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Basic Soap Materials:
You will need a glass or ceramic mixing bowl of a medium size and a wood spoon (o.k., stainless steel will do in a pinch.) Under no circumstances should aluminum be used -- for anything in this process. Lye dissolves aluminum! You also need a measuring cup. That's it for the hardware.
Lard can be found in most grocery stores right next to the gallon can of Crisco. It comes in one pound packages that look like a pound of butter in a green and white box. Get the lard, not the Crisco; the one pound box will make two batches. Lye is pretty easy too. It will be found probably in the same store, next to the Drano. You need pure lye, such as in Red Devil. Since you can't buy one or two ounces from the cans, buy the whole thing. It's cheap and you will have more than enough to last the better part of the decade. You will also need water, but most people can get that locally.
Now for the fun part. You need a mold (not a fungus.) It can be as simple as a pyrex Custard dish or a hand carved creation with your own makers mark in relief. Please do not line the mold in aluminum foil. Usually no lining is needed. The soap contracts as it cools and pulls away from the mold. Directions:
1. Measure 4oz of luke warm tap water. Keep this in a Pyrex measuring cup or put it in something that will not mind sudden heat. Carefully add two tablespoons of lye. Stir. Let sit to cool.
2. Heat about half the pound of lard until liquid. Pour into your bowl.
3. Let these two items cool down before they are mixed. They should be about body temperature. Please don't put your finger in the lye to test it, feeling the outside of the dish should be sufficient.
4. When they have cooled slowly add the lye to the lard and stir. Mix these up well. Stir constantly until step 5.
5. When they have reached the consistency of sour cream add any colors or perfumes, spices or whatnot, (see below) then pour into mold.
6. Cover your mess with a towel or pot holder or something and let sit. Uncover in 24 hours, more or less.
7. Unmold on the second or third day and let sit for three or four weeks for best results.
Other fun things to do with soap:
Butter Soap - Great for the skin. Instead of lard use butter.
Rose Soap - Use rose water, not tap and throw in a handful of dried petals in step 5.
Clove Soap - Toss in two tsp of ground clove.
Cinnamon Soap - Only tsp this time.
Castile Soap - Replace 3/4th the lard with 6oz of Olive Oil.
Orange Soap - Two or three tsp of Orange Peel, grated.
Ginger Soap - Two tsp ground ginger.
Notes:
Almost any pungent spice will make an effective addition to soaps.
Strong dye liquors may also be used.
To make soap float, whip air into it with an egg beater when it is the consistency of Sour Cream and pour in mold as usual.
HERB SOAP BALLS HERB SOAP BALLS
1/4 c Boiling water
1 tb Pulverized herbs (Chamomile, Lavender, peppermint, rosemary, sage,
thyme, or a
Combination)
5 Drops related essential oil
2 c Shredded Ivory or Castille
Soap
Plastic wrap
Pour boiling water over herbs. Add 5 to 6 drops oil. Steep 15 minutes. Reheat til bubbly and pour over soap. Mix well with hands and let stand 15 minutes. Mix again and divide into 3 or 6 parts, rolling each into a ball.
Place on plastic wrap and dry for 3 days.
Basic Animal Fat Soap Basic Animal Fat Soap
From Making Soaps and Scents by Catherine Bardey
Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds of beef tallow
16 oz of water, preferably distilled and at room temperature
5 1/2 oz of lye
Grease soap mold and set aside
Place tallow in a large lye resistant pot and heat fat, stirring
occasionally, until, until it reaches 120F to 125F.
Place water in a lye resistant pitcher, preferably one with a pourable
spout.
With rubber gloves and safety goggles on, measure lye and slowly pour into
water.
Stir occasionally but slowly with a stainless steel or wooden spoon until
all lye is fully dissolved.
When lye-water mixture is within the same temperature range of the tallow
(between 120F to 125F), start pouring lye-water mixture into oils in a
thin steady stream, stirring occasionally. Refer to basic Vegetable Soap
Recipe for directions on saponification (a complex chemical reaction in
which a fatty acid reacts to a base to produce soap and glycerin,), tracing,
cooling, and aging.
Basic Vegetable Soap Recipe Basic Vegetable Soap Recipe
From Making Soaps and Scents by Catherine Bardey
Ingredients
12 oz coconut oil
12 oz olive oil
20 oz vegetable shortening
16 oz water, preferably distilled & at room temperature
6 oz lye
Grease soap molds and set aside. Place coconut oil, olive is fully dissolve
oil and vegetable shortening in a large lye resistant & heat resistant pot.
Heat the fats and stir regularly to dissipate heat. When the oils have
reached a temperature within the 97F to 100F range, remove pot from heat.
Place water in lye resistant pitcher, preferably one with a pourable spout.
With rubber gloves and safety glasses on, measure lye and slowly pour into
water.
Stir constantly but slowly with a stainless steel or wooden spoon until all
lye is dissolved
When lye/water mixture is within the 97F to 100F range (same as the
temperature of the fats), start pouring lye/water mixture into oils in a
thin steady stream, while stirring occasionally.
Keep stirring constantly and slowly, but not over zealously. You don't want
to be creating air bubbles in the mixture - unless you want your soap to
float.
After about 10-15 minutes, the mixture should start tracing, which means
that it has gone from clear to opaque, that it has thickened and that when
you now pick up the spoon in the pot, the liquid soap drizzles off of it and
leaves a trace on the surface. If after 45 minutes to an hour, your soap
mixture still hasn't started tracing yet, then you might have to recheck
your measurements.
At this point, the soap mixture is ready to be poured or ladled into the
molds. Do so, seal the mold with plastic wrap (or with the cover to the
mold), put some blankets or towels on it and place it in a draft-free place.
Let it sit for 48 hours.
After 48 hours, remove the mold's lid and plastic wrap and assess your soap;
with rubber gloves on (remember: the lye is still highly caustic so don't
touch your soap with your hands) gently touch the surface of the soap. If
the soap is still very soft, let it sit overnight and the next day
unwrapped. If the soap is firm to the touch (yet still leaves an imprint)
take the soap out of g the mold cut into pieces (if necessary), trim off any
excess and place it on a drying rack, clean butcher block or a piece of
plastic wrap.
If you have used individual soap molds, then you simply need to wait another
three weeks for your soap to have completed its aging process. If you have
used a large mold and are planning on slicing it up into small bars, then
start checking the soap after about one week or so.
Once the soap is sliced, place the individual bars onto a drying rack,
butcher block, a piece of plastic wrap or wax paper, and let the soap air
dry for another 2 1/2 weeks until the surface of the soap is very hard to
the touch. Scrape off whatever ash might be on the bar's surface with a
sharp knife, and your soap is ready to use!
Simple Tallow Soap Simple Tallow Soap
All soaps follow the basic algorithm below. If you are interested in simple soap that does not use tallow, substitute coconut oil for the tallow, or even vegetable shortening.
INGREDIENTS: 1 1/2 Cup melted tallow
1/2 Cup olive oil (can substitute 2 cups tallow, but I wouldn't use it on my face!)
6oz cold, soft or distilled water
4 TBSP LYE (flakes or grains...a common brand in the US is "RedDevil")
Molds for pouring (a saran-wrap lined bread pan is fine, or a vaseline coated square dish. Candy molds work fine, too. NO EXPOSED METAL!) Soap forms when fats are converted into fatty acids through the process of saponification. This occurs in the presence of water and a strong base. Lye is simply Sodium Hydroxide, (NaOH) and is an extremely powerful base. Wear rubber gloves and BE CAREFUL when handling this substance. If you notice microscopic areas of skin that begin to burn after using lye, you have small grains of NaOH on your skin that are picking up water from the air and trying to saponify your skin. Wash immediately with water or a 50:50 mix of water and vinegar (a weak acid.) If you get it in your eye, flush copiously and constantly and high-tail it to the eye doctor, as alkaline substances are more prone to injuring the eye than acidic ones. Soapmaking is fun and safe if the ingredients are handled properly. I mean, we're dealing with strong inorganic chemicals and hot, melted fat. Could be a disaster if one was careless. ALGORITHM:
Melt some tallow in the oven at around 150 deg F (65deg C.) Measure appropriate quantity into glass casserole dish and save the rest for the next batch. Add olive oil, and stir to mix. Set dish in a 95 degF water bath (35 degC) to cool. A "lukewarm" water bath is close enough, if you don't have a good thermometer.
Add Lye to cold soft water, using an old mason jar as a vessel. You can soften hard water with a few drops of ammonia, or a few grains of Boric acid (Borax,) or use distilled water. Stir quickly after adding lye to water, with a wooden utensil, such as a chopstick. Never use any metal utensils during the actual soapmaking process, as lye will etch the surface and introduce metal ions into your soap (yuck.) Set lye solution in water bath to cool. When fat and lye are lukewarm (judge the lye by feeling the outside of the glass container, rather than by sticking your finger into the solution, as the latter will cause you to draw back a stump) slooowwly add the lye solution to the fat, stirring constantly with a wooden utensil. Now, the mixture will become cloudy immediately, but may not thicken for up to an hour. Stir constantly, avoiding splattering saponifying fat and raw NaOH all over the place, for 15 minutes. You can then take a break, if necessary, for 2-3 minutes, but return to stirring until the mixture rehomogenizes. Purists will tell you you must stir constantly, but I've found that intermittent stirring is fine as long as you keep at it, and not be too intermittent about it. Soap is ready to pour into the mold when it's thick enough to support an object stuck into its midst...that spoon you're holding, for instance. The consistency is somewhere between whipped cream and cake frosting. Carefully pour into molds, and set in a warm place, covered, to continue the reaction. In about eight hours, use a sharp knife to cut into squares, rectangles, whatever. In 24-48 hours, remove from mold (if you used saran wrap, you can just lift the whole thing out of the mold) and stack bars on a plate pyramid style to cure. Cure for 2-4 weeks and then store wrapped in tissue, ziplock bags, a metal candy box, or whatever. Homemade soap has a higher water content than store bought soap, and also a higher glycerine content (a natural by product of the reaction.) This does mean that the soap bars can dehydrate and dec! line in quality if just left out for months on end. If an ash forms on the surface, just scrape it off with the dull side of a knife before showing off your work. You'll find soap is easy to carve, but scrape, rather than cut the surface for a perfect finish. Wiping with a linen cloth, or scoring the surface with a serrated blade makes for truly presentable bars. Every bar of soap is unique. In this way, soap is a metaphor for humanity. (Hee!) Touching the soap to your tongue is a good test for completed curing; if there's no "burn," it's ready to use.
Easy Loofa Soap
Loofa Soap
* source unknown*
Supplies:
1 frozen OJ container (not a can, because you'll have to peal it away)
1 long loofa sponge to fit the can a few bars of Neutrogena soap (or you could use some glycerine bars, or any other "clear" soap you've made.)
How To:
Stuff the loofa into the OJ container.
Cut the soaps into small bits (I find grating the soap a faster way to melt it)
After the soap is all melted, pour it into the container. I fill it about 1/3 at a time, giving the soap time to settle and firm up.
Continue until the container is almost to the top (I usually leave about 1 inch or so)
After the soap had hardened completely, peel away the paper container and what you have now is a "log" of loofa. You can now slice this into any thickness you like. I usually do 3" pieces, that makes a nice bar of soap. |
