Anyone who sees me day to day or talks to me often knows that for the past month I've been obsessing about making my own soap. This obsession just hit me from out of the blue. I have no explanation for it, just that one day I decided I needed to make some soap from scratch. It may be because I have always had really sensitive skin and I want to make some soap that has all natural ingredients. It may be because I digs me some chemistry....either way, it's just about all I've thought about for the past few weeks (no worries though, I am still wool obsessed, this is just new to me). I bought a few books about soap making, joined a few soap making groups on line and started to read read read anything I could about the process. I decided I wanted to make my soaps using cold process, as this seemed the most straightforward to me (and working with lye solutions at cooler temperatures seems to be a big plus). I found a few places online that sell soap supplies. I discovered this nifty sight Soapcalc that allows me to plug in different oils and amounts and gives me a little idea as to how the soap might turn out, and helps me to figure out how much lye I should be using to make the soap. I bought a mold (or two...).
The day the wooden soap mold arrived, I made soap. I was probably rather annoying to some while waiting for the mold to get here....I was antsy, I was excited, I was anticipating what I could do with oil and lye.
My anticipation was well rewarded with my first batch. I fell in love with the process..I fell in love with the possibilities. I made a second and a third batch...I am still in love, I am fascinated. I am babbling....
Anyway...I've had a few requests to blog my recipes and method, so I'm going to do that..but first, I need a disclaimer (yeah yeah, I know....how boooring, how droll, but really, lye burns are serious business...)...So here it is:
*I am not responsible for any injury of any sort that might come about from anyone trying to make soap after reading this little blog post. I suggest if you are interested in soap making, that you do what I did and read read read whatever you can on the subject before you attempt to make some soap. It's really not that dangerous when one uses precautions and proper safety equipment (safety goggles, mask, marigolds, clothes that fully cover you...etc...etc..) and knows the methods.*
/disclaimer off
Oh, and as I do plan on possibly selling my soaps in the future, I will not be posting the exact recipes that I have been developing and using. I'll be posting one from one of the books I have....It's pretty easy to tweak recipes as you like using soapcalc, so if you want to try out different things and have other ingredients and such, that is a good place to start.
So, without further ado!
What you will need: (or what I used):
marigolds (gloves), safety goggles, protective clothing (long sleeves, long pants, socks and shoes) a dust mask, a place with good ventilation to mix up your lye/water/whatever liquid you choose solution (I mix mine up under the hood fan above my stove), stainless steel spoons for stirring lye solution, stainless steel pans, stainless for any utensils you might use. A heat proof silicone spatula is very nice to have on hand. An immersion blender (stick blender) - although you can mix by hand, an immersion blender will speed up the process for you nicely-, thermometer for checking lye and oil temps before mixing, um...I'm sure I'm missing a few things here...A soap mold or molds that are large enough to hold the amount of soap batter you plan on making. Again, there are probably a few things I'm missing, but there are quite a few tutorials online that get into all this as well.
My first soap I wanted to be pretty simple, so I decided I would do one with some lavender essential oil for fragrance and some old fashioned oats that I had ground up a bit finer in my food processor. Soap calc will give you approximate amounts of fragrance to use...rule of thumb seems to be .5 to 1 ounce per pound of Oils used, but that does vary depending on what you are using. The ground oat amount really depends on how much you might want in your soap.
For a 1 pound batch (the pound means how much oil is being used) of Basic Soap, you will need: (Recipe is from the book: "The Everything Soapmaking Book" by Alicia Grosso)
6 ounces of distilled water
2.25 ounces of lye
10 ounces of olive oil (in the case of soap making, regular olive oil or light olive oils are better than extra virgin)
6 ounces coconut oil
1 Tbsp castor oil
(for my recipe I used a few more oils and upped the amounts to fit in my 3 pound mold)
If you are going to use fragrance oil:
0.5 to 1 ounce lavender essential oil
1 to 2 Tbsp fine ground oats
___________
What I do:
Line my soap mold with parchment paper (or freezer paper) there are tutorials on how to do this here
Measure out everything ahead of time (except the lye, I measure the lye once I have everything else in place).
Prepare the lye solution: Slowly add your lye to your water stirring as you go **NEVER EVER EVER EVER ADD THE WATER TO THE LYE..THIS COULD RESULT IN A VOLCANIC TYPE OF ERUPTION AND YOU COULD END UP WITH LYE ALL OVER YOU..NOT GOOD...ALWAYS ADD THE LYE TO THE WATER**. Stir the solution until the lye is dissolved thoroughly (I stir for at least 5 minutes just to be sure). The mixture will heat up right away anywhere from 160 to 200 some degrees. Set the mixture aside to cool, you want it around 100 degrees.
Prepare the Oils: Melt the solid oils (coconut, in this case) in a stainless steel pan over low heat, it will melt pretty quickly. Add the olive oil and castor to the coconut oil. Let this mixture cool to 100 degrees as well (you want the lye and the oils around the same temp when you combine them).
Once both mixtures are at 100 degrees F (give or take 5 degrees), add the lye solution to the oils and stir for a bit. You will notice the mixture start to change and get a bit cloudy looking..this is what you want. This is Saponification starting. Yay! At this point, you can get out your stick blender and carefully start to blend on low speed (do your best not to incorporate any air bubbles into the mix).
You want to blend until you reach light trace...which is when you lift your stirring stick out of the mixture and dribble a bit of the mix off the stick, you will still see little trails of the mixture before it sinks back into the batch (much like ribbon stage in baking, but not as thick). Once you reach light trace, you can add your essential oil and your oats.
After adding the essential oil and the oats, blend the soap batter a little longer until you reach trace..which is a bit thicker than light trace.
When you have hit light trace, you can pour your soap into your mold.
I also sprinkled some lavender flowers over the top:
Once you have poured the soap into the mold, you want to cover the mold with some plastic wrap and wrap it in a towel to insulate it and leave it alone for 12 to 24 hours (I peek...I admit it..I can't help myself, I need to see what's going on in there).
The next day you can unmold your soap (unless something has gone wrong...) and cut your soap. I keep ph strips on hand to test the soaps ph before I unmold, and if it's in range, I test the center of one of my slices to see how the inside is.
Your soap now needs to cure for 4 to 6 weeks before it can be used (this is to allow the soap time to harden so it will last longer and it will continue to saponify and become a bit more mellow with time).
Again, there are a lot of great tutorials on how to make cold process soap online...google searches are great! You tube also has quite a few videos on the subject. This is just my experience with it so far!
I've also made some soap with Goat's milk (which is an entirely different method of cold method) and Buttermilk...Photos of those soaps:
Chocolate Goat's Milk Soap:
Annnnd Poppyseed Buttermilk soap with Lemongrass Essential Oil:
If you do decide to make soap, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Happy Soaping!
