I believe the extra fat percentage acts like a buffer so you can be sure that all your lye is used up in the chemical reaction of saponification. 

 

Once your fats and lye mixture are at the same temperature you can mix them - again always add the lye mixture to the fat, not vice versa.  You can stir it the old fashioned way by hand, or if you like to speed things up a little you can use a stick blender.  You will know when you have mixed it enough when it begins to trace.  (This can take a very long time for softer soaps)  Trace is the name for the state of the soap as it thickens up.  You can tell your soap is tracing if you take the spoon out of the mix and droplets sit on the surface for a while before they melt back into the soap.  In my experience this stage reminds me of thick pudding.  This is also the time where you would add any essetial oils or ground herbs to your soap. 

 

Once your soap is well mixed and showing signs of trace you can pour it into your mold.  I've used cardboard boxes lined with wax paper for a mold and it works fairly well.  I've also used a silicone mold which works well if your soap is very firm - otherwise it can be difficult to pop out of the mold.  Once my molds are filled I wrap them up in a thick towel and let them sit overnight to let the magic happen.  The next day the soap is a hard block and can be taken out of the mold - but still use caution - there could still be lye present.

This is one large block of soap fresh out of the mold 

 

 If your mold makes one large bar of soap now is the time to cut it into smaller pieces.  I've found that floss works better than a knife for cutting and will give you a smooth edge if you do it right. 

 

 

Allow the soap to cure in a well ventilated area for at least 2 weeks being sure to turn the soap daily to allow it to dry evenly.  Once it has cured for 2 weeks it should be ready to be used. 

 

This is the finished product  - my own version of aloe and oatmeal soap

 

Happy soaping!