Sometime in late December my dad dropped by unannounced. That's the way he always comes. He's 88 years young (his father lived to his mid-90s), is still spry and "with it" mentally, and has always liked to just drop in on people when he visits--which he does often. I think unannounced visits are a carryover from the days when his people didn't have phones to call ahead. He usually comes on some kind of a mission (e.g. to share an interesting obituary, or to give me his National Geographic--once he's read it cover to cover) and he doesn't stay very long. This particular visit his mission was to see if I wanted a partially used tub of lard. My brother's family had moved and my sister-in-law was loath to throw it away so she asked dad to find it a home. I don't, as a rule, use lard so I was a little reluctant right off the bat, and when I opened the lid and smelled it I could tell it was old and rancid so I was even less interested, but then I remembered the saying of my forefathers "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" and I determined that I would find some use for it so I accepted it.
Ah, what to do with a bucket of rancid lard? Well, I thought it would be an interesting experience to learn to make my own soap since the two main ingredients of soap are
fat and
lye--maybe
that's why grandma would wash out your mouth with
soap if you told a big
fat lie ☺. I hadn't yet started this blog so I had some time on my hands, and one of my most salient personal attributes is an insatiable curiosity so I set out on my soap-making adventure.
I read a lot of recipes on the internet, perused a number of how-to sites, and watched several videos on You-Tube. The process is fascinating! Here is a bit of what I learned as I studied.
The science of soap:
Chemically soap is a salt. In chemistry a salt is a compound that results from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. After the acid and the base finish reacting with each other the salt they make is composed of an equal number of positively and negatively charged ions so that the product is electrically neutral (i.e. that exciting fizz that happens when you mix baking soda and vinegar is really an exchange of electrically charged ions trying to reach an equilibrium--this chemical process also creates the magic that makes baking powder give us fluffy pancakes, cornbread, and biscuits). Soap is the salt of a fatty acid and is mainly used for washing, bathing and cleaning. Soap works for cleaning things because it is a surfactant. A surfactant is a a compound that lowers surface tension in liquid (i.e. it makes water wetter) allowing water, in this case, to penetrate deeply into crevasses in skin, hair, organic compounds, or fabric fibers to loosen and rinse away grease, dirt, germs, or stains.
How to make your own soap:
Ingredients:
- Oils or fats - I used lard and coconut oil
- Lye - pure Sodium Hydoxide (you can get this at a plumbing supply store where it is sold as a a drain cleaner)
- Annatto oil (an optional natural colorant - see how to make your own are in this post)
- Optional additives (e.g. I used Dead Sea salt, poppy seeds, and ground oatmeal as exfoliants and many people add essential oils to give it a desired scent)
Equipment needed:
- Stainless steel pot
- Food scale
- Rubber gloves
- Goggles
- Small spray bottle with white vinegar for neutralizing any lye water you might get splashed on your skin
- Plastic pitcher
- Spatula
- Stick blender (one of those electric hand-held blenders)
- Food thermometer
- Funnel
- Mailing tube, small rectangular wooden box etc. to use as a soap mold
- Stackable flat boxes to aerate and cure the soap
Choose your recipe:
There are an infinite number of combinations for making soap. Different combinations of oils/fats produce different characteristics of the finished product. By choosing different combinations of oils and fats you can control your soap bar's characteristics such as:
- Hardness - finished soap bars can be harder or softer
- Cleansing - this refers to a soap's ability to grab onto oils (generally the higher percentage of tropical oils such as coconut or palm, the more oil-grabbing ability the soap will have)--you don't want to overdo this characteristic or your soap will not only wash away surface oils and dirts, but also the underlying protective oils in your skin
- Bubbly vs. Creamy Lather - some soaps lather up with bubbles significantly and others make a creamier lather--for instance soap made with 100% olive oil has a creamy lather with very little bubbles
- Conditioning - this describes the ability of soap to leave moisturizers (called emollients) on the skin to keep it soft
There is a wonderful website called
SoapCalc.net that will help you figure out a recipe with proper proportions of different kinds of fat for the characteristics you want in your final product. Here is their discussion of
soap qualities, and here is their
recipe calculator to tell you exactly how much lye to use for different combinations of oils. In my case I made one batch of soap with only lard (it makes a hard bar with low-suds perfect for making my own laundry detergent), and another two batches with 90% lard and 10% coconut oil (that makes a softer soap with more lather for my handsoaps).
There is one more thing we should discuss...superfatting! In most situations such as cooking or personal health having excess fat is a bad thing, but in soap making having some extra fat can be good. There is a perfect proportion of lye and fat that will completely neutralize each other. However, that can leave you with soap that is a bit harsh so most soap makers add just a bit more fat (called "superfatting" in order to have a creamier and milder soap). I'd recommend no more than 5% (the
calculator lets you put in the % of superfatting you want).
Here is the recipe I used for one pound of pure lard soap:
- 6.08 ounces Water
- 2.146 ounces Lye
- 1 lb. Lard
| Total oil weight | 16 |
| Water as percent of oil weight | 38 % |
| Super Fat/Discount | 5 % |
| Lye Concentration | 26.087 % |
| Water : Lye Ratio | 2.833:1 |
|
| Sat : Unsat Ratio | 45 : 55 |
| Iodine | 57 |
| INS | 139 |
| Fragrance Ratio | 0 |
| Fragrance Weight | 0 Oz |
|
| Ingredient | Pounds | Ounces | Grams |
| Water | 0.38 | 6.08 | 172.365 |
| Lye - NaOH | 0.134 | 2.146 | 60.835 |
| Soap Bar Quality | Suggested Range | Your Recipe |
| Hardness | 29 - 54 | 42 |
| Cleansing | 12 - 22 | 1 |
| Conditioning | 44 - 69 | 52 |
| Bubbly | 14 - 46 | 1 |
| Creamy | 16 - 48 | 41 |
| Iodine | 41 - 70 | 57 |
| INS | 136 - 165 | 139 |
|
| Lauric | 0 |
| Myristic | 1 |
| Palmitic | 28 |
| Stearic | 13 |
| Ricinoleic | 0 |
| Oleic | 46 |
| Linoleic | 6 |
| Linolenic | 0 |
|
Here is the recipe I used for one pound of 90% lard / 10% coconut oil:
- 6.08 ounces Water (use distilled or rainwater--substances in hard water can react with the lye)
- 2.146 ounces Lye
- 1 lb. Lard
In one batch I added 1/2 cup ground oatmeal and 1/4 cup Dead Sea salt as exfoliants. In a second batch I added 1/4 cup poppy seeds and 1/4 cup Dead Sea salt as exfoliants. In both batches I added 1/8 cup of annatto oil for a nice natural yellow color.
| Total oil weight | 16 |
| Water as percent of oil weight | 38 % |
| Super Fat/Discount | 5 % |
| Lye Concentration | 26.657 % |
| Water : Lye Ratio | 2.751:1 |
|
| Sat : Unsat Ratio | 49 : 51 |
| Iodine | 52 |
| INS | 151 |
| Fragrance Ratio | 0 |
| Fragrance Weight | 0 Oz |
|
| Ingredient | Pounds | Ounces | Grams |
| Water | 0.38 | 6.08 | 172.365 |
| Lye - NaOH | 0.138 | 2.21 | 62.647 |
| Soap Bar Quality | Suggested Range | Your Recipe |
| Hardness | 29 - 54 | 46 |
| Cleansing | 12 - 22 | 8 |
| Conditioning | 44 - 69 | 48 |
| Bubbly | 14 - 46 | 8 |
| Creamy | 16 - 48 | 38 |
| Iodine | 41 - 70 | 52 |
| INS | 136 - 165 | 151 |
|
| Lauric | 5 |
| Myristic | 3 |
| Palmitic | 26 |
| Stearic | 12 |
| Ricinoleic | 0 |
| Oleic | 42 |
| Linoleic | 6 |
| Linolenic | 0 |
|
Time to put on your mad scientist outfit and have fun!
- Prepare your molds by lining them with parchment or wax paper. Put on a long-sleeve shirt, rubber gloves, and goggles. Weigh the water precisely using your food scale (all ingredients are measured in weight not volume) and pour it into the pitcher.
- Measure the lye precisely (I measure it into a paper cup) and then take the pitcher outside and slowly stir it into the water (never pour the water onto the lye or it can make a mini-volcano) with the spatula until it is dissolved. The water will get quite hot.
- Leave it to cool and go melt your fats in the stainless steel pan on the stove until liquid. When the fats and the lye are both back to around 100 degrees fahrenheit pour the lye solution into the fats while stirring vigorously.
- Now use your stick-blender to blend the mixture until you reach what is called "trace". Trace means that the fats and lye are fully integrated. The mixture gets thicker and you can recognize trace by lifting your blender out and drizzling some of the soap onto the surface of the mixture. If it stays on top of the solution briefly before sinking back in then you have reached trace.
- Stir in any additives you want such as essential oils, colorants, exfoliants etc.
- Pour this mixture through your funnel into your molds (I used a parchment-lined mailing tube and a wooden box that probably came from an old Jenga game). Cover and insulate (could wrap in several towels) the molds to retain as much heat as possible leave the molds overnight until the soap sets (i.e. has hardened).
- Clean everything that touched the lye or soap solution with lots of hot water and vinegar.
- After the soap has set using gloves remove it from the molds and slice into the sizes you want (an inexpensive plastic mitre box can be very useful to get straight cuts.
- Place the soap bars in your flat stackable boxes with plenty of room for air circulation. Find a cool dark place (e.g. at the back of a closet) to leave this soap until it cures. This can take from 3 to 8 weeks. Turn the soap bars over every week or so. After about three weeks you can start checking to see if it's cured by touching a bar to your tongue. If it gives you a little buzz it's still curing, if it just tastes like soap it's ready (after that just rinse your mouth with water--you'll be OK I promise).
The process described above is called Cold Process Soapmaking. You can also do Hot Process Soapmaking (use Google to find out how) which requires a couple of hours of slow-cooking after you reach trace but shortens the curing time significantly.
Why make your own soap?
- It's inexpensive
- It's fascinating and satisfying to learn to do things yourself
- You get pure soap with only the ingredients YOU choose
- Artisan soaps are so much cooler than factory-made
- They are always valued when given as premium gifts
- Your bathrooms are more beautiful with hand-made artisan soaps
- You could make extra income selling your own artisan soaps
- It's fun!
Try it out!
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