Equipment you need:
An accurate scale , it needs to weight down
to 1/10th of an ounce
A stainless steel pot or enamel painted pot
A plastic or stainless steel spoon
2 Rubber Maid Plastic Pitchers, at least one needs the lid.
(make
sure you write "LYE & Dangerous" all over the pitchers)
 Rubber gloves
Goggles to protect your eyes
A heavy Apron
A thermometer which reads as low as 90 degrees
and higher than 200.
A stick Blender (used for making milk shakes
in a glass)
A corrugated box, approximately 8"x8"x9"
A small size plastic trash can liner.
OR instead of a the box method, enough SoapCrafters.com Molds to hold Seven
Pounds of soap
Supplies you will need :
(All ingredients are weighed, even the water)
11.2 ounces of lye. (I use Red Devil brand, you can get this in the drain
opener section of your supermarket)
32 ounces of water
1 Pound of Olive Oil (any type will do, the cheaper the better)
3 Pounds of Lard
1 Pound of Coconut Oil (76 degree)
1.4 ounces of Soap Crafters Signature Line Fragrance
Directions:
Put on your gloves and goggles. Read the warning label on the lye. It
is a caustic and dangerous substance. It makes wonderful soap, but it
is not your friend as it will burn a hole in you.
The first thing you need to do is put
your scale in your sink, place the empty container on it, THEN turn
on the scale, THEN start pouring your water in.
Weigh 32
ounces of COLD water in a plastic container. Never use hot
water to mix with lye, it will volcano! |
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Very slowly, pour the lye
into the cold water. Make sure you leave everything in the
sink. It is safer that way. Lye has a lot of static cling,
so spills are easy to do. |
You'll notice the lye reacts
with the cold water and it gets very hot. It'll also
give off a gas, that's why you should be outside. Don't breathe
the fumes. When it is stirred, put the cap on the lye
solution and bring it back inside. |
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Let your lye sit in
a safe place (out of the reach of everyone including pets)
until it cools off to room temperature. This will take
two to three hours. |
You can make this lye solution the day before. Lye
solution is a very dangerous substance, it can cause death
if ingested. Make sure everyone in the house knows what
it is and it is not to be touched. |
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When the lye gets back down
to room temperature you're ready to start making your soap,
start weighing out your fats. |
Put your weighed fats
into a stainless steel container or porcelain (enamel) painted
pot. |
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Put the pot full of
fats on the stove. Heat on the stove, stirring often. Keep
a close eye on it because it reaches temperature somewhat
quickly. Stir well before taking its temperature. You're
looking for a temperature between 120 and 130 degree Fahrenheit. |
Always wear your gloves and
goggles when working with the lye!
Always clean your thermometer before using it. |
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When your fats reach between
120-130 degrees Fahrenheit, put your pot in your sink. If
you made the lye solution the day before, it is now at room
temperature. Put on your gloves and goggles. Very
carefully and slowly pour the lye solution into the fats. |
Use a large spoon (slotted
spoon works best) to stir it in. Hold your head back
while pouring to avoid any splash back getting you. In
this photo we are adding the lye solution to the fats. |
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Once the lye solution is mixed
in, (a couple of minutes), use the stick blender, use it off
and on (continuous use will blow it up, I know). Blend
for a minute, stir with a spoon for a minute, that kind of
thing. You should come to a very thick soap with this
equipment, probably in about 5 minutes |
You will see changes
in your creation. It will immediately start to become
more opaque. It will become thicker and more opaque
as time goes on. This is the mixture changing into soap. |
The lye, water and fats are
turning into something completely different. SOAP! If
you weighed accurately and had your temperatures accurate,
then the bowl the mixture is in will stay warm to the touch. |
If you don't have a
stick blender, you can stir with that spoon for about 1-1/2
hours. A stick blender costs about $20 or less, I highly
recommend it. Your wrist will thank you! |
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Stick blenders do have their
disadvantages, they tend to give a soap that's done being stirred,
but it is still so raw, the soap may burn your skin. When
I used to hand stir, I didn't have this problem. But
it really isn't much of problem. You should be using
gloves! |
Stick blenders also
tend to cause overheating of the soap from time to time. But
this really isn't much of a problem unless you really overdo
the mixing. |
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After one hour of stirring,
(If you're using a stick blender, this point will happen about
five minutes into stirring), you'll notice that if you drop
some of the mixture from your spoon onto the surface, that
it kind of dents the surface. It looks very thick and
this particular recipe that you're making has a light tan color. |
Now is the time to use your
stick blender to stir in the SoapCrafters Colorant if you are
using one. |
Stir in your weighed SoapCrafters
Fragrance that is cold process certified.Do this with a spoon,
do not use a stick blender to stir in fragrance. |
Immediately pour your soap
into your molds. The molds we sell at SoapCrafters.com do not
need any oil or grease on them. :) |
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Let it sit undisturbed in a warm room
for 24 hours. As the chemical reaction is taking place it generates
heat. If you put your hand on the side of the box in about
1 hour, you will feel its warmth.
Twenty-four hours are up. HURRAY! It
should still be a little warm to the touch. You can now remove
your bars from the mold! They should just pop right out. If you have
to struggle, then put the mold in the freezer for 3 hours. Take it
out and use a blow dryer on the back of the mold. When condensation
forms, it will slip right out.
If you used the box for a mold, just pull
the plastic liner out of the box, remove it from the soap and cut
into bars.
The soap should have a nice, solid consistency.
It may be a little oily to the touch. But it should be the same texture
throughout. It will resemble a cheese, like monterey jack,
and have a similar texture.
If you are going to melt the soap, now
it is ready for shredding. If you're not going to melt it,
just cut into bars and let the bars cure for 4 weeks or more for
the best soap. You can use it in a day or two, but a well cured
soap lasts so much longer and has better lather. So go ahead and
use a bar, but let all the other bars dry in the open air for over
a month.
To be sure that your soap making project
went well, purchase some ph testing
papers from SoapCrafters.com. A good soap will fall in
the 7-9 category. A successful batch does not burn the skin
in use. It is rich, bubbly, creamy soap that is extremely gentle
to the skin. The reason I give this recipe is that it is the
only soap that I can use on my overly sensitive skin. It keeps
me from scratching all winter long. :) If you're seeking out
soap making, I'm guess you're having problems with the detergent
bars/harsh soaps in the store too! So enjoy!
Notes
When your soap is almost thick enough and you're hand stirring,
now is the time to weigh out your essential oil in a very small bowl
(not a plastic one because the essential oils will mar it) or shot
glass. You want to weigh this now, because if you had weighed
it before all that stirring, you're missing some of it. Pure
essential oils are not stable. They evaporate away rather quickly. So
weigh your essential oil or fragrance and pour it into your mixture. Stir
well with a spoon. A stick blender used to stir in scenting
material may seize your batch of soap! (If you will be using this
soap for soap crafting, do not add any essential oil nor fragrance.)
If you'd like to avoid that white powder
that forms on top of soap, you can put a layer of plastic wrap right
on top of the soap. It needs to be touching the soap. That
way the air won't react with the soap making what we call 'soda ash'. But
that step isn't necessary, you can just scrape that white powder
off when the soap is done. This step can also cause soap to overheat
in the molds.
Overheated soap has a bit of a rind appearance
around the edges. You probably wouldn't notice it unless you cut
into the soap. Overheating is also the main cause of a soap's scent
disappearing. The soap can sour up to 200 degrees in the mold due
to insulating it and this will cook your fragrance or essential oils.
Many people who have instructions on the internet mistakenly think
this 'gel stage' is a disirable event, it is not. Originally it was
talked about in Liquid Soapmaking by Catherine Failor. She was discussing
a HOT process of soap making. Cold process soap making should not
go through this stage. If your soap overheats, then remove whatever
insulation you have on it and move it to a cooler spot. The soap
is still great to use, it just has lost it's scent typically and
has a rind appearance in the soap.
The most common problems
There are no "air bubbles" in soap usually, but a
stick blender can actually cause little tiny empty holes in
the soap. If you have bubbles in your soap, and there
is liquid in them then they are really lye pockets and this
is not safe to use. You might be able to save it by crafting
it.
If there are tiny pin holes with no liquid
in them through the texture of the soap, these are caused by overstirring
with a stick blender. They are nothing to be concerned about. :)
Gone Cold.: If your soap goes cold
during the first 24 hours or turns to mush, you probably lost the
saponification process. There can be a lot of reasons for this. Your
weights of oils, or lye may have been off causing a bad batch and
Mother Nature shut down your operation. Or your temperature
was not high enough with the fats and it just lost temperature. Or
it just caught a chill. :) After thinking long and hard about
what you did during weighing, and if you're sure your weighing was
correct, then pour it into your soap pot, put it on the stove. Heat
it while stirring constantly. When it reaches 130, remove from
heat, pour back into a fresh mold. This is what I call 'kick
starting' it.
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