Welcome back to the craft room and today’s Flashback Friday Let’s Make Soap post. Over the last three weeks I have shared my 2016 family Christmas gifts with you. Two weeks ago I shared my Flashback Friday Soap and Tell post talking about the handmade soap. Today I want to show you the soap making process that I use. If you decide to try making this soap along with me, please take all the precaution measures necessary to keep yourself safe. Having said that, let me show you the process of making a batch of hot process soap.
Let’s Make Some Soap!
Hello everyone! A couple of weeks ago I made another batch of soap. It was a remake of the first recipe I ever tried. This time, rather than using two Pringles cans for the molds, I used the loaf mold that I purchased at Michael’s.
There are a ton of web pages with step-by-step instructions on soap making so I won’t go too deep into that here. However, let’s start with some basic safety measures. Since we will be working with lye, which is also called caustic soda, we need to protect ourselves. It is always important to wear long sleeves, closed toed shoes, gloves, and eye protection. Also, when mixing lye with any liquid, always, Always, ALWAYS, pour the lye slowly into the liquid and NOT the liquid into the lye. Bad things will happen, and we don’t want that. When purchasing the lye, make sure it is 100% lye.
There are also some tools that will make your soap making venture a lot more fun if you have them. These include a digital scale that displays ounces or grams, and a stick blender. For hot process soap making use a designated crockpot.
The Recipe
The recipe I used here is from chickensintheroad.com and consists of the following:
- 9.6 ounces – Crisco
- 9.6 ounces – olive oil
- 6.4 ounces – lard
- 6.4 ounces – coconut oil (with a 76 degree melting point)
- 12.16 ounces – distilled water
- 4.463 ounces – lye
One very good habit to get into right away is to always double check any soap recipe with an online Soap Calculator. I like this one here at soapcalc.net but there are more out there to choose from. Find one you like and please use it every time.
After weighing out the hard oils, I put them into the crock pot to start melting them. Once they have completely melted, I add the liquid oils to the pot.
Working With Lye
While everything is melting, weigh out the lye and distilled water. It is very important to ensure all the lye is dissolved in the water before progressing, so I took multiple pictures of this part to show you how it looked at different stages. The chemical reaction creates a lot of heat and some fumes, so it’s best to do this step in a well-ventilated area, or even outside. You also want to make sure pets and kids are not in the area. Once again, it is very important to remember to slowly pour the lye into the liquid. NEVER pour the liquid into the lye.
In the first image you can see how clear the water is before adding the lye.
After the lye is added to the water, it is very cloudy and HOT, so make sure you have your gloves and eye protection on. As you continue to slowly and carefully stir you can see the mixture will become clear again. At this stage you can be sure all the lye crystals have been dissolved.
When making hot process soap, you really don’t need to pay much attention to the temperatures of the oils or the lye since you will be cooking them anyway. However, when you venture into the cold process soap making you will need to keep an eye on the temperatures of each component before adding them together. As you can see in the next image, I am carefully adding my lye water to the melted oils in the crock pot. It’s always a good idea to gently stir the mixture first with a spoon to begin combining the oils and lye water. At this point the lye water is still very caustic. Keep your gloves on while stirring.
After a few minutes you will need to break out the stick blender, or you will be stirring for hours and hours. Alternate stirring the mixture with the blender and using it on low speed until it all comes together. Be very careful not to splash the mixture out of the crock.
What you are looking for at this stage is called “trace”. You will know when you have reached this consistency when it looks like pudding. You will also notice, when drizzling some of the mixture on top of itself it will stay in the ribbon pattern.
Then all you do is put the cover on, make sure the temp is on low and let it cook. There are different thoughts about whether you should just leave the soap alone, or if you should stir it as it cooks. I prefer to stir the mixture every 15 minutes or so. During the cooking process I took two pictures every 15 minutes. The first picture will show what it looks like after cooking. The second picture will show what the consistency is after stirring it.
Cooking The Soap
In the first set of pictures you can see that after 15 minutes it is starting to cook around the edges of the crock. The soap has also gotten a lot thicker in consistency too.
After 30 minutes of total cook time, you can see things have really gone a little crazy! This is why you should never walk too far away from your hot process soap making. If I had left this any longer it very easily would have boiled over and gone all over the countertop. So please, stay close! The consistency is also close to mashed potatoes at this point.
After 45 minutes of total cooking time, you can really see a difference in the soap. It is now starting to look more like Vaseline. This part of the process is known as the gel stage.
I let this cook for an additional 30 minutes for a total cooking time of 1 hour 15 minutes. At this point you should test it to make sure the lye has completed the saponification phase. There are a couple of different ways to do this. One way is the “zap test” in which you take a bit of the soap, cool it down and then touch it to the tip of your tongue. If you feel a zap like you would with a 9-volt battery, you need to cook your soap longer. Another option is to use a Ph test strip. But what I prefer to do is take a bit of the soap, cool it and then wash my hands with it. If it doesn’t burn or tingle you can be sure that the lye is completely incorporated, and your soap is safe to use.
Molding the Soap
While my soap was cooking, I prepared my loaf mold with coated butcher paper, shiny side up. After the cooking time is complete you then carefully spoon or glop, which ever term you prefer, your soap into the mold. As you can see the soap is thick, but it is also really hot so please be careful.
During the filling process, you should tap your mold on the countertop to make sure any air bubbles come out. If you remember the round bars of soap I showed in my previous post, they had holes in them from trapped air pockets. Again, it’s not a big deal, but it’s better to get them out if you can.
This mold says it will hold 3 pounds of soap. As you can see, not all of it fit into the loaf mold, but since it is already cooked and has a gloppy consistency, I was able to put the excess onto a scrap piece of butcher paper. My husband thought we could get even more of the soap scraped out, so that is the top little blob of soap. I like to keep these extra pieces by the kitchen sink.
The Finished Soap Bars
After getting off work the next afternoon it was time to unmold the soap! Since this soap has already gone through the saponification stage, all you really need to do is let it cool before cutting it into bars and tossing it into the shower. However, letting the bars sit for a few days to a few weeks will harden them even more so they will last longer.
This prosses of soap making produces a very rustic looking bar, which I like. To cut the loaf into 1” bars, I used an old cheese cutter, but a knife would work just as well.
And here’s a close-up of the cut bar, ain’t it pretty??
Thank you for joining me for today’s Flashback Friday Let’s Make Soap post. This particular soap recipe was a great one for me to start with. Not only that, it makes a wonderful all around good bar of soap for everyday use. Have you made your own soap? Have you ever wanted to try? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments. Until then, have a fantastic weekend.
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