Today I am making soap using the cold process method. If you google this you will find loads of websites explaining this method.
My aim here is just to show how easy it is, or can be, to make your own soap with simple tools and supplies most people already have in their kitchen.
I will post some recipes and links at the bottom.
Items you will need to make soap:
* An enamel pan for mixing your fat with the lye (and also melting solid wax or butter if you are using any) You could us a stainless steel pan too, but not an aluminium one.
* Fat. You can make soap with just olive oil, sunflower oil or coconut oil. Usually soap is a mix of oils, but you can just use what you have.
* Scale to measure all ingredients, Exact measuring is important so you need a digital scale.
* Lye (sodiumhydroxide, caustic sode, NaOH, you can buy it as the little white grains that you poor in your sink if the drain is blocked, but do make sure it’s pure NaOH, no other ingredients)
* A mold to poor your soap in. This can be a special soap mold, ur just cut open an empty milk carton and poor the liquid soap in there.
* a heat resistant bowl to mix the lye with water
* a whisk, spoon or stick blender
* protective glasses and gloves, just rubber cleaning gloves are fine.
I decided on using a blend of different oils for making my soap. I didn’t buy anything specially for making this soap, I just used what I already had. Different oils have different qualities, they produce a different bar of soap. Also every oil/fat needs their own amount of lye to turn it into soap. So if you see a soap recipe online that uses almond oil and you want to substitute that for another oil or fat never just swap it and use the same amounts, always put it trough a soap calculator first.
Like this one: http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp
First I will make the lye mixture. Measure the exact amount of water and the exact amount of lye you need in seperate cups/bowls. Make sure the bowl for the lye is bone dry because as soon as it comes into contact with water an exothermic reaction will start. Then, very important!: slowly poor the lye into the bowl of water while stirring, never poor the water into the bowl with lye or it might explode! Wear the gloves and safety glasses while doing this. I also put the bowl in the sink so there is less risk of tipping it over or splashing the stuff on myself.
When you add the lye to the water you will see it will get a milky/cloudy colour, and it will become very hot. That is also why I do this first, so it has time to cool down before we move on to the other steps
While the lye solution is cooling down I start measuring my oils/butters and put them in a pan. I measure everything, one ingredient at a time, and then poor or scoop it into the pan so its easy to take a bit out if I poor to much from the bottle. If everything is already mixed together this is ofcourse impossible. So again, measure exact quantities of your ingredients by weight. Because I used sheabutter, beeswax and coconut oil this time I had to melt and mix those first. I also used rice bran oil, olive oil and jojoba oil.
After all my oils are melted and I mixed them well I take the pan of the stove. Now it’s time for a cup of coffee and this will also give the oils and the lye some time to cool down.
Some people say you need to mix everything at room temperature, I never measure any temperatures, I just wait a bit until it’s not very hot anymore and then just mix everything together.
Poor your lye mixture into your pan with the fat in it and mix it with your spoon/whish or stick blender. When you poor in the lye the oil will immediately start looking different. First you can still see the bottom of the pan trough the oils, when you put the lye in, it turns cloudy, you can’t see trough it anymore.
Now you need to stir it with your spoon or whisk or the stick blender (=much quicker) until you get trace. Depending on the oils you are using this will be fast or it wil take some time. (I made 100% olive oil soap once and couldn’t get trace at all, ended up just pooring it in the mold anyway, and the soap turned out just fine)
In the picture below you can see what trace looks like. It is still liquid, but a very thick liquid which holds its shape for a short time after you stirr it. (If you want you can stir in an essential oil now for a scented soap)
If you have trace, this will be the right time to poor everything into your mold. Tap it to get the air bubbles out. Now just cover it and put it away for 24-72 hours before you can take it out of the mold and cut it into slices.
If you get a really good trace like I did this time, you can try to make the top of the soap look a bit more fancy by stirring around a bit with a fork or spoon.
After 24 hours in the mold see if the soap has frmed up enough to take it out. Take it out of the mold and cut it into slices. Now put the slices upright and let them cure for atleast 4-6 weeks. This way you are sure the saponification process is completed.
Some soaps (like 100% olive oil soap) will still be soft after 6 weeks and you might need to store them for months (up to a year) before it is hard enough to be able to use it without it melting away really fast if it gets wet.
The recipe for the soap I made as shown in the pictures above:
– 120 gram shea butter (20%)
– 100 gram rice bran oil (16%)
– 220 gram olive oil (36%)
– 125 gram coconut oil (20%)
– 40 gram jojoba oil (7%)
– 10 gram beeswax (2%)
– 77 gram NaOH
– 208 grm water
– 30 drops of orange eo
– 20 drops of bergamot eo
– 6 drops of cedar eo
This recipe will be enough to fill a 900 gram mold, and will make a soap with 9% superfat. This recipe is totally experimental, I just put all the oils together I had in the house from cooking, or other soap or salve making projects and looked at their different qualities in soap and then made this recipe using a soap calculator. I won’t be able to tell if it’s actually a nice soap for atleast another 4-6 weeks. My aim was to make a soap that has a nice foam but is soft and a bit nourishing for the skin.
Laundry soap recipe:
– 550 gram coconut oil
– 97 gram NaOH
– 262 gram water
This will get you a very hard, white bar of soap wit just 1% superfat. I make my own liquid or powder laundry detergent with this soap. You can wash your hands with it but it will be very drying to the skin!
You can get it out of the mold after 24 hours and cut it, it’s probably already quite hard at that point.
Then leave it for 4-6 weeks before use.
Usefull links for soap making:
Soap calculator
The qualities of different oils in soap.
Cold process soap making explained