I’ve been making small batch soap at home for nearly eight years now. I will not call myself a professional as there’s plenty of room for growth, but I am experienced. Here I want to talk about my experience and what I know. This will not be all inclusive and if you wish to make soap at home as well, please do your own research and educate yourself. Soap making uses dangerous chemicals, high temperatures, and you must wear PPE. Eye protection, face mask, long sleeves, and closed toe shoes. Accidents can happen and you don’t want to be careless with your safety.
Let’s talk about what got me started into making soap for my family and friends. To begin with I was a newly SAHM with my second born child. Having worked 30+ hours a week as a first-time mom prior to staying home this was new territory for me. I found that I was kind of losing myself in motherhood this second time around. My husband had taken on a new job to support us better, which led to a betterment in his career but also was more demanding on him, and we lived away from family, so a lot of the time it was just me and the kids. My oldest had started school so I was home with the littlest one waiting away the hours when we were all back under the same roof for the evening. Motherhood is hard, you designate so much of yourself to raising these humans and it’s easy to forget to do for ourselves. With the adjustments of a new child, husbands’ new job, newly staying home, and having a kid start school I also was dealing with everything that came postpartum. Chemical changes in your body seem like such a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but what happened with me was that my normal body washes started causing intense dryness and itching. Add in the lost in motherhood and the postpartum shifts I was emotionally taxed. My mother-in-law invited us to her place where she had shown me how to make soap, gave me some supplies, and a recipe. I used that bar of soap in the shower as a body bar and my skin has been happy ever since. I’ve been making soaps out of my kitchen ever since.
The PPE (personal protective equipment) you should wear each time when making soap is as folllows:
Eye Protection: Splashes happen, sodium hydroxide solutions is highly corrosive. You DO NOT want this in your eyes. You use sodium hydroxide when making soap to cause the chemical reaction to occur that turns the fats into salts and therefore into your soap. Want a cool school lesson, learn all about this then make soap at home with your kids! Craft stores sell what’s called a “melt and pour” soap that has done all the chemical mixing for you, all you do it melt it down and pour into your soap mold. Safer for kids but requires high heat so be safe.
Long Sleeve Clothing: Again, splashes happen. If you do get some sodium hydroxide on you, flush the area with water immediately. Do not use vinegar, oil, butter, or ice. Water, flush with water well.
Closed Toed Shoes: I don’t know that I need to say it again, but I will. Splashes. The solution or soap batter when mixing could splash. It may not immediately cause a stinging or burning sensation, but it will quickly. Protect yourself.
Wear gloves too. Dish gloves work well but being exposed to chemicals they will eventually break down, replace them as needed.
Face masks. This is for multiple reasons. When mixing the sodium hydroxide with water you are causing a reaction that will emit toxic fumes. Some wear a respirator mask. I mix mine in a well-ventilated area. I also step away and slowly mix the solution. The next reason to wear a mask is to prevent inhalation of airborne colorant. Even if you are using all natural, safe colorants (like powdered activated charcoal) the airborne stuff can irritate your airways. You don’t want to be blowing colored snot for a couple days.
There are a few “varieties” of soap if you will. I like making what’s referred to as CPOP soap. That is cold processed oven processed soap. Essentially you are mixing your melted oils and lye solution at room temperature to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. No hotter. Then you place the poured loaf in a warm oven (I preheat at the lowest temperature) to finish processing. This method is slower that a hot processed method, the benefits to this is that it allows you more time to add fun swirl patterns before the soap gets too thick. Regardless of if you do hot process or cold process, the process of saponification produces heat so both methods will get hot. If you choose to try a hot process method, I’d stick to a simple loaf of single color. Be cautious, if the loaf builds too much heat, it can split or volcano!
Here’s my process: First, you are going to properly weigh out all your ingredients. So have a good scale that can do at least ounces. I like weighing put my oils first and add them to my soap pot. Then I weigh out my lye (sodium hydroxide/NaOH) in a separate container (keep dry at this point). I use a glass jar since it is easy to clean and isn’t reactive to lye. DO NOT USE ALUMINUM! Aluminum is incredibly dangerous to use in soap making, it is very reactive to sodium hydroxide. Measure out your water in a heat safe container that has more space that the water you need. I am currently using a glass 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup but I’ve heard that can be concerning. Some recommend a stainless steel container. If you use any metal in your soap making be sure it is stainless steel. It holds up well, can handle the high temps and chemicals, and is easy to clean. SLOWLY add your lye to your water and mix gently. You want it to dissolve. BE CAREFUL, it will reach temperatures over two hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Keep the area well-ventilated and step away if the fumes are getting to you. KEEP THE LYE AND LYE SOLUTION AWAY FROM PETS AND CHILDREN. Always add the lye to water, NOT water to lye. Lye to water. Remember it this way “Snow lays on the lake” the lye goes on the water. Once you have everything melted, mixed, and cooled to the temperature range you want to use it’s time to start making soap! Get yourself a designated immersion blender, you’ll thank me later. Only use it for soap. You need a good stainless steel stir stick or silicon. Slowly add your lye solution to your melted oils/fats and gently stir. I like to pour my solution through a stainless steel strainer to catch any lye bits that didn’t dissolve. Once you’ve incorporated is all by gently stirring you can use your immersion blender to mix the rest of the way. Be careful of splatters. Once it has reached trace (think a thin gravy consistency) you can add colorants and fragrance that you want, stir it in and pour into your mold. To check for trace you can take your stir stick and make a peak, if that peak slowly goes away but you can reminisce of it you should be good, if it sinks back down and looks smooth you may want to mix longer. False trace can occur if the batter is too cold and everything emulsifies together but starts to separate again. You’ll know it’s false trace if you notice oils separating from the rest of the batter when you pause for a bit after mixing. When mixing cooler batter I like to let it sit just for a bit (5minutes or so) to be sure I have no separation. After every thing is mixed as you like and you have poured your new soap batter into your loaf mold you will sit it somewhere to saponify for 24 hours or so. After 24 hours if your soap is hard enough you can take it out of the mold and let it dry out a little longer to cut (if needed). Some soap can be cut at 24 hours and some need a bit longer (48 hours). Set your newly cut bars in a dry place to cure for 7-8 weeks. Curing is important for you and the soap. During this time the soap is continuing to dry, form salt crystals, and become more mild. If you use the soap before its had time to cure if could be drying to your skin, I find that the 7-8 week mark is perfect. If you make a castile bar it benefits from curing 6-7 months, this bar is a lot softer and more mild. There are lots of resources out there and some very helpful groups on Facebook if you decide to pursue this craft.
Happy shenanigans!