Soap Making 101

[savingdogs]

Just let it keep drying. I've had some still pretty soft after two days and after curing really well it came out fine. I'd leave it in the mold, or put the mold in the freezer before trying to unmold it.

 

[krisac]

Okay... so I took half out of the molds and put half in the freezer for a bit. the half that came out of the molds were oily, mushy but when cut if handled carefully did stand on their sides and have been set back to cure. what I rinsed out of the molds Some got left in made ...BUBBLES!!! I took a bi of what was left on the sides and rubbed it through my fingers under water and it seemed like SOAP! so I don't know if this is good or bad since I thought there was still supposed to be a lye factor in it at this stage. we'll see how the freezer half does.
Does anyone have a recipe for goat's milk soap with glycerin???
Kristina

 

[freemotion]

Does anyone have a recipe for goat's milk soap with glycerin???

Homemade soap contains glycerin naturally....or are you looking to add more? Goat's milk soap will be pretty darn moisturizing!

 

[BirdBrain]

Most soapers I know taste their soap to see if they get a zing. If not then all the lye is used ip and you are good. The drying out is usually all that happens during curing. I discount my water ( reduce the amount) so my soap is pretty hard when it comes out of the molds at 12 hours or less. I use beef tallow, olive oil, coconut and castor oil in my recipe. Once it is cool I can cut it. Sometimes I use aloe Vera juice as my liquid which makes it even more moisturizing.

 

[Bettacreek]

Most soapers I know taste their soap to see if they get a zing. If not then all the lye is used ip and you are good. The drying out is usually all that happens during curing. I discount my water ( reduce the amount) so my soap is pretty hard when it comes out of the molds at 12 hours or less. I use beef tallow, olive oil, coconut and castor oil in my recipe. Once it is cool I can cut it. Sometimes I use aloe Vera juice as my liquid which makes it even more moisturizing.

It's not just drying out, it's still in a chemical reaction. You've got to leave it for the full cure period. As for soap feeling something like soap... it should at this point. My batter sudses up a little when I clean out my equipment. However, that glide you feel that doesn't seem to want to wash off, that's the lye, not soap. Lye is basic and bases feel "slippery".

 

[~gd]

Most soapers I know taste their soap to see if they get a zing. If not then all the lye is used ip and you are good. The drying out is usually all that happens during curing. I discount my water ( reduce the amount) so my soap is pretty hard when it comes out of the molds at 12 hours or less. I use beef tallow, olive oil, coconut and castor oil in my recipe. Once it is cool I can cut it. Sometimes I use aloe Vera juice as my liquid which makes it even more moisturizing.

It's not just drying out, it's still in a chemical reaction. You've got to leave it for the full cure period. As for soap feeling something like soap... it should at this point. My batter sudses up a little when I clean out my equipment. However, that glide you feel that doesn't seem to want to wash off, that's the lye, not soap. Lye is basic and bases feel "slippery".

Only strong bases give that slippery effect and it is from the lye reacting with skin oils and the skin itself turning them into soap. Even when the reaction is stopped and the skin soap rinsed away with vinegar the skin is likely to feel smooth since the dead skin will be removed and if a bad amount of lye or contact time was permitted your fingerprints may be gone and the skin pink showing the least amount of chemical burn. If all the skin layers are burned you will learn that caustic burns are very slow to heal since skin heals from the edges only. ~gd

 

[hillfarm]

yep, I had some pretty sore fingertips after bare handling my soaps. I also got the red raw hand wash from some. It's best to allow for the cure time if you're gonna give it away or sale it. I am just an impatient soul.

 

[Bettacreek]

Haven't had any chemical burns. However, nursing school has taught me about how skin tissues heal. Either way, the point was that it's not safe soap yet. It needs to be cured for the full length of time.

 

[krisac]

I think what I have made is something but not soap. I also feel like I am reading in a foriegn language. going to hit up some used book stores and see what I can find all of the information on the web is actually too much. everyone has and does everything differently. Different process, hot, cold, melt and pour, glycerin base, goats milk, no goats milk , lye, borax, four thousand oils, and fragrances, Molds? don't even get me started...Most instructions seem more concerned with what I am wearing that what the hell I should be doing to make the soap. "add your oils" scroll down three pages and find out that it didn't mean the fragrance. What if I want oatmeal? where in the name of all that is holy does that go in? Vitamin C??? not a oil? where does it get added. I don't think I made soap I made oily soap tasting pudding...why because thirty umpteen thousand people all "know" how to do this and I'm not sure anyone knows how to explain it.

 

[Bettacreek]

LOL! I'm sorry, I know it's not funny, but that is EXACTLY why I hadn't touched soapmaking for years. Make it very simple... Forget every last recipe you've looked at. Go look in your cabinet, find an oil, don't care what kind it is. Go to soapcalc.net and use say 10oz of whatever your oil is. You can leave the lye:water at the basic setting that soapcalc has preset, you can even leave the superfat where it's at (I believe it is set at 5%). Just look to see how much lye is needed and how much water. Make your first batch with that one oil, mold it in whatever you have available (line it with seran wrap, freezer wrap, butcher paper, or something similar, if the container isn't pre-waxed).
So many people read stuff online and go crazy and give up or never even try. You just have to start small and work your way up. Use cheap to start with, then as you learn how to make soap with cheap stuff, then you can experiment.

ETA: Oatmeal would go in after trace, or after pouring into the molds if you want it on top. Why add the Vitamin C? And, personally I don't wear anything special, just use a wine bottle with a pop top lid for my lye mixture so that fumes aren't going.