Soap Making 101

[Yaklady]

Thanks! Yes, it's yucky ucky cold here right now. BRRRRRRRR! I grew up in Oklahoma and Texas, and just moved here a few years ago. I do love it, but this bitter cold stuff takes some getting used to. My darn fingers stuck to the chain on the chicken waterer this morning as I was trying to get it off the hook to refill. My rooster, Jarhead, was crowing in my ear at the same time. LOL! All in all, I love my life, though. No complaints-cold n' all.

 

[Farmfresh]

The major reason to use commercial lye instead of making your own is the consistency of the product. If one batch of lye is stronger than another it is harder to determine exactly how much fat needs to be added to fully saponify the lye.

It can be done ... obviously they did it that way for centuries. A fresh egg is supposed to stay suspended in the middle of the solution if the lye is right for producing soap. I have never tried this.

As far as yaks are concerned, my uncle's neighbor rented land from my uncle to raise yaks in Kansas. He was interested in the fiber and the meat only. They are really neat animals and I imagine very efficient in the north.

Finally ... Welcome to Sufficient Self Yaklady!

 

[me&thegals]

Hi guys--I've been on a soap forum and recently asked the question about when a new soaper could feel confident beginning to sell. I asked because I noticed they had been advising a more experienced soaper to stop selling...

Most of the responses suggested 2 years of experience before selling. I'd like to ask you experienced soapers some of the questions I asked them:

1. How much experience (in batch # or years) do you think generally a person should have before selling?

2. WHAT makes a great bar of soap, precisely?

3. If I am not selling based on photos, and it doesn't matter if my soap turns out identical each time, would that change the timeframe?

4. What are the hazards of selling soap? I know so far about pockets of lye and not fully saponified soap.

5. Anything else you have to add would be excellent!

I don't expect to ever make a business out of this, but I'm really enjoying making soap from our beeswax, some of my garden fruits and veggies, our egg yolks, etc., and I'd love to sell at least enough to cover my soaping expenses, something that would become difficult if I experimented at this rate for another 2 years!

me&thegals, sudsily

 

[valmom]

Welcome, YakLady! Sounds sort of cool- do you spin? Yak is supposed to make wonderful fiber

Me&theGals- I would think you would be able to sell your product when you are consistantly producing a product you are confident in. I'm not sure a timeframe is a reasonable thing to put on a craft. For me, 2 years wouldn't be long enough

 

[noobiechickenlady]

My soap flopped. I made the single soap recipe from M&TG with soybean oil. I'll upload photos later today, but in short, it separated. I took a chance, with vinegar sitting in bowl right there and dipped a finger into the foamy stuff on top. No burn at all. I bite my nails, so I've always got ragged cuticles. There was a thick layer of oil underneath the foamy stuff.

My complete soapmaker says that cooling too fast & an overabundance of oil can cause this. I'm going with the latter, as it was very warm when I thought I had reached trace & poured into the molds.

I really believe that my kitchen scale is not accurate enough to measure for soaps. I bought it to visualize the amount of veggies I was getting, so small diviations weren't a problem with that.

Also, stands to reason that with smaller amounts, the measurements must be more exact, ie a smaller margin of error.

 

[me&thegals]

Oh, that's too bad. I think you're right on the accuracy and smaller batches. My best soap has been with the larger batches. As much as I hated to, I actually got a special digital grams/oz scale just for soaping. I wish you better luck next time!!

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Thank you! Now that I've jumped in, I'm going to stay
Hubby is supposed to get me a commercial type kitchen scale for Christmas. Any recomendations on type? I would prefer a non-electric/non-battery.

 

[me&thegals]

Nonelectric AND nonbattery? Would that be solar?

I have a big market scale, but it's way expensive and just does lbs. I thought I would just convert everything online, but it is not accurate enough and an enormous pain to keep pulling up online conversion calculators with dial-up.

A local kitchen-supply store had one for $30, WM for $20. I went with the more expensive one (a Salter) because it had a great warranty. It goes up to 11 lb, has a tare feature, g/oz. I really like it so far. It runs on lithium batteries.

My market scale has a battery with a recharging cord and plug.

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Yeah, I guess I'm thinking the old timey market type scales. They aren't real accurate for small amounts, I take it?

 

[me&thegals]

Well, purely from a math point of view, the larger the batch of soap, the less difference a 1-gram (for example) error will make. The smaller the batch, of course, the more "wrong" it will be.

If you are talking about the kind that have a bowl or scoop and a sliding "measurer" thingie, that's pretty inaccurate.

The thing about soapmaking is that if you end up with a lye-heavy soap, it's actually going to burn people's skin. I think it's pretty forgiving, from what I have read, for being overly oily but definitely not over lye-ey

OTOH, people made soap WAY before digital scales, so who am I to say?