My first batch of cold process soap

I made my first batch of cold process soap last Sunday, and boy was I proud of myself and all my time spent preparing! One thing I learned: making soap isn't difficult nor scary.

Getting Started

To start up my new hobby I bought:

1. Lab coat
2. Rubber dishwashing gloves
3. Splash goggles
4. 5lb wood mold (I made this myself) I can give out all the dimensions if anyone is interested.
5. Freezer paper to line the mold
6. Tape (to tape freezer paper together)
7. Scale - one that will measure in tenths of an ounce. I bought a heavy duty baker's scale, but even a $15 one should do the trick.
8. Stainless steel cutter - 6" wide
9. Temperature gun
10. Spatula - preferably one that is one whole piece - not one that is comprised of two pieces (the top piece could potentially fall off while you are making the soap and it will be a hassle trying to find it!!)
11. 2 cup pyrex container
12. 8 cup pyrex container
13. Wooden / plastic spoon
14. Plastic hand blender (I bought a $15 Betty Crocker one)
15. Large stainless steel pot (not shown)

How is soap made?

In cold process soap making, lye (NaOH; sodium hydroxide) is dissolved in water, then mixed with oils such as olive oil. The lye and oils react creating oil salts, aka SOAP! How simple, right?! Complexity comes into the picture when you start using different oils- olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil, canola oil, etc. - and different essential oils - peppermint oil, tea tree oil, jajoba oil, eukalyptus oil, lavendar oil, lemon oil, etc - and different herbs - chamomile, rosemary, lavendar, etc. -and different colorants and exfoliators and frangrances (the list goes on).

Lye is Dangerous!

One caution about lye. Be VERY VERY VERY careful when you work with sodium hydroxide. It is caustic and can burn your skin. When mixed with water, it can reach temperatures over 200 degrees fahrenheit. Also, when mixed with water, it releases TOXIC fumes. DO NOT breathe these fumes. I have before and trust me, it is not a fun experience. It feels like there are a ton of small insects biting your throat. It gets all itchy and you start to cough and gag. No fun. No fun at all! Sooooo, be smart wear your PPE (personal protective equipment such as lab coat, splash goggles and plastic rubber gloves).

I bought my lye from www.certified-lye.com. They will ship it to your door or you can pick it up yourself in Lemon Grove, San Diego. Try to find a local supplier in your area.

Now that I warned everyone about the lye - here is the recipe I used.

36 oz Olive Oil
14 oz Coconut Oil (makes the bar lather more)
7.2 oz NaOH (Lye; sodium hydroxide)
16.5 oz Water
0.5 oz Peppermint essential oil
0.25 oz Tea Tree Oil

Now, I have read that a preferable oil combination is 16 oz  canola or oive oil, 16 oz coconut oil and 16 ounce palm oil, but until I find a sustainable source of palm oil - I'm leaving it out of the recipe.

I wrote down EVERY step in my notebook BEFORE I started. I also lined my wood mold with freezer paper before I started (I covered every inch of the inside of the mold with the freezer paper and taped the freezer paper together so that no soap would leak down into the wood mold).

Here are my notes:

 

Now, I will explain what I did quickly.

I lined my mold with freezer paper and put to the side next to cling-wrap and a large towel.
















I put on my lab coat, splash goggles and rubber gloves.

I put the large 8 cup pyrex container on my scale. Tare (zero out). Weighed 16.5 oz. water. Put to side.

I put the small 2 cup pyrex container on my scale. Tare. Weighed out 7.2 oz. Put to side.

Outside (with lots of fresh, circulating air) I added the Lye to the water, held my breath, and stirred until dissolved.

ALWAYS ADD LYE TO WATER, not the other way around!!!!

I then left the lye solution outside (making sure no one like children or pets could get to it) went inside, put my big stainless steel pot (NEVER use aluminum or cast iron) on the scale. Tare.

Weighed out 14 oz olive oil. Tare.

Weighed 36 oz. olive oil.

Put pot on stove. Slowly melted it together, making sure that the temperature did not go over 115 degrees.

I brought the pot with melted oils outside and when the melted oils and lye solution were within 5-10 degrees of each other, added the lye to the oils in the pot. I used my hand blender to mix the oils and lye, making sure to keep the blender in contact with the bottom of the pot (you don't want it splashing up on you!).










When the mixture began to "trace" -get thicker- I added in my essential oils and continued to stir.

Once the mixture got even thicker and I was convinced everything was well mixed, I poured the soap into my mold, and tapped it to make sure it settled in the mold well (get rid of any bubbles also).

I put cling-wrap (plastic wrap) over the top (making sure the plastic wrap comes in contact with the soap to reduce the soaps contact with air) and then wrapped the mold in a big towel to insulate it for the next 48 hours. And... 48 hours later I removed my soap and cut it!!

Yipeee!!!

(By the way - for those of you who may be wondering. My headband is not a fashion statement. I got hit by my surfboard and now have 5 staples in my head! :/ Eeeek!)