Soap Making 101

[me&thegals]

Hi all you amazing soap makers, or wannabees like me I've sorted through all the old threads on soapmaking but wonder if I might just start another one anyway to put it all in one spot.

What are your absolute must-have books? I have heard of The Soapmaker's Companion and The Everything Soapmaking Book and have both on hold at my local library. What others should I get?

Where do you get your supplies? Online ordering my lip balm containers doubled my total cost in shipping? How do you keep your costs down if going online? What are your favorite sites?

What are your favorite recipes? When we had a glut of sweetcorn, I was online trying to find ways to use it up and came up with this one. I have not tried it yet, but I surely plan to!

Recipe for Cornmeal Soap
Ingredients
Coconut oil 1 cup
Olive oil 7.5 T
Palm oil 6 T
Lye 2.6 ounces (0.16 pound)
Water 0.60 cup
Cornmeal 2 T and 1 t
Sesame seeds 0.8 t
Glycerin 0.9 ounces (0.055 pound)
Vitamin E 0.07 ounces (0.0044 pound)
Fragrance 0.28 ounces (0.017 pound)

Method
Pour the lye into the water and stir well. Set aside until the temperature falls to 108 F.

Mix the coconut oil, olive oil and palm oil together in an enamel pot. Heat the oils to a temperature of 108 F.

Slowly pour the lye solution into the oil mixture and stir well. If the temperature of the mixture falls, heat the mixture up to 108 F again.

Stir the mixture for up to one hour until it becomes 'trace', (i.e. clear). Then add the glycerin, Vitamin E, cornmeal and sesame seed. Stir for five minutes, then add the fragrance.

Pour the soap into molds. Leave for at least six hours or overnight.

Remove the soap from the molds, and cure in a shed for one month. This is to make sure there is no residual effect from the caustic lye.


What other things should I know about making soap? Thanks so much in advance!

 

[punkin]

Yeah, a soap making thread. Thank you me&thegals.

I do have a question about colorants. Do you use them and what do you use?

I'm having trouble finding something that produces a nice color.

 

[cartychic]

Im so interested in this, well done punkin!!!

 

[me&thegals]

Hey, soapers! Can you give me a hand? I'd so appreciate answers to all the above.

Also, WHERE do you get your lye?

Do you NEED to get huge drums of the oils to be cost effective? My sister looked into cold process soap making years ago and turned back from it after hearing you need to invest $100s up front to be cost effective down the road, buying in bulk. Is this true?

 

[punkin]

After hours of searching online and getting disgusted with shipping fees and excess paperwork, I finally found a local company just 20 away.

I had to buy a 55lb. bag, but it cost only around $65. Check around your area to see if you have any local chemical companies.

"Trace" doesn't mean clear. It means that if you drizzle a line of your soap mixture on top of what you have in the pan and it leaves a raised path (kind of like what you see if you drizzle gravy on itself).

I would add the rest of the ingredients at light trace and stir until you see a thicker trace.

I ran your recipe through SummerBee Lye Calculator and it showed that your lye should be 3.29 oz and water at 7.69. I did that at 1% superfatted since you are adding the glycerin and vitamin E oil at trace. The calculator can be found at http://www.summerbeemeadow.com/

Another good site is http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcWP.asp
It shows the properties of your recipe and has alot of good reading if you are new to the calculator.

Let someone else check my lye amounts before you run and make this. I'm a newbie, too and by no means an experienced soapmaker.

I'm not buying in bulk. I want to see if this goes over well before I do invest in alot of money. I get my coconut at Wallyworld and a large olive oil at a local grocer. I did have to order the palm oil online from ebay. If you can find someone who sells multiple things you need, you can save on shipping.

I hope this helps!

 

[freemotion]

Check hardware stores for lye, it is sold as drain opener. I got my local store to order it for me.

You don't need a recipe with a lot of ingredients. I make unscented soap with two or three fats and lye and that is it, for our own use. Now I am adding goat's milk because I have plenty of it. You only need all that other stuff if you want to sell it. For now, you can learn about soapmaking with simpler recipes. The calculator already mentioned is fantastic!

I put out some extra bars of my very simple soap at my office and they sold like hotcakes. Just goes to prove that you don't even need colorants or scents to make a popular product. Several people are still pestering me to make more. I used suet, lard, and chicken fat, the latter leftover from making catfood and broth!

 

[me&thegals]

Punkin--Thanks for the links to the calculators. Which ingredient did you start with from my recipe to base the proper fat % on? I guess what I'm wondering is how you could tell it was wrong and how I can figure that out for other recipes.

Freemotion--Thanks for the tip on keeping it simple. Would you mind posting your recipe for the plain soap you describe above? Sounds like a perfect way to start!

 

[freemotion]

It is different each time. I just see how much tallow and lard I have and run it through the online calculator to get the lye amount. I have added a little chicken fat to some batches, maybe only 10% at the most, if I have excess or if the quality is not what I want to save for cooking with (too white.) I use mostly tallow, since it is the hardest fat. Since I render it from suet that I buy at the grocery store, I never know exactly how much I will end up with. That is why I love that calculator so much. You can see what is in your fridge, freezer, and cupboard, and use it up. If you have a forgotten bottle of veg oil in the back of a cupboard, you can calculate that in, too.

ETA: In an attempt to be more specific.....I probably use at least 60% tallow, often more. Once the woodstove is going full-time again, I will be rendering suet again and freezing it for birdseed suet cakes and soapmaking. So a typical batch might be 60% tallow, 30% lard, and 10% chicken fat. Or 80% tallow and 20% lard. Or 70% tallow, 10% lard, 20% old grapeseed oil that no longer smells fresh enough to use in my massage practice. Make sense? No oil is really off limits....coconut oil that got forgotten and no longer smells like coconut, etc. I don't use really rancid oil, though.

 

[me&thegals]

I see now. You're saying that, like any recipe, it's not the individual amount that matters. It's the ratio of all the ingredients. Thanks!

 

[big brown horse]

Free, you make it sound so easy, I might try my hand at soap!