Soap Making 101

[hillfarm]

Krisac, it can be very overwhelming. Here's my favorite recipe and it takes two weeks to cure.

one three pound can of Crisco

12 oz. water
6 oz. lye

Works great and can be made as is or you can add fragrance or essential oil as you like. but its a good soap.

Never fails me. I use it to color and fragrance test. Easy, cheap and lathers well and doesnt go too tan when it cures. So colors do well.

Refrigerate the twelve oz of distilled water, add the lye.
Warm the crisco in microwave till its liquid, will look kinda creamy.

when both are 100 to 110, add the lye water and mix.

Its a good starter to build your confidence. IMO.

 

[krisac]

What I want to make is goats milk soap to to sell in my shop and at my civil war events. I want to add fragrances but can wait on that. I have read that I will need a preservative to keep it from going rancid. I don't like the orange color that the GSE leaves and I'd like to use olive oil. Oatmeal just seems appealing. doesn't sound that complicated to me. I read Vitamin E and C would work as preservatives as opposed to phenonip or Germaben but about to go with those just to save what is left of my sanity. I have "natural" soaps that I have had forever and they have not gone rancid but haven't checked their ingredients yet. and Hot or Cold processing??? anyone?
Kristina

 

[Farmfresh]

Agreed! And don't give up on that first batch just yet either. Sometimes a batch will take several days to get solid and several weeks to properly cure.

 

[Farmfresh]

What I want to make is goats milk soap to to sell in my shop and at my civil war events. I want to add fragrances but can wait on that. I have read that I will need a preservative to keep it from going rancid. I don't like the orange color that the GSE leaves and I'd like to use olive oil. Oatmeal just seems appealing. doesn't sound that complicated to me. I read Vitamin E and C would work as preservatives as opposed to phenonip or Germaben but about to go with those just to save what is left of my sanity. I have "natural" soaps that I have had forever and they have not gone rancid but haven't checked their ingredients yet. and Hot or Cold processing??? anyone?
Kristina

Definitions:

Melt and Pour = pre-made soap bars usually glycerine soap that is simply heated so that it goes liquid enabling you to add fancy stuff like scent and color and pour it into fancy molds. You are not making soap, just decorating a soap that is already made.

Cold Process = The chemical process of combining a fat or oil (acid) with lye (base) to form a SOAP (salt). {Note: There are two kinds of lye we won't go into that yet.} Soap is a stable cleansing agent. It is called "Hot Process" because the lye chemically reacts with the water causing heat as the result.

Hot Process also called Hand Milled or Milling Soap = Process where a basic soap is grated, heated with some water, and given additives such as color, scent, extra oils and other things. Cold Process soaps can also be called French milled soap.

Another note ... If you were making a goat milk soap the milk is what turns the soap orange.

(corrected because I got it switched around) thanks aggieterpkatie.

 

[krisac]

Attempt 3 water, olive oil lye goats milk fragrance oil oatmeal finely ground.
put through the soap calc for measurements
foze goats milk to slush, added water, added lye, stirred til it was a cream colored liquid but it never became "thickened"
added olive oil to lye mix...alternately stirred and stick blended til stick blender died...NEVER reached trace,
Figured it was screwed anyway so I added the oatmeal and fragance to see what would happen....the oil would not blend in and it turned into oatmeal, with oil floating on top.

Why can I not get the mixture to trace? will attempt again tomorrow. Maybe for now going to beat my head against the wall.

 

[savingdogs]

Krisac, it can be very overwhelming. Here's my favorite recipe and it takes two weeks to cure.

one three pound can of Crisco

12 oz. water
6 oz. lye

Works great and can be made as is or you can add fragrance or essential oil as you like. but its a good soap.

Never fails me. I use it to color and fragrance test. Easy, cheap and lathers well and doesnt go too tan when it cures. So colors do well.

Refrigerate the twelve oz of distilled water, add the lye.
Warm the crisco in microwave till its liquid, will look kinda creamy.

when both are 100 to 110, add the lye water and mix.

Its a good starter to build your confidence. IMO.

I use this recipe too. I do change out the water for goat milk now and add 1/4 cup honey, 1/2 cup oatmeal and the fragrance at trace. It was a nice soap without the goat milk however, and I made a batch without goat milk first, just to learn how. I haven't had too much trouble having it come up to trace. I'd try a simple recipe first, before creating your own recipes.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

FF, the definitions you posted differ from the ones in my soap book. Cold process is where the oils are melted ahead of time, and mixed with the water(or milk) and lye, then poured into a mold. Hot process is where the ingredients are heated after mixing.

 

[Farmfresh]

FF, the definitions you posted differ from the ones in my soap book. Cold process is where the oils are melted ahead of time, and mixed with the water(or milk) and lye, then poured into a mold. Hot process is where the ingredients are heated after mixing.

I got my definitions out of a soaping book as well. I am making corrections and hang my head in shame. I got it mixed up! Good catch.

I think one of the most important things that I have discovered to make a soap trace nicely is to make SURE that the lye solution and the oils are the same temperature before combining them. Some people combine at over 100 degrees F and others at room temperature but just so both liquids are the same.

You need to just perfect a VERY simple one oil water based soap. You are just frustrating yourself by trying the harder recipes before you are familiar enough with the basic processes. Also olive oil based soaps sometimes take a LONG time to trace. My first olive oil soap without an immersion blender took an hour and a half (!) of stirring before tracing! Just when I was ready to dump the whole mess, it finally traced and then took a week to harden!!

No troubles, krisac. You are not the only one that has had a steep learning curve. When you finally DO have success it will just be that much sweeter!

 

[krisac]

oh the same temperature, well there's a good little bit of info the instruction page never mentioned. that could be a good reason nothing is going right. frozen milk and room temp oil. grr!Have a book now I am going to red thrpough and see if anything makes more sense. Anything has got to help. I stayed up and did the third batch because someone made me so mad I couldn't go to sleep and needed something to do

 

[Bettacreek]

Hot process is "cooked" soap (made like cold process, but higher heat is used to cook it). CPOP (cold process oven process) is different because it's just heated after being molded to help gel. Hand milled is where you have to grate soap.

As for wanting a goatmilk soap, start off slow. Doctor's don't jump right into brain surgery. You'll increase your frustration and possibly won't learn as much if you're diving into it without really knowing what you're doing. That's not an insult, but research is not a substitute for experience. Just start out slow, make sure you can make soap with one oil before dumping a bunch of different variants into a bowl and slopping around.