Jul
29

How To Make Homemade Soap – Getting Started

iStock 000015377821XSmall 150x150 How To Make Homemade Soap   Getting Started

Multi-colored, homemade soap for sale from a market.

Learning how to make homemade soap can be good clean fun and a great experience! You will be gaining the knowledge our previous generations couldn’t live without. Well they could but they weren’t very popular when going to town.

Besides being fun, making your soap at home can provide many benefits to your skin. Most of our commercially bought soaps can leave your skin dry and itchy due to the harsh chemicals they use. Making our soaps at home allows us to control exactly what goes into it, so we know what our family is using day after day on there sensitive skin.

What’s Needed to Make Homemade Soap:

Materials will very from recipe to recipe, below are the commonly used components we recommend so you can begin putting together your soap making kit.

  1. Soap Molds
  2. Soap Coloring (optional)
  3. Soap Fragrance (optional) -
  4. Essential Oils – Learn how to make essential oils at www.makeessentialoils.net
  5. Distilled Water
  6. Olive Oil
  7. Coconut Oil (optional)
  8. Other Oils (optional)
  9. Lye – Please read the handling instruction or material data safety sheet before using, this material can be extremely dangerous!
  10. Measuring Cups and Spoons
  11. Glass or Plastic bowls
  12. Stainless steel or enamel pot for mixing. Never use aluminum with lye.
  13. Stirring Spoons
  14. Rubber Spatulas
  15. Candy Thermometer
  16. Safety Equipment – Rubber gloves and safety goggles.

Steps to Make Homemade Soap:

  1. Properly weigh out water, oil and additives if any.
  2. Pour your distilled water into glass bowl. Add lye while stirring constantly. This process will create heat and fumes, please be careful and preform this step in a well ventilated area.
  3. Set lye and water mixture aside to cool.
  4. Once mixture has cooled to the point the glass bowl is just warm, add Olive Oil.
  5. Pour your olive oil into a large mixing pot and heat on stove to approximately 100 °Fahrenheit
  6. Pour the lye-water mixture into the heated oil in your large mixing pot. Continually stir with spatula.
  7. Continue stirring mixture until pudding-like consistency.
  8. Pour your soap mixture into mold and cover.
  9. Allow to properly cool
  10. Separate soup from mold
  11. Cut into desired sizes
  12. Allow to cure for three to four weeks. Good things take time.

Take a look at our soap making tips if you haven’t already. We outline the basic safety and time saving tips.

That’s all there is to it! Stay tuned as we provide detail recipes with measuring a yield info in the upcoming articles. We will also provide ideas for adding natural additives to your soap making it just that more special. In the meantime, gather your supplies and make your own soap making kit. Feel free to leave comment if you have questions or we have left anything out.

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Aug
18

Where To Buy Lye For Soap Making

lye for soap making 150x150 Where To Buy Lye For Soap MakingEver go to a store to look for that hard to find product and can’t find it? Then you call a few stores and make a quick stop and take a stab at your second guess and still no luck. If you’ve tried to make homemade soap before, you know how difficult it is to find 100% lye (sodium hydroxide) locally. Due to new regulations, lye has been taken off the shelf of nearly all retail stores and can lead you down a road of frustration if you don’t know where to look.

So What Are Your Options For Purchasing Lye

Option #1 – Order Online
The easiest way to purchase lye these days is online. Many distributors will charge you a pretty penny for shipping and handling of this caustic material. In our opinion it is worth saving the time and hassle on the phone or running around from various stores trying to locate 100% lye.

Option #2 – Local Specialized Craft Store
Contact your nearest candle making and soap making craft store if one is available in your area. Call before you drive, many craft stores we contacted did not carry lye.

Option #3 – Directly From A Chemical Supply Company
Order directly from the chemical supply company. This will usually require you to buy in bulk so you may need to go in on the order with a few friends.

 

Don’t have all the ingredients? Purchase them today…
Great prices and lot’s of reviews so you can purchase with confidence.

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Aug
11

Soap Making Tips – Helping to Keep You Safe and Saving Time

Safety Tips Soap Making Tips   Helping to Keep You Safe and Saving Time

Photo by Peter Kaminski

Making homemade soap can be fun and rewarding, it also can be complicated and dangerous without proper knowledge. Below are some basic soap making tips we put together to help simplify things, keep you safe and have you enjoying your wonderful new homemade soap in no time!

Soap Making Safety Tips

  • Pour lye into water, NEVER pour the water into the lye. Do this outside or in a garage to avoid the harmful fumes.
  • Use you soap making supplies for soap making. Create a kit so you have it all in one place. Lye and food don’t mix.
  • Wear gloves and safety goggles while handling lye. Lye is typically used as a drain opener and extra safety precautions need to be taken when handling. Keep vinegar handy in case of accidental contact with skin.  Lye coming in contact with your eyes will cause blindness.
  • Wear clothing that covers your arms, leg and feet. We are making soap not going to a fashion show, be safe and cover up.
  • Have a safe working area, free of distractions. Children running around or your cat jumping in to get a peek of the action can lead to bad if not horrible experiences.
  • Mix on a steady surface, sinks or a clean counter top with plenty of space are a good choice.
  • Never use an aluminum pot for making soap!

Time Saving Soap Making Tips

  • Us an electric hand mixer.
  • Measure ingredients accurately and with a quality scale. If you get this wrong or say “that’s close enough” you’ll most likely be throwing the entire batch away and starting over.
  • Old plastic food containers work great as soap molds.
  • When curing your soap, cover with an old blanket or towel to keep the heat in.
  • Like us on Facebook to get new soap making ideas, recipes and tips.

Buy Soap Making Supplies

We hope these soap making tips help keep you safe and enjoying making soap at home. If you have any questions or have a tip to add, please leave us a comment and we will be sure to respond or consider adding it to our list. To learn more about how to make homemade soap don’t miss our other articles!

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Aug
03

Beginner Soap Recipe

Try this simple cold process soap recipe, perfect for beginners. You can later customize this recipe adding additives such as color, essential oils and more. Take a look at our soap making tips to keep you safe and saving time. Enjoy!

Beginner Soap Recipe | Cold Process

Rating: 4

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

dreamstime xs 9057016 Beginner Soap Recipe

Ingredients

    Oils
  • 10 oz olive oil
  • 6 oz coconut oil
  • .45 oz castor oil (1 Tbsp)
  • Water & Lye
  • 6 oz distilled water
  • 2.25 oz lye (sodium hydroxide)
  • Safety Equipment
  • Safety goggles
  • thick rubber gloves
  • Tools
  • A good scale
  • Thermometer
  • 2 32 oz measuring cups
  • Glass bowl
  • Plastic or silicone spoon (used for stirring)
  • Stainless steel whisk or hand blender
  • Small cardboard box or container
  • Plastic bag, plastic wrap or parchment paper for lining cardboard box
  • knife for cutting

Instructions

  1. Line cardboard box or container with plastic bag, plastic wrap or parchment paper
  2. Put on PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)
  3. Weigh the lye. Pour 2.25 oz in glass bowl
  4. Measure out the water. Pour into one of the glass measuring cups
  5. Pour lye into water slowly and mix until dissolved (be careful not to breath in fumes emitted during this process)
  6. Measure out oils and melt in microwave for 1 to 2 minutes.
  7. Make sure the lye water and melted oil are within 20 degrees of each other. Microwave the oil longer if needed. Desired temperature is between 90 and 110 degress.
  8. Pour lye water slowly into melted oil while mixing.
  9. Use and hand blender or whisk to mix the mixture until it reaches a gravy like consistency. The temperature of the mixture should rise slightly. If using a whisk this process can take considerable time.
  10. Pour the soap mixture into your lined cardboard box or container and cover with plastic wrap.
  11. Let soap mixture sit for two days.
  12. With goggle and gloves, check your soap after two days. The mixture should now be solid and not have liquid on the top of your molded soap. If it does your soap mixture is lye heavy and is not safe to use.
  13. Cut your molded soap with a knife to desired thickness.
  14. Allow your cut soap to cure for three to four weeks.
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Don’t have all the ingredients? Purchase them today…
Great prices and lot’s of reviews so you can purchase with confidence.

Have a soap recipe of your own that you would like to share. Share your soap recipe and we’ll give you the credit.

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