Autonopedia > Body and Home > Soap Making >
Share |

Soap making - General Instructions

Soap making is not hard to do if you are armed with just a little bit of information. Soap is the result of combining fats with some sort of caustic agent such as lye using water as a catalyst. Armed with just a little bit of knowledge it’s possible to turn out a nice batch of soap with things that can be purchased at most grocery stores. Read on to get the specifics on this fun and interesting hobby. Study this page carefully and you shouldn't have any problems turning out a great batch of soap.

CONTENTS:

Locating lye and safety precautions

The following may frighten you, but I promise that thousands of people make soap everyday without mishap.

You need to know all the dangers present in order to avoid trouble. If you can get past the following warnings--you are destined to make soap!

Look where drain cleaners are sold and buy 100% lye (Red Devil is one brand). Don't bother looking at liquid drain cleaners and don't try Draino (it contains metal). If you aren't sure the product is 100% lye, then order lye from a soapmaking or chemical supplier.

Of all soapmaking supplies, it seems that lye is the most unfamiliar to new soapmakers and they don't know where to buy it. New soapmakers are also afraid they will buy the "wrong kind of lye." Ask for lye as "sodium hydroxide technical grade" granular or flake form.

Most good soap recipes list lye by weight for accuracy. Lye in granular form (drain cleaner) measures differently than lye in flake form (the form of lye from labouratory chemical suppliers, pool chemical suppliers, etc).

Scales are a necessary part of successful soapmaking and allows you to use any type of lye. Lye can be nasty if handled improperly. Lye (sodium hydroxide) is also known as caustic soda.

Keep lye tightly capped.
Upon opening a container of lye, the lye crystals absorb water from the air, which can weaken the strength of the lye and cause it to form a solid lump. When not in use, keep lye closely capped.

Lye reacts with some metals: aluminum, zinc, and tin. Safe containers include heatproof stoneware, glass, enamel, stainless steel and plastic.

Lye can remove paint. If lye, lye/water or freshly-made soap splatters onto a painted surface, wipe it off immediately. Wash the area with water and detergent; wash it with clear water, then wipe it dry. Use old rags, because lye weakens cloth fibre.

Lye, lye/water and freshly-made soap can burn and irritate skin. You'll notice itching before burning. Lye/water on skin is first noticed by a slippery feeling. Rinse your hands with vinegar and immediately rinse them with running water.

Since lye can burn skin, you can imagine what it does to eyes! Always wear eye protection! Wear sunglasses if you have to!

Lye can be fatal if swallowed. If you have small children, keep lye (and essential oils) in a locked cabinet. Lye/water sitting at the edge of a counter can easily be reached by children and even swallowed. Drinking lye/water is like drinking liquid fire. If someone ingests lye/water, do not induce vomiting or otherwise try to treat them. Take them to an emergency room immediately.

Fumes from lye/water. Some people are extremely sensitive to fumes that come from the lye/water. Fumes also come from the stirring container. Fumes from small batches (1 pound) usually isn't enough to cause a problem.

Be aware than larger amounts of lye (larger batches of soap) create more fumes. With prolonged contact, fumes can burn the eyes and skin of sensitive people. If you make soap in large amounts and afterward feel as if your face is "sun burned," chances are it was caused by fumes.

Thousands of people make soap without mishap. In order to do so, you must be aware of all safety hazards. Children, pets and feeble-minded people should not be in the soapmaking area or have access to stored soapmaking ingredients, especially lye and essential oil.

These instructions are very condensed. Nonetheless, we believe you will have a good overview after you read these instructions.

 

Water: For best results, use rain, distilled, reverse osmosis or de-mineralized water. Your water should be 0.38 of your fat by weight. Don't worry too much about getting it exact, however, as this measurement isn't terribly critical.

Lye: You should know a little bit about lye, or sodium hydroxide. Lye is a very strong base. If you get it on you, you will find it's bad stuff. (Be sure to store lye where kids or pets can NEVER get at it.) You must use care in determining what utensils and mixing containers you use when handling lye. Use wooden or plastic spoons and enameled, plastic or glass bowls for mixing. (Lye will eat up Aluminum in a hurry. Also, lye instantly and permanently takes the shine off Formica.

Formica is so sensitive to lye that it left timeless streaks across the table where I wiped a few dry crystals off with my hand. Now, with our table top and kitchen counter tops ruined, the wife ushers me outside when I handle lye.) You would be wise to wear eye protection and rubber gloves when handling the lye crystals or the lye solution after you have mixed it into the water.

Dissolve lye in cold water. Having half your water as ice would be so much the better. Never pour the water into the lye.

Doing this could cause the mixture to explode and blow very corrosive lye water and crystals all over the place. Rather, always pour the lye into the water. If you don't stir it immediately as you pour the lye into the water, the lye will settle to the bottom and quickly solidify. This isn't a problem as tapping it with the stirring utensil will break it up. As you mix it, a physical reaction takes place between the lye and the water generating a lot of heat. If you are making a large batch of soap, the lye can even start the water boiling - with little droplets of lye water splattering all over the place.

If this starts happening, stop stirring it until the bubbling stops. Generally, it doesn't take more than a minute to dissolve the lye crystals into the water. You know this has happened as the water will become relatively clear. Before using, the lye water must now cool down to about 85 degrees F (or room temperature if your mixing area's above 85 degrees) before adding it to the fat.

Fats and Oils used in soap making. In my experiments I have learned almost any fat or oil can be used to make soap. Fats for soap making include animal fats such as tallow (fat from beef), lard (fat from pork), and the various plant derived oils and hydrogenated fats. Traditionally, animal fats have been used, with beef tallow making the hardest soap, pork lard a medium hardness soap and chicken fat the softest. It's generally accepted that the harder fats make better soap.

There are a multitude of fats and they each bring their own unique qualities to soap. If you want to know what a particular fat will do, make a small batch of only that fat and see what kind of bar it makes. Armed with this knowledge you can mix fats to give your soap the qualities you want. This is how soap recipes are born.

Whatever type of fat or oil you use, you must ensure it is clean and free of impurities.

Rancid and dirty fat can be cleaned by boiling it for a few minutes in a large pot with four parts water to one part fat. Set it aside and let it cool. After it has solidified, remove the fat from the pot in one piece. One way to do this is to run hot water around the outside of the pot, melting a thin layer of fat next to the pan. It should then slide out. Scrape all the foreign matter off the bottom of the fat. If it is still dirty, repeat the cleaning process again. It is also fairly easy to render your own fat.

What are your best fats for soap making? Amazingly, the soap making professionals feel that lard beats tallow and vegetable oils for gentleness to your skin. However, soap made with 100% lard doesn't lather very well. But it cleans beautifully. There is a predominant idea today that you must get bubbles for the soap to do its job. Soap making professionals have told me this is not the case. But if you want bubbles, you can have the kind of bubbles you want by using different oils.

Different Fats that create bubbles:

  • Coconut Oil gives big, fluffy bubbles. One hundred percent coconut oil soap is sometimes used around maritime operations as it will even lather in sea water, really, about the only soap that will. Soap with coconut oil can be a tiny bit harsh on some people's skin. If you'd like cheap coconut oil, get a one or five gallon bucket of popcorn popping oil which is 100% coconut oil that's dyed yellow. Yes, you will be stuck with yellow soap but this won't be a problem for most people.
  • Olive oil gives very fine, silky bubbles. This oil is very good for the skin.

In your soap making, use at least 25% of these fats as part of your overall fat to get the desired effect you're seeking.

Saponification (Sap) Value: Each fat requires a different amount of lye to change the fat to soap. See the Lye to Fat Ratio Table Page for a short discussion on this and a listing of different fats and the lye required to convert them to soap.

The temperature of the fat is important. It needs to be a bit above it’s melting point. This is 130 degrees F for beef tallow, or 85 degrees F for pork lard, or about the same temperature for vegetable oil. The hotter your oil, the faster the chemical reaction between the lye and the fat. But the hotter the oil, the easier the soap separates into layers during the mixing stage.

Mixing: With the lye water and fat at the right temperature, very gradually pour the lye water into the fat using a very small stream. Stir gently only in one direction the whole time you are adding the lye water. This helps it mix. You should insulate your mixing pot with old rags, etc, to prevent the fat from hardening before you've finished mixing the soap.

Saponification and its role in the mixing process: Simply stated, saponification is the name for the chemical process that happens between lye and fat as they turn into soap. It doesn't happen all at once, but actually takes days to complete. There are different levels of this process, and the most important one for you to know about is the "Trace" stage. This is the point at which your soap has thickened up somewhat. As you let the soap run off your mixing spoon back into the mixture, the falling soap stays on top and doesn't blend in, but leaves its "trace" mark on top. Its thickness is another way to know when trace occurs. Its consistency is much like the thickness of pudding after it's cooked but before it has set up.

        With stirring only, it can take a long time to get your soap to the trace stage depending on many variables. One of these variables is the heavyness of the fat. The lighter the fat or oil, the longer it will take it to trace. You can expect a wait anywhere from 30-60 minutes for animal fats to several hours or even days for the vegetable oils. Does this mean you need to sit and stir your soap for several hours until it traces? I don't. After mixing it for about 15 minutes, I do other things and mix the settled layers back up every 15 or 20 minutes when I happen to go by it. (You may wish to set your timer so you don't completely forget it!) At the trace stage of thickness, it won't separate out into layers when you pour it in your setting trays or moulds.

A False Trace can happen when making soap with fats that are solid at room temperature, such as tallow, lard, or shortening. If the temperature of your soap mix drops below the melting temperature of your fat, it will start to solidify. As it does, your batch will start to thicken up just like it was tracing - but it's not! Rather, it's the fats solidifying. To prevent this from happening, be sure that the soap you are mixing stays above the melting temperature of the fat. In fact, the warmer your soap, the quicker it will saponify. It wouldn't hurt to keep your soap up to around 115 degrees F to speed this process along a little more quickly. At 120 degrees F lanolin will curdle your batch, so sometimes, depending on the additives you've included, you may need to be very careful how hot you get it.

Vegetable oils can also be used for making soap. These oils are liquid at room temperature and without employing a trick or two usually require many hours of mixing before they trace.

Trick 1: Use a blender. The more finely the lye and fat molecules are intermixed the faster they will saponify. Using a blender, the trace stage can be reached in minutes instead of hours. Don't use an upright blender unless you don't mind millions of tiny air bubbles being permanently whipped into your soap. Use the hand-held type instead. With one of these, even your most stubborn oils should trace within 20 minutes. Sometimes, you can get a trace with animal fats in just a couple of minutes. Anyone who has sat around for hours stirring a batch of soap will be ecstatic with this.

Trick 2: Cook it. There are a couple of processes that I have developed myself yet are rather unorthodox. And this is one of them. If you don't have a blender, perhaps cooking your soap is for you. See the soap cooking page for more details. After it has cooled, pour or spoon it into the soap mould or tray and treat it like you would for the no-cook recipes. Even though it has been cooked, the chemical reaction that slowly turns liquid vegetable oils into soap will take much longer than cooked animal fat soaps.

When your soap has traced you can add your superfatting, colouring and perfume oils.

Superfatting oil: When your soap gets to its trace stage, the saponification process is around 90% complete. Fat added at this point makes your soap softer. There is a reason why the superfatting oil is added after tracing instead of at the beginning with all the other fats. If it was added at the beginning you wouldn't have any control over which fat or oil ended up as your 'free fat' as all fats would saponify together.

This is presupposing you are going to superfat with a different fat or oil than you used to make your soap with. Exotic oils are generally used in superfatting. They are added at trace to give the benefit of their desirable qualities without having to use so much it empties your wallet. A good rule of thumb is to use 1 oz. per pound of total fat used in the recipe. (That's one part superfatting oil to 16 parts total fat.) Let me list just 2 of the more common superfatting oils:

  • Avocado Oil: Feels very soft to the skin and makes an excellent shaving soap.
  • Cocoa Butter: Makes a hard bar. It smells and looks nice, but doesn't lather.

Colouring Dyes: Several things are used to colour soap. Approved items are clays, mineral pigments and spices. You can get these items from soap supply companies. Moving back into the area of unorthodoxy again, I colour all my soap with a piece of crayon. Virtually all crayon is made with stearic acid, a type of fat. The stearic acid saponifies into the soap leaving behind the pigment.

I melt crayon into my soap after it has traced. Don't be tempted to put your crayon in at the beginning as the lye will change its colour. You may need to heat a half cup or so of your traced soap to about 150 degrees F to get it to the melting temperature of the crayon. Even adding a crayon at this late stage of mixing, you may notice a slight colour shift over time.

Scenting Oils: There are two types of scenting oils, FO's (fragrance oils) and EO's (essential oils). An EO is made from distilling the oil out of the plant it comes from. A fragrance oil is a man-made chemical that's steeped in alcohol. EO's are usually used in soap making as FO's have been known to seize soap, or turn it into a yucky ball that doesn't saponify correctly. EO's are much more expensive and harder to find than FO's but also have better scent retention. If it is an EO, it will most often say so on the label. You will also know it by the exorbitant cost. FOs can often be used safely at trace however.

Make a small test batch first to see if your FO is going to work before making a big batch. Be aware that rose and cucumber FOs are notorious for seizing soap. If you want to use an FO that can possibly seize soap, you can safely use it during a rebatch. Certain fragrance oils and essential oils change the saponification characteristics of a mix. Jasmine absolute from real flowers is damaged by strong alkali. It is a natural fragrance and not a fragrance oil.

The Setting Tray: Some people used a galvanized tub. Other old timers used a wooden box in the shape of a tray with a cloth laid in the bottom of it. The cloth was used to help remove the hardened soap from the tray. If you are going to use a solid tray, may I recommend plastic wrap instead of cloth as a barrier between your soap and the tray. But there is something even simpler than this. If you have any square edged, flexible plastic trays with lips at least as high as a bar of soap is thick, use this instead.

After the soap has hardened, a slight flexing of the tray will dislodge the soap. When the soap begins to harden (1 hour to 3 days depending on how fast the curing process is moving along), section it into bars. When cutting, the soap should still be soft enough to easily run a table knife through it but hard enough that the soap doesn't run back together again. After it has further hardened (3-7 days), remove it from the tray, and break it into bars following the knife marks made earlier.

Even though your soap looks hard at this stage, it is far from done. There's a good chance it contains a bit of lye that should dissipate into the soap as the saponification process continues. This will be true as long as you had your lye/fat ratio correct in the first place. Your soap will need to sit for 2-6 weeks to dry out and cure, depending on the fat you used. Use litmus paper to test the lye content of your finished soap. Be sure to wash off any soda ash that has formed before testing. Soda ash has a high pH value. Your soap should be below a pH of 10 within 36-72 hours after it has traced.

The closer the pH of the finished soap is to 7 the better but don't expect normally made soap to reach this. If your soap is over a pH of 10, let it sit around for a week or two. Hopefully as the soap continues to saponify the lye will get transformed and the pH will drop. Your soap should be below a pH of 10 before you use it. Below a pH of 9 would be better. There are a few seasoned soap makers that test the pH by tasting the soap. Your tongue will tingle if there is still too much lye in it. Of course, you don't want to swallow this stuff. This was suggested to me as a possibility by Mrs. Mertz and also by other contemporary soap makers who sell soap.

Final Curing and Storage: With the soap out of the tray or moulds, stack it up and set it in a warm dry place for at least two weeks. When it has fully cured, place it in a plastic bag or air tight container, and store it in a cool, dry place. You might notice a thin, white powdery layer on the outside of your soap. This is soda ash, and forms as a result of the carbon dioxide in the air interacting with the lye in the soap.

This outer layer quickly washes off the first time you use it. If this is a concern, cover your setting soap with plastic wrap so the air can't get to it. After saponification nears completion, you can remove the air barrier to let your soap dry out. After all this, if there is still a thin layer of soda ash on your soap after it has cured, wash it off, then let the surface of your soap dry before storage.

Final Soap Making Tips:


My experience: The recipes I used left a lot to be desired. The instructions weren't sufficiently detailed for me to really figure it all out and so I made several mistakes which I will now point out.

The first thing I had trouble with was getting the lye/water/fat ratio correct. Often the recipe simply said ‘a can of lye.’ Obviously, in yesteryear all lye cans must have been the same size. Not so any more. From analyzing several recipes both relatively modern and old, I find the lye to fat ratio in many recipes to be lye heavy. I suggest you figure the lye yourself using the fat to lye table before using a recipe. Then alter it accordingly when making your soap. Let’s not forget the 0.38 parts of water to one part fat by weight.

(Water, lye and fat are the primary ingredients for all soap recipes I've found, and will make a good bar of soap all by themselves.) Depending on what you want to use the soap for, you may wish to deviate from the lye-fat table. Make laundry soap intentionally lye heavy and delicate facial soaps intentionally a bit fat heavy. Mix it:

  • Double the SAP table's figures for lye for really tuff cleaning jobs, like laundry soap.
  • Use the 5% fat column for regular hand soap.
  • Use the 9% or 10% column for delicate facial cleaner

     

Note: The more lye in the soap, the harder bar it makes. (One of my friends told me how before the days of the automatic washing machine, his mother always threw a bar of home made soap into the wash during her ‘manual wash cycle’ then pulled it out before the ‘rinse.’ The same bar of soap lasted several batches!)

The second thing I had trouble with was adding the different ingredients at the right times. rinse created some real messes with this one. Here is a suggested order to add things: Start out with...

  1. Water
  2. Sugar can be used in soap recipes for making clear soap. It won't dissolve if you try to add it after the lye or fats have been mixed in. Don't add sugar if you plan on cooking your soap.
  3. Salt: It may be of interest to know that the commercial soap makers use salt to separate out the glycerin which is a natural byproduct of soap making. Then they sell it as a byproduct even though by removing it, they reduce the quality of their soap. Commercial soap makers use salt to curdle a batch of soap. Salt is sometimes used to clean fat during the rendering process and can be used to help solidify soap when making it from ashes. Under normal circumstances you probably won't add salt.
  4. Ammonia is an emulsifying agent that helps a mixed batch of impure oils to get together closely enough to saponify readily. As the soap cures the ammonia evaporates, leaving your bar ammonia free.
  5. Borax is an emulsifying agent that helps a mixed batch of impure oils to get together closely enough to saponify readily. When the soap is used the borax acts as a water softener.
  6. Lye Mix all your fats together before adding your lye water to them.
  7. Fat or Oil
  8. Lanolin (Lanolin comes from sheep's wool. It's oil based and mixes with the other fats very nicely. Adding Lanolin as a superfatting oil at trace is also a option. Lanolin is a mix of cholesterol, other heavy alcohols and fatty acids. It's good for the skin and has a low sap value. Lanolin does require a little lye.
  9. Coal Oil
  10. Lemon Juice

    After Trace:     All the following items are optional:
  11. Ground Oatmeal (abrasive element)
  12. Vitamin E This is an antioxidant, and acts as an anti-rancidity agent. Poke a hole in one end of the pill with a pin and squeeze it out into your batch.
  13. Coloring Dyes
  14. Superfatting Oil
  15. Scenting oils: To prevent the lye from eating up your perfume, you need to add this as late as possible in the saponification process - the last thing before you put it in the mould.

The third thing I had trouble with was getting it to trace correctly.
Trying different things, I happened on a couple of different ways of getting soap to trace. Three methods of getting soap to trace have already been discussed. When I first started making soap I didn't know the first thing about "trace." Because of this, I had several failed batches until I developed a unorthodox way of setting soap that incidently is a lot faster than waiting for it to trace by stirring only.

The following method will only work with fats that are solid at room temperature, like tallow, lard, and shortening. You can't colour or scent your soap if you do it this way as you should only add these things after tracing. Professional soap makers are leery of this method as they feel it is important to stir the batch to trace as it keeps the molecules moving. Yet I add this last method here as I've had excellent luck with it.

The Intentional False Trace: After all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, set your mixing container in cold water and continue to stir, especially the sides and bottom. I use a big spatula to do this as the fat will solidify first on the sides and bottom of the pan. This solidifying fat/lye mixture must be remixed into the warmer mass in the center of the pot.

As the mixture cools, continue to quickly stir it while the whole batch thickens. When it gets to the consistency of thick gravy or pudding, (trace consistency) pour it into your setting tray. The idea here is to get it so thick there is no way it can separate, yet fluid enough so it will flow. With it in the setting tray, put it in the refrigerator so the fat in the soap can continue to solidify.

After it is cold, take it out of the refrigerator and set it aside. Unless you make the soap during very hot weather, it stirring re-melt and separate. Anywhere from an hour to a day, depending on how fast it is setting up, the soap should be ready to cut into bar sized pieces. Note: Don't get confused here. If you actually traced your soap, you shouldn't put it in the refrigerator. The refrigerator is only used when you thickened your soap in cold water before tracing had a chance to happen.

Final curing: As mentioned before, it takes soap days for the saponification process to complete, then weeks before it has cured with all the water evaporating. My experience is that it takes about 1 to 3 days for the soap to set up hard enough to cut the soap into hand soap sized bars without it melting back together again. Check it once or twice a day.

You don't want it so hard you can't run a table knife through it. After sectioning the soap in the setting tray, leave it in the pan to further harden 3 - 5 days. You want it to be hard enough so it will maintain its shape and not break up as you are taking it out of the tray. You can't hurt it by leaving it too long, but if you take it out too soon you can accidentally break pieces off or put big cracks in the bars that will later break.

When it has cured long enough, remove the now solid soap and break it up into bars from the knife marks made earlier. If you used a solid pan lined with plastic wrap, after the soap is removed, use your finger to smooth out the small grooves made by the wrinkles in the plastic wrap. (If you wait, it will be too hard and you can't be able to do this.) It is then stacked up and left to further dry (cure) for two or more weeks.

Using It: Even mentioning this may seem like over kill. When I first used that initial bar of lye heavy soap from my first ever attempt at soap making, I rubbed and rubbed, and didn't get much off it. But I soon learned that I was just breaking it in. After I used it a few times, it was much easier to use. If you have kids, to decrease their resistance to using soap ‘you’ made, break it in first then put it out for them to use.

Floating soap: Ivan Stern discovered the easy way to make your soap float. Just add a tablespoon of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) or so to your soap mixture after you've added almost all of the alkali. The bicarbonate reacts with the fatty acids to release CO2 into the mixture. Be aware this adds a very small amount of caustic material to your batch.

Elaine White's Ten-step Procedure

The equipment list:

* one 4-to-6 cup mixing container made of lye-resistant material (I use a stainless steel mixing bowl)
* one heatproof container that holds at least 2 cups (I use a Pyrex measuring cup)
* stainess steel, plastic, wooden spoon or a rubber spatula
* two thermometers made of glass or stainless steel (candy and meat thermometers work well)
* eye protection (wear sunglasses if you have to!)
* rubber gloves (optional)
* accurate scale to weight the fats and lye
* soap moulds (any flexible plastic container works well)
* a clock with a second hand or other type timer
* wire whisk (optional)
* pot holders or oven mitts
* measuring spoons

The Ten-step Procedure

1) Heat the fat. Put the fats in a lye-resistant container and place a glass or stainless steel thermometer into the fats. Be sure the thermometer doesn't touch the bottom of the container and give a false reading. Heat the fats and optional ingredients to the temperature specified in the recipe.

2) Put on eye protection and rubber gloves.

3) Use a heat-proof container to measure the amount of cold water (70 to 75 degrees F) specified in the recipe. Cold water is important. If you add lye to hot or boiling water, the water could "boil-up" out of the container.

If you add lye to *really* cold water, the lye/water might not reach the high temperatures required to make some recipes.

Stir the water and slowly add the lye. The water will get hot and turn cloudy. Continue to stir until the lye dissolves. Don't breathe or intentionally smell the fumes coming from the cup because they are quite "chokey." If you wait too long to stir the water, the lye could harden in the bottom of the container. This is not a problem. You can still sitr it, but it will be more difficult. Add a glass or stainless steel thermometer to the lye/water and wait until it reaches the temperature specified in the recipe.

4) When both the fat and the lye/water reach the temperature specified in the recipe, add the lye/water to the fat. It's sometimes a balancing act to get the fat mixture and the lye/water mxiture to specific temperatures at the same time. Never place lye/water in a microwave (the cup could break).

It takes lye/water longer to cool than it takes fat to heat. Most soapmakers wait for the lye/water to cool to about five degrees above the desired temperature, then heat the fat. When both the lye/water and the fat are within five degrees of the temperatures specified in the recipe. Use a pot holder and move the bowl to a sink (to contain splatters). Slowly pour the lye/water into the fats while stirring.

Temperatures for small one-pound batches of soap poured into individual moulds aren't critical. As long as the lye/water and fats are between 120 and 140 degrees F you will have good success. Larger batches or batches poured into a single mould, require lower temperatures.

5) Stir the soap until it "traces."
When lye, water and fat first combine, the mixture is thin and watery. Gradually, as the lye and fat react chemically to form soap, the mixture thickens and turns opaque.

"Tracing" is a term to describe the consistency (thickness) of soap when it's ready to pour into moulds.

To test for tracing:

a. Drip some soap onto the surface of the soap in the stirring bowl. It should leave a "trace" or small mound.

b. Draw a line in the soap with a spoon or rubber spatula. If a "trace" of the line remains for a few seconds, the soap has traced.

Tracing is easy to recognize, yet it causes new soapmakers a lot of worry. Relax and know that the soap will trace eventually. Just stir the soap constantly for the first 15 minutes or so, then stir the soap every fifteen minutes until it thickens and traces, no matter how long it takes.

6) After the soap traces, add up to one tablespoon essential oil (if desired) and stir a few minutes longer to incorporate the oil. About the only soap that remains totally scent-free is the Pure Soap Recipe that follows. Other fats result in soap that has a "fatty lye" smell. Essentials oils are necessary for a pleasant-smelling product.

7) Pour the soap into moulds and wait for it to harden. The recipes states this length of time as 'time in mould.'

8) Unmould the soap.
Soap is still harsh when it's time to remove it from the moulds. Put on rubber gloves and press the back of each mould compartment to release the soap. It's a lot like removing ice cubes from a tray. Sometimes the soap doesn't release easily from the mould. To overcome this problem, leave the soap in a freezer for a few hours. Freezing soap causes it to contract slightly, become hard and release from the plastic mould.

9) Wait the time specified in a recipe for the soap to"age" (usually 3 weeks). During the aging time the pH of the soap decreased (the soap becomes mild) and the bars harden. It's a good idea to write the following information on a piece of paper and place it with the soap: the date you made the soap, the date the aging time is over, and recipe.

10) Step 10 is *enjoy your soap!*

As soap ages, a fine, white powder may appear on the surface. This is soda ash (sodium carbonate) formed by a reaction of lye with carbon dioxide in air. This white powder is mostly on the surface exposed to air while the soap was in the moulds. Soap that contains wax develops little or no soda ash.

There are three ways to deal with soda ash:

Try to prevent it.
Immediately after pouring soap into moulds, cover the soap with plastic wrap or waxed paper. Press the wrap or paper onto the surface of the soap to prevent air contact.

Cut it away.
Overfill the moulds slightly. Later, when the soap hardens, take a knife and cut the soap level with the mould. This also cuts away the soda ash.

Wash it away.
Wait until the soap ages and hardens. Wash the powder away by rubbing the soap with your hands under running water or by rubbing the soap over a wet dishcloth. Set the soap aside to dry then enjoy your soap!

 

The Way Al Makes Soap

In 45 minutes I threw the following batch of soap together so I could get some pictures. The process doesn't take long. As the years have passed, my methodology has changed from the early days when I was doing so much experimenting while I learned the art. What follows is how I now make virtually all my soap.

Step 1: Determine about how large a batch you want to make.
Generally speaking, this will be determined by the equipment you have on hand and what you plan on doing with the finished soap. I generally use about 10 lbs of fat when I make a batch. Why I make such a large batch will be explained later.

Step 2: Get all your equipment together.
I collect my big stainless steel pot, a scale, a couple of Pyrex bowls, a plastic spoon, the SAP table and my fats and lye.

Step 3: Weigh out your different fats.

Lard Measured Recipes... My recipe is in my head and every time I make soap it's a little different. If I was selling my soap and needed my soap to be consistent every time, then yes, I'd also use a recipe.

Today, I'm making a smaller batch than I usually make using only 4 lbs of fat. I make most of my soap with lard. The only reason I make so much lard soap is because I have a 50 lb box of it in the food storage room. If I had a box of something else I'd be using that.

What you see to the left are really cheap food scales. If you are going to do much soap making I'd strongly suggest you invest in a much better scale. More on this later.

Generally, I don't even determine beforehand exactly how much of this or that fat I'm going to use. I just keep plopping the fat on the scale until it looks about right then I tap the table next to the scale to unload it's gears giving me a more accurate reading. This time... 48 ounces of lard. You must be as accurate as possible about reading the scale. Now I write "48 oz lard" down on a paper.

Using a spatula, I empty the lard into my big stainless steel pot. Next I weigh out my coconut oil. Even though coconut oil is a bit harsh on the skin I use it each and every time I make soap because the kids won't use it if it doesn't lather like mad. As coconut oil carries this quality I add about 25-33% coconut oil to the batch. I add the coconut oil to my measuring bowl until the scale reads what I want.

Tapping the table, I read 16 oz and write on my paper, "16 oz Coconut oil," then add this fat to my big stainless steel pot. Coconut oil measured

Step 4: Computing water and lye needed.
Don't let this step throw you. After you do it just one time it will be as easy as 'falling off a log.' Using the SAP chart I figure the following...

Water needed.

First I add the weight of my fats...
48 oz lard + 16 oz coconut oil=64 oz total fats.

Then using the figure on the bottom of the the SAP
table I compute my water requirement...
64 oz total fats x 0.38=24.3 oz water

Lye needed... (using the 5% superfat column)

(Sap Value)
48 oz lard x 0.138 = 6.336 oz lye
16 oz coconut oil x 0.175 = 2.800 oz lye
Total Lye Needed: 9.136 oz lye

Step 5: Measure the lye and water.
Measuring the lye... Scale Reading...Compared to the fat, a batch of soap doesn't take much lye, hence the need for a really good scale. A cheap little food scale like this one just can't measure accurately enough to get the lye amount exact. This is especially true with small batches where a very small amount of lye must be measured. This is the primary reason I make large batches of soap. The more lye I need, the more accurate the scale will measure it. My batches generally take at least a pound of lye. My scales will measure this somewhat accurately, but it sure won't adequately measure an ounce. Do this outside.

There's not too much to say about measuring the water. Get as pure of water as you can find. Rain water is good as is distilled water. Measuring the water

Step 6: Mix the lye in the water.
Mixing the lye in water Be sure to do this outside in case of spills and because of the fumes created. Always pour the lye into the water, never the other way around. The colder the water the better. Stir it with a nonmetallic spoon. In just a minute or two the lye-water mixture should be clear and ready for the next step.

Step 7: Heat the mixed fats until they have melted.
Don't over heat! Some people get wrapped around the axle, saying you must have the fats and the water at very specific temperatures. Hogwash. The fats should be melted but not hot and the lye water should be about the same temperature. I heat mine in my big stainless steel pot on medium heat until the fat is just above it's melting temperature.

Step 8: Stir the lye water into the fat.
As you do this, stir the soap in only one direction and very slowly pour the lye water into the oil as you stir it.

Step 9: Blend with a stick blender until it traces.
For the first ten minutes or so, your soap batch will have the consistency of the melted fat. Occasionally the soap separates which looks a bit like clabbered milk. Ninty-nine percent of the time a little water added as you mix will cure this.

Step 10: Add other ingredients at trace.
This photo shows what I get after 15-20 minutes of blending - in this case a thick trace. I generally take it beyond a light trace but I got carried away here - this is just a little thick if you're planning on adding things. A nice, thick trace. Now I add my colourings, scents and other ingredients which gives the soap it's distinctive qualities.

If I'm planning on making several different kinds of soap using the same starter stock, I'll often seperate this into two or at the most three smaller portions. You have to work quickly as the soap is now hardening rapidly. From a normal trace with soap just above the fat's melting point, you have perhaps 15-30 minutes before the soap gets so thick you can't work with it any longer.

The hotter the soap, the faster it will move from a nice trace to unworkable soap. Soap at 180° F will move through this stage in only 2-3 minutes, so be careful with the temperature!

Step 11: Pour the soap into moulds.
I lay a single layer of cellophane on the bottom of my tray which helps in removal of the soap later. Using a large spoon and spatula, pour or spoon the soap into your setting tray. I'm using an old margarine tub here. Smooth it out and lay cellophane over the top. I then get a large book and press it down on the soap lightly to flatten out the top. A full soap tray.

Step 12: Cut your soap.
Do this step 1 to 24 hours after you have put your soap into the mould. Using a thin knife, cut your soap into bar sized chunks. With this particular batch I poured the soap about 2 1/2 inches deep so I'm cutting the bars as if they are laying on edge. If the soap was thinner, I'd cut it as if the face of the bar was on top. Do not cover your tray with celophane after this. Leave it open to dry.

Step 13: Remove soap from mould and let it cure.
Use judgement in determining when to remove the bars from the mould. This time could be three days to a week or longer after you've cut it. The bars should be hard to the point they maintain their shape. Sit them on edge in a warm, dry place where they can be undisturbed. Then forget about them for two or more weeks. (This is hard to do if it's your first batch!) My special place for drying/curing soap is the top of the kitchen cupboards.

Step 14: Check pH and store your soap.
Actually, I rarely check my soap's pH now that I have the process down. If you're new to this it's probably a good idea to check your soap so you know for certain what it's pH is. Your soap should have a pH of 10 or less and will be unless you made a mistake on calculating the amount of lye needed. The closer your soap is to a PH of 7 the better but expect a pH of around 9. Many people taste their soap to check for pH. And you can do this too. However, I think pH strips are still handy to have around. To the beginning soap maker who has never experienced the 'bite' of the soap, how does one know when it's right?


After curing, place your soap into a plastic bag and store it until ready for use. Unless you've added antioxidants at trace, you should try to use it up within 12 months. If not, don't throw it out. It might not have a really clean, fresh smell any longer but it's still good soap. Finished Soap.

Summary:
This page isn't a full set of instructions but rather should be used as an anchor to tie the loose ends together. You owe it to yourself to read the soap instructions page carefully before making your first batch.
By no means should you consider this the only way to make soap. There are many different approches you can take and still end up with a great finished product.

Above all, don't be afraid to experiment with soap making. That's half the fun, and as you do, you'll develop your very own process for soap making which works best for you.

Autonopedia > Body and Home > Soap Making >