So You Want to Make Soap...

A resource list for you to get started with cold process soap

You hear a lot of this, especially in the natural health community, “Use homemade soap, it’s not full of all those chemicals.”

But what is soap, really? And what qualifies as a “chemical”?

The simple answers to those questions are that soap is chemically a salt, and that any substance is a chemical.

What, then, do people mean by saying homemade soap is not full of “chemicals”? The term has been a little misused in the last few decades. When people refer to “natural” they forget that natural things contain chemical bonds the same way that synthetics do, it’s just that those natural chemicals don’t normally carry a risk factor of some sort when it comes to using them for our daily care or sustenance, because we have evolved alongside these natural substances so that their active constituents work in conjunction with our biological processes rather than in opposition.

This doesn’t mean ALL natural things are risk-free; it also doesn’t necessarily mean that synthetics are all inherently risky either. I will leave that topic for others to delve into, though I may later work on some material in relation to it.

OK, but isn’t lye a dangerous chemical?

Yes, it surely is, when handled incorrectly. But it is a naturally occurring one; some people still make their own using hardwood ash and boiling it down until they get the crystals. We certainly haven’t gotten to that point ourselves, simply because lye is a commonly available product on the cleaning supply shelf at the hardware store that doesn’t cost much and is probably much more pure than we could make ourselves anyway. This is the sodium hydroxide (NaOH) version, also known as caustic soda.

There is also potassium hydroxide (KOH), which is used in making liquid soap; it is less pure simply by the nature of the chemical bonds of the molecules.

Keep in mind if you want to get your hands on the potassium hydroxide, it is not available just anywhere, but some of the soap suppliers I will list at the end of this article do carry it. It must be shipped as dangerous goods, however, so it is not for the faint of wallet!

A simple equipment list…

So, you might be thinking there must be something really complicated and expensive about making soap, right?

Well, yes…and no. You can nerd out all you want about saponification values and superfat and all that; or you can use the available online soap calculators to get your ingredient amounts required for your batch of soap. But the equipment list is very basic and you can cheap out by going to the secondhand store. Here is the basic list of things to get started with:

Slow cooker (keep one dedicated to soap)
Old 9x13 cake pans (or anything else of a suitable size for molds)
Wooden or silicone spoons and spatulas
Stick blender (get 2, in case one dies in the middle of a batch)
Wire whisk
2 Litre/quart drink jugs (you will want two of these)
Dedicated container for measuring lye
Kitchen scale that measures in ounces or grams
Parchment paper or small kitchen trash bags to line the molds
Some sort of cutter (we built our own out of a strip of steel and a chunk of 2x2)
Rubber gloves and safety glasses
Digital cooking/candy thermometer that reads lower than 100F

I like to keep all my equipment and supplies in a plastic tote, other than the larger containers of oils and the cooker. A note about stove-top soaping: I haven’t done this method, but I would recommend a pot that is either ceramic or stainless steel; the lye will eat other types of metals and especially non-stick coatings. Even the cake pans, with liners, will start to strip the non-stick off with the heat of the chemical reaction going through whatever liner you use.

Ingredients are entirely your call

When it comes to what you want to use in your soap, it all comes down to how exotic (and expensive) you want to get with varieties of oils and fats, coloring, scents, exfoliants, and all the other things you might want to try. Personally, I struck on a recipe of my own that I love and so does anyone that uses the soap. One friend buys my soap by the 4 pound batch for herself and for gifts.

Something to remember is that not all oils or fats are created equal in terms of the properties they impart in the finished product; they can be beneficial when used in moderation but not as the main ingredient. This goes back to what I mentioned about saponification and superfat values, and how the particular chemical bonds in the oil are made up. Fatty acid chains occur in different types and quantities in each one. There is a good explanation of this in one of the soapmaking sources in my list.

To put it simply, one has to decide just what qualities you want in a soap: creamy lather? Super moisturizing? Powerful cleaning ability? You can achieve a nice combination of all of these if you pay attention to some basics. I have used full castile soap (I was introduced to this as a groom at the track, the trainer liked it for cleaning tack and it really does not dry your skin either). I do make my own “castile” bar with 100% olive oil sometimes. It’s very simple. I say it with quotes because true castile is made in Spain and cured for a long time.

Old fashioned lard soap is a great bar for EVERYTHING. It’s not overly drying to skin if the lye is not maxed out, but is a powerfully good cleaner and stain removing bar. I even grated it for laundry, but our current wash machine just does not work without modern detergents so we are stuck with buying that until I get into making liquid soap. The thing about lard is you can even make it yourself, if you get your hands on some good pork fat. You can do this with tallow too, from beef fat, but using 100% tallow for soap makes a bar that will dry your skin too much.

Additional ingredients

Other things you may want are colorants, scents, exfoliants, or super-scrubby stuff like pumice for those dirty hands that come in from the shop covered in oil and grease. My suggestion is oxide pigments for color, but they can get messy if you’re not careful, and a little goes a very long way. I use essential oils for scent, oatmeal run through a blender for exfoliant bars, and the afore-mentioned pumice (again, a little goes a long way) for my grease-monkey husband.

I tend to buy the essential oils in the larger bottles; my 4-pound recipes use up to 4 teaspoons. Those teeny tiny bottles in the health food stores are far too expensive! In fact, all my supplies are better ordered this way; shipping is costly and is simply more cost effective on larger orders.

My exfoliant bar actually does not use scents; rather, I use the ground oats and some honey. Same with my Cafe Mocha; it replaces the water in the lye mix with strong coffee and uses cocoa instead of scents and other colors. You can get creative with soap once you do a few batches and dial in what you like. I haven’t yet done a milk soap.

Some people like to add things like flower petals or herbs for aesthetics (I’m not sure if this adds other desirable properties other than possibly scent); I’m sure there are other ideas I haven’t stumbled on yet simply because I like my current recipe as it is.

Most recipes say to use distilled water, but I don’t find that to be necessary, and I think that’s a little odd considering you can also use milk or coffee or certain other liquids with no issue. I think it’s more of an issue of avoiding really hard or contaminated water or treated tap water (chlorine could cause issues with the chemical reaction).

A note or two about handling lye

There are a couple of things to note about how to handle lye, and how to mix it with your chosen liquid. The name “caustic soda” is for a reason; you do NOT want this to come into any contact with your skin or eyes, and you absolutely do not want to breathe the fumes. You also NEVER add water to the lye, and also must always use cold water. I once happened to use slightly warm water and nearly had a lye volcano, thankfully I always work in the kitchen and could set the jug in the sink! One useful bit of information is to keep your vinegar close by; in the event of any small spill, and for cleanup, vinegar neutralizes lye (lye is a base, and an acid will neutralize a base).

When measuring your lye, keep your face back from the scale; there is a very super-fine dust that wafts up a bit as you pour, and this would be super bad to breathe in. If you are leery of this, wear a mask; but this may not stop the fumes when you mix it into the water. You will notice when you pour it into the water, a few crystals will want to stick in the measuring container. This is because lye will readily absorb moisture from the air. When pouring your lye into the water, don’t dump it in, just pour gently while whisking; whisk until it’s mostly mixed in. I also mix it every time I check temperature. The reaction of lye to water is to heat up FAST; it will immediately hit almost 200F, especially if your water is not very cold.

To keep the fumes out of your house, I suggest setting it outside in a safe spot if the door is not too far from your workspace; otherwise, if you can set it in such a way that the fumes will exit an open window, it should be fine. I don’t think it’s a good idea to run those fumes through a smoke hood over your stove, as they could corrode any metal surface in there that they pass by. My kitchen at this time is really set up nicely for this because we have a window over the sink and one over the stove on two adjacent walls; I just have to open both and pick the one on the leeward side of the house depending on where the wind is coming from. Our front door is also not far from my kitchen counter, so I can also set the jug on the step there if the window idea doesn’t work.

When adding the lye solution to your oils, pour not too quickly and stir as you add; this gets it incorporated better to start with and also keeps you from splashing it up anywhere.

My method…

I’m not going to go over the entire detailed way to make soap here; I simply want to tell you my own method and what I have found in adjusting it a little one way or another.

As an order of operations, I get all my oils and fats measured and started heating up; then I measure and mix my water and lye and set it to cool. This co-ordination takes some adjustment depending on the temperature outside if I can put the lye on the step; you want to get the oils and the lye to meet in the middle within about 10F of each other.

Once I have added the lye to the oils, I stick blend as per normal instructions, though I tend to run the blender a little longer per burst than is suggested. I will tell you, the warmer temperature at which your ingredients are combined, the faster and thicker the trace will be. Trace means that when you drizzle some of the mixture, it will visibly sit on the surface.

I suggest doing the slower trace at first, for two reasons: if it sets up too fast and hard, you will have a harder time pouring into molds, and lighter trace makes it easier to mix in your additional ingredients like scent, color, exfoliant, or anything else you want. It can seem to take a long time to come to trace, but just keep going. I have had some batches take many minutes (this isn’t that long a process LOL) and others take no time at all (those were ones I combined closer to 120F than the recommended 110F). The power level of your stick blender will affect this as well, so be careful if you are using a newer one that has better settings than the older ones. My new one sets soap to trace VERY quickly!

Once it goes into trace, mix in your extra ingredients, then pour into your lined mold. I suggest setting your molds on a towel or cooling rack to keep from heating the table surface. The process of saponification can heat things up to a high enough temperature that it could damage some surfaces and the raw soap can burn you as well (ask me how I know!).

For cleanup, the vinegar is your friend. Put the cooker in the sink, add some vinegar and water, and drop utensils in there that came into contact with the lye. Swish it around to contact all surfaces, and let it sit for a minute while you clean up the rest of your stuff. After this, it will be safe to handle. It might seem funny to add soap to do your cleanup, but that’s all you’ll need; the reason is that the “soap” you just made isn’t quite soap yet, so is just a bunch of grease with neutralized lye in it. I find this is the messiest part, so I tend to try to do a few batches at a time to make it more time-effective because I will just dump the vinegar water out and wipe things with a paper towel to start the next batch. This way, my oil measuring container and my water-lye containers don’t need washing until I’m done several batches; economy of motion does count for something!

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It’s not ready yet!

You might wonder how long you need to wait for your soap to be ready. The initial process of saponification really only takes about 24 hours, but this just means that the chemical reaction between the lye and the fats is finished. The soap will still be very soft for a few days.

You can lift the whole batch out of the mold if you did just one big pour, and set it somewhere to dry for another day or two; otherwise, just leave it there for that much longer. If you used a different mold that makes individual bars, leave them for a few days before removing them.

Once you can remove your soap from the mold, you can cut to size as desired with anything that will do the job. After this, you want to set it on edge on a flat surface; wood or cardboard is good, plastic that is vented will work, cooling racks are great if you have extra to work with that you don’t need for your kitchen. This begins the curing process, which is just drying the soap so it doesn’t have excess water left in it. You can use it now if you want, but it will be very soft and get used up too fast!

Curing time depends on how much water or other liquid you used; there is usually a varying amount you can get away with in your recipe (my favorite calculator will give you a range of amount to use). I tend to go with just above the least amount the recipe will handle, so my cure time is cut down to two or three weeks instead of the six or more weeks of some recipes. This all depends on your relative humidity in the room as well; find the driest spot you can to cure and it will be done sooner. You will need to turn the bars as well occasionally to expose all the sides.

Wait, you said this was “cold process” soap…but it gets cooked?

It sounds funny, but yes. This is considered cold process soap making; hot process is different and I haven’t gotten into it yet myself. Then of course there is making liquid soaps; this is the one that requires the potassium hydroxide, and you also cannot use any solid fats or oils; I tried it once with lard and it was an utter failure and loss of materials.

Storage of finished and cured soap

Remember when I said soap is chemically a salt? This is important to remember when deciding where to store your soap and what kind of container to use. We have all had a box of salt on the shelf at some point that turned into a wet block. Well, I have, anyway. Salt is hygroscopic, meaning it likes to absorb water; soap will do the same, whether it’s commercially made or cooked up in your kitchen. Storing it should keep this in mind; we used to store our extra soap in the basement, but it’s too damp down there and it absorbed so much moisture it was kind of goopy to handle.

I have found the best way is to keep it upstairs in an open container; our main floor is relatively low humidity most of the time. You can put it in paper bags to allow it to keep moisture exchange at a minimum, but make it easier to move around and keep the dust off. Perhaps a sealed container with a moisture absorber would also be good; especially in the case of scented soaps, as eventually the scents have the tendency to dissipate if left open for long enough.

12 years, and still more to learn about making soap

In digging up links to information to share with you on the topic, I found out there is far more information than I started with 12 years ago. I hadn’t even seen all the suppliers that I have listed here, and these are only for Canada. There are probably some I didn’t see in my searches. In terms of “how-to” in more detail, most (if not all) of the suppliers have web pages on this as well, plus there are hundreds of blogs and other sites that cover all you could want to know. I didn’t even add any YouTube videos, though there are likely hundreds!

There is much more available information now on all the nuances involved in the process; saponification values, properties of oils and fats; superfatting (I have not done this at all unless it was inadvertently); it can get overwhelming, as any topic can be at first. As with anything, weed out the basics of the process and find the ingredients you want to work with. Just start somewhere, you can always adjust things the further along you get.

I haven’t used soap making as an activity for kids, because mine was already 12 when I started so she had her own interests by that point. But some people do like using it to teach their kids and spend time with them; it all boils down to how comfortable you are with your kids around handling lye. Even if that’s part of the process you do not allow them to work with, there does remain a risk that accidents can happen and the consequences may not be pretty. I will leave that up to the individual, as every child is different in their level of ability and focus.

With that, I will wish you happy soaping, and give you the list of websites I found to further your sudsy education! Of course, this is unlikely to be an exhaustive list, but it gives you plenty to work with.

Canadian Suppliers (some ship to the US)

Check around each one, because many of them have tutorials or demo videos as well as other educational materials.

https://saffireblue.ca/shop/

https://www.voyageursoapandcandle.com/

https://soapandmore.ca/

https://candorasoap.ca/

https://www.windypointsoap.com/

https://www.canwax.com/

https://www.sudsandscents.com/

https://www.molloys.ca/

https://fizzfairy.ca/

https://www.thesheepshelf.ca/natural-home.html

https://www.newdirectionsaromatics.ca/

https://naturalneighbour.com/

https://www.thesage.com/

Directions & Some Recipes

https://www.soapguild.org/tools-and-resources/resource-center/

https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/lets-make-some-soap-a-recipe-for-a-simple-lye-soap/#axzz2dUJNpjTB

http://soapcalc.net/info/GettingStarted.asp

https://chickensintheroad.com/classic/house/crafts/getting-ready-to-make-liquid-soap/

https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/soap-making-101-making-cold-process-soap/

https://food52.com/blog/12919-how-to-make-soap-at-home-even-if-you-failed-chemistry?srsltid=AfmBOoruCeaspb0Xq0Jzzn9rTTxGNu8CcY0zf-j005hIyhMO8io5YtLl

https://lovelygreens.com/easy-soap-recipes-beginners/

https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/how-to-make-soap-517084

https://wellnessmama.com/beauty/homemade-shampoo/

Calculators and other nerdy stuff

https://www.the-sage.com/lyecalc/ (this is the calculator I normally use)

https://www.ultimateguidetosoap.com/post/why-every-beginner-should-
learn-about-first

https://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/tips-and-tricks/free-beginners-guide-to-soapmaking-common-soapmaking-oils/

https://soapandmore.ca/pages/chart-oil-properties-for-soapmaking

https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/soapmaking-oils-chart/

https://chem.libretexts.org/Courses/Sacramento_City_College/SCC%3A_Chem_309_General_Organic_and_Biochemistry_(Bennett)/Text/15%3A_Lipids/15.3%3A_Fats_and_Oils

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Characteristics-of-soap-made-from-different-oils-and-fats-18_tbl1_350904198

https://blog.chemondis.com/8217/the-chemistry-behind-your-soap/ This one gives some good information on the chemical process as well as really picky handling instructions for lye.

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