Soap Making 101

[freemotion]

All I do is put the fat have throught the summerbee meadow calculator and then use goat's milk instead of water. So I don't really use a recipe so much as a method, based on what I have on hand. I prefer the harder soaps from the tallow/lard.

I will likely make a few batches to sell out of my office soon and I will buy the cheapest tub of olive oil at Costco and add that to the tallow/lard to make it less work to do up several batches. My clients are happy with unscented, naturally colored, chopped into rough chunks soap labelled as "homestead-style!"

 

[flossy]

What do you all mix your soap in? I was just thinking using a couple of plastic buckets but the DH thinks that the raw soap will eat through the plastic. Is he right? I hope not coz I have already told him he is wrong

 

[valmom]

I bought a cheap stainless steel pot at walmart. I know aluminum pots are a no-no, and I would think plastic wouldn't last long. I don't know what plastic would do to the soap, but I'm pretty sure the soap would eat away at the plastic.

 

[Farmfresh]

The main problem with plastic is NOT the "eating away" it is the heat.

I regularly use a Rubbermaid brand pitcher for mixing up my lye solution. Rubbermaid can stand the heat - since lye solution gets around 220 F when first mixed sometimes - without going dangerous and floppy.

I sometimes use those rectangular black Gladware plastic baking dishes as soap molds. They too work great! I also make molds out of removably capped 3 inch PVC pipe, which is essentially plastic too.

The reason that I use a stainless steel stock pot for my main mixing pot ($12.00 at Big Lots) is that it can go on the stove top to heat up my fats.

Plastic is like glass and stainless steel ... basically chemically inert when used with corrosive chemicals. Even if I prefer not to cook in it, it is fine IMO for soaping.

 

[me&thegals]

What do you all mix your soap in? I was just thinking using a couple of plastic buckets but the DH thinks that the raw soap will eat through the plastic. Is he right? I hope not coz I have already told him he is wrong

I use plastic pails all the time. I have glass Pyrex for the lye-liquid and gallon plastic pails for the soap batter. No holes yet

 

[Bettacreek]

Shoot. I wish I had the molds and scents and demand to use 5g buckets for soap!!! Lol. I mix my lye in a glass Rose wine vase type bottle. It has a really wide top, not like a regular wine bottle. And a pop on cap. I put the lye in, add my ice, pour the water in (I do it backwards, but haven't had any violent lye issues like everyone claims you will if you add water to lye), then pop the cap on and swirl it around until the lye dissolves, then dump it into my oils. My oils are in a big punch bowl. I've started pre-mixing my oils and pouring them into the old olive oil containers (I get the gallon or almost gallon sized containers of olive oil. I go through one of those in two batches of soap, then fill it almost all the way to the top when I pre-mix the oils. I've started reusing all of my containers. Or at least save them for future use. My coconut oil containers are just sitting around. The olive oil is for pre-mix and the grapeseed oil bottles I plan to put shampoo in once I get around to making it. Castor oil is another story. I was saving them, but dunno what to use 6oz plastic bottles for. Not to mention that I'll be buying from another source soon, so I won't have a steady supply of them.

 

[me&thegals]

NOT 5 gallons!! Just 1 gallon. And it's not full when I use it, so don't feel inferior!! And, yes, I actually use some of my old oil containers, too. They're great, sturdy, have handles on them. I sometimes prefer the flimsy ones, though, because there's no metal so I can heat them in the microwave, plus I can bend them when pouring to have a spout, especially when pouring into smaller molds.

 

[Bettacreek]

Pah. I don't even know how I read 5g, but I swore that's whatcha said, lol. I don't have any flimsy containers to use, but the pour spouts are nice, sometimes. It would be easier to just dump the pre-mixed oils into the bowl, instead of having to stand there and wait for it to all pour out, lol.

 

[Blackbird]

Last night I made a sage flower lemon EO soap

Tonight, when I went to cut it, it looked like this;

The middle area is more transparent that the sides.. This has happened to me once before, but the middle eventually hardened to the consistency and color of the sides after a couple hours.

This is my second time using this soap mold. The first time the soap looked great but I had an awful time getting the soap out after it was cut and I ended up ruining four bars. So this time I thought I'd slather a little oil on the bottom and sides to lube it up a little when it came time to cutting and taking the bars out. I only added enough to make sure it had at least gotten on the surface, so it's not like I dumped a bottle in the mold before I poured the soap in.

Otherwise, this is my first time using essential oils, and I only used a syringe full.

When I cut the soap the blade came out covered in a layer of oil.

Anyone know where I might have gone wrong? Did something not bind well enough? I had a very nice THICK trace before I poured it all in, and there was only about a four degrees difference in the oil and the milk/lye solution before I combined.

I'm going to let it sit until tomorrow night and see how it looks then. Hopefully cutting it helped a little.

 

[Blackbird]

The soap still hasn't improved
It's all very oily when I cut it, like between the bars..
Not sure what I did wrong.