How to Make Soap On Your Own

If you are looking out for a hobby that is not only fun, but also rewarding, then why not try soap making. Learning to make your own soap can be a rejuvenating experience, both for your mind and body. Soap is made by combining fats with a caustic agent such as lye (sodium hydroxide) using water as a catalyst. Lye or sodium hydroxide is used to make solid soap while potassium hydroxide is used to make liquid soap. You can also add essential oils for an exotic batch of soap. But before we delve into how to make soap, arm yourself with the right ingredients and a lot of patience.

To start with dissolve lye in cold water by stirring continuously. This process generates a lot of heat, so having half your water as ice would be better. When the lye crystals dissolves into the water, cool down the solution to about 85 degrees F before adding it to the fat/oil. For best results, use rain, distilled, reverse osmosis or de-mineralized water.

Next mix the lye water and fat/oil by stirring gently only in one direction. 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 carrier oils which are derived from various plants.

Saponification is the chemical process that happens between lye and fat as they turn into soap. There are different levels of this process but the most important one is the "trace" stage, when the soap has thickened up somewhat. When you gain more experience on how to make soap, your will know immediately when your soap has traced. It is at this time that you can add essential oils, coloring, fragrance and herbs to give the soap its distinctive qualities.

Oils such as jojoba, lavender, lemongrass, and bergamot essential oils are excellent choices for superfatting. Carrier oils also referred to as base oils or vegetable oils are used to dilute essential oils. These carrier oils make the soaps soft. An essential oil is made from distilling the oil out of the plant it comes from and can range in price.

After the mixture has cooled, pour or spoon it into the soap mold or tray. Let it harden for 24-48 hours. When the soap begins to harden, section it into bars. 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.

Finally with the soap out of the tray or molds, stack it up and set it in a warm dry place. Your soap will need to sit for 4-6 weeks to dry out and cure, depending on the fat you used. When it has fully cured, place it in a plastic bag or air tight container, and store it in a cool, dry place.

So now that you are armed with all the necessary information on how to make soap why not lather it up and have some fun!

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