Soap

Home made soap is so easy I can't believe it took me 10 years to work up the nerve to try it! I was so afraid of lye that I was paralized. Even if the lye splashes on you - and yes I have had it splash on me a little. If you neutralize it with vinegar and wash it with water you will be fine. I do wear gloves and goggles because I am not the best at not having mishaps (probably why I was so afraid of the lye), but have found that if you are deliberate in what you are doing and have everything set up before you start the lye process, soap making
is a piece of cake, or soap as the case may be.

There are some places online that you can design you own types of soap - which is what I have done all along. I know that I want to use certain types of oil and different fragrances and additives. http://soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp is the one I prefer.

www.millersoap.com is also another great source of information about soap making.

A little knowledge of chemestry is helpful in making soap. The goal is to use up all of the lye molecules and have a few oil molecules floating around free. If this were an Alton Brown cooking show I would have lots of big lye molecules and some big soft oil molecules that come and surround the lye molecules, but alas this is neither Alton nor tv. The lye is the caustic part of making soap, the oil is the moisturizing part of soap. The combination of these chemicals will work to make a new substance as long as there are the proper portions of the necessary ingredients until one of the ingredients is used up. So with soap, the fat and lye combine together to make a new substance - soap. If there is any lye left that has no fat to convert with than it will remain in the soap bar as free lye (a very bad thing because your soap will burn you) if there is too much oil, called super fating your soap will be very moisturizing. Well, moisturizing up to a point. If you have to much fat in your soap free, the soap will go rancid. I suspect that that is more true if you are using animal fat as opposed to say coconut oil or even crisco. Hmm something to investigate. I'll get back to you on that.


You also don't need to buy expensive essential oils - you can make your own. Just simmer your prefered sent/herb/bark in olive oil for 6 hours or so then strain through a coffee filter into a bottle. You need to use it pretty quickly though. You can also infuse the water with fragrance. I used lavender because I have a huge bush and love the smell. I used the fragrance infused water to make soap with eight months ago, the smell has mostly gone out of the soap now. This latest batch I used Essential oil lavender I am hoping the smell will linger longer. Or maybe I should just use the soap faster?


Items you absolutely, positively must have to make soap:

Goggles, gloves, a good scale with grams and ounces, a wooden spoon, a plastic spatula, a measuring cup (glass or plastic), a plastic pitcher to mix your lye in, and a seperate glass container to measure your lye crystals into, an enamel or stainless steel pot for melting and combining oil/lye (I use a deep soup making pot because it cuts down on the chance of splashes hitting me while blending) two thermometers (one for the lye, one for the oil) and a STICK BLENDER - can't emphasize that enough. You can get one for $10ish at the Stuff Mart - aka wally world.

Some good places to look for soap supplies are:
http://www.thesage.com
http://www.snowdriftfarm.com

As with most things I have found around farming; you don't have to go top of the line and if you look around you may find you have most of the stuff you need already. If nothing else and you feel you must spend money, go look at the thrift stores and garage sales.