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Soap Making Basics – How to Make Homemade Soap

Lye is one of the fundamental ingredients of soap making, so it's important to understand how to use it properly

Lye is one of the fundamental ingredients of soap making, so it’s important to understand how to use it properly. Photo courtesy of flickr user maoquai.

Soap making is not only a hobby, it can also be an addiction.

You will no doubt be hooked once you start making that first batch of soap (here’s our free suggested recipe).

Whether you choose to make soap for personal use or for holiday gifts, it is always better to be knowledgeable of the general process.

This post outlines the basics of the most popular soap making methods, but please click here to read our full, comprehensive post on the soap making methods available to you, or click here for our comprehensive post on soap making equipment.

The Soap Process

There are several ways to make soap. The method used depends on the products and materials available and the type of desired soap. Whatever it is, one thing is basic:

Soap is made from oil and lye no matter the method used. Once the basic soap is made, it can then be perfumed, colored, filled, shaped and packaged. Continue reading “Soap Making Basics – How to Make Homemade Soap”

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Making Your Own Herbal Soap With A Free Soap Recipe!

Anyone can make herbal soap at home, with ingredients that are readily available in any grocery store or supermarket. Photo courtesy of flickr user nico paix.

Anyone can make herbal soap at home, with ingredients that are readily available in any grocery store or supermarket. Photo courtesy of flickr user nico paix.

Herbal Soap Making has become very popular in recent times, although herbal soaps have been pushed out of the spotlight somewhat since the invention of synthetic soap making processes, which tend to yield a more consistent and cheaper product.

However, there are still many reasons to make your own herbal soap. You have control over the quality of the ingredients you use, so you know what the quality of your final product will be, and you can customize your soap any way you like. You can ensure that only natural ingredients are used, and minimize the environmental impact from waste materials for at least your own soap consumption. Handmade soaps make great inexpensive and unique gifts, and are a great alternative for people who find that commercial soap products are often too harsh for dry or sensitive skin. Perhaps most importantly, making your own soap will give you a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Anyone can make their own herbal soap, with ingredients that are readily available in any grocery or soapmaking supply shop. With the ease and convenience of internet shopping, it’s now even easier to get the exact ingredients you want. Continue reading “Making Your Own Herbal Soap With A Free Soap Recipe!”

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Soap Making For the Holidays, And A Free Recipe!

Photo courtesy of Flickr user theogeo

Christmas is just around the corner! Have you found the perfect Christmas gifts yet? Why not make your own gift with elegant soaps your family and friends will love and cherish.

With simple soap making recipe you can easily create elegant soaps.

Here is a simple soap making recipe for those of you who haven’t tried making soap yet.

A lovely gift idea for friends and family would be to make your own homemade soap. A personalized gift that you made yourself would proclaim so much more thoughtfulness than just buying one.

Making olive oil soap is fairly simple and easy. Try out this homemade olive oil soap recipe.

Soap making ingredients:

One 18 ounce can of lye (Make sure the lye is labeled for soap making. Some lye are too harsh, while some others are not strong enough to make soap with)
Distilled water – 5 cups (plain tap water has chemicals and impurities that can cause soap making problems)
Heat proof container for mixing the lye
Large stainless steel pot for mixing soap
Spatula (rubber or silicon)
Plastic container with lid (which will serve as the soap making mold)
Blender or beater

How to make the soap:

1.Before starting, make sure to read carefully the Manufacturer Safety Data Sheet on the lye. Lye must be handled with extreme caution.

Please always note that when you are using Lye that Safety is top priority.

2.Pour the distilled water into the heat proof container. Then add lye carefully.
Always remember:

Add lye to the water and not the other way around.

Stir gently and with care. The mixture will get hot and will produce fumes for a few minutes.

Set the mixture aside to a safe place and wait for it to cool off.

3.Pour olive oil into the other large stainless steel pot and heat to approximately 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Then remove the pot from the heat.

4.Once the container of the lye-water mixture is warm enough to touch, slowly pour the lye-water mixture into the warm olive oil, stirring the oil the whole time with your spatula.

Then, you can now use your stick blender or beater for short intervals, hand stirring in between.

You will notice the mixture starts getting thicker and more opaque which means trace is occurring.

Keep stirring until you see a pudding-like consistency.

5.Pour mixture into the plastic container with lid and cover with a blanket.

When it’s ready, pop it out from the container and stack it on brown paper lined shelves in a well ventilated area.

It takes approximately 4 weeks for soap to be aged and cured.

This recipe makes more than 10 pounds of soap.

Pack it any way you want it for a more personalized touch. Let your creativity run wild and don’t be afraid to use color and creative materials.

These handmade soaps will now be perfect Holiday gifts for your friends and family!

For more information on packaging and presentation of your soaps, be sure to check out our comprehensive Ebook package Soap Making Made Easy: Second Edition that reveals the best soap making techniques as well as recipes and tips on how to make your own soap at home.

It would also make the perfect gift for any friends and family who might be interested in soap making!

Take the next step

Download our FREE ebook, ‘How To Make Soap At Home’, by clicking here.

We also have a special offer on our Soap Making Ebooks range, with exclusive web bonuses and a risk free 60 day money back guarantee! Also available on Amazon Kindle, iBooks, Barnes & Noble and Kobo.

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Scenting Your Soap – Fragrance Oils And Essential Oils

Fragrance oils are a great way to add a personal touch to your homemade soap. Flickr Markhillary

Fragrance oils are a great way to add a personal touch to your homemade soap. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Markhillary.

Scenting your homemade soaps is a great way to personalise your soaps, but with such a wide variety of options is a matter of personal preference.

There are two varieties of oils that can be used to scent soap: fragrance oils, and essential oils. Either can be used, according to the preferences of the soap maker. This article will give an idea of the benefits of each type of oils, but for our comprehensive post on essential oils, fragrance oils, example oils, their properties and quantities to add to your soap recipes, please click here.

Fragrance oils are made from a mixture of aroma chemicals. They are commonly used when there is no essential oil available for a particular fragrance, or when the essential oil is far too costly or environmentally irresponsible to use.

Unlike essential type oils, fragrance oils can be part natural and part synthetic, or all synthetic. Continue reading “Scenting Your Soap – Fragrance Oils And Essential Oils”

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Troubleshooting Your Soap Making Process

Making homemade soap is a challenging yet rewarding hobby. Flickr Slam Szapucki

Making homemade soap is a challenging yet rewarding hobby. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Slam Szapucki.

Producing your own homemade soaps is a fantastic hobby with a great range of healthy benefits.

As with anything however, the process is vulnerable to a number of difficulties, which can affect the outcome of the final product. Recently, a reader contacted us on Facebook with an issue on how to stop white bubbles appearing in her soap. Following on from this, we thought it would be a good idea to cover off on some other issues that you might be facing.

Below is a list with some of the most common difficulties that you might encounter while producing your soap, as well as a cause and solution for each. Continue reading “Troubleshooting Your Soap Making Process”

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How to get rid of white bubbles in soap

Soap bubbles, Flickr Keith Williamson

We are always willing to help with any questions you have regarding making soap at home, or any particular issues you are having with your soap making process.

Recently we were contacted on our Facebook page by JJ May with an issue she has been having:

…to get rid of the white bubbles that appear on the top of the soap once poured, [I’ve been told] you should spritz with surgical spirit. This is all well and good for getting rid of the bubbles but it’s also making my soaps stink like Deep Heat rather than the beautiful fragrance they were intended to be. Can you suggest any other methods?

To help out JJ May, here are a few suggested remedies, which we also cover in our comprehensive Ebook “Soap Making Made Easy”. Continue reading “How to get rid of white bubbles in soap”

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Scent Your Homemade Soap With Soap Making Oils

There are many scents, such as beeswax, you can use to personalise your soap (photo courtesy of flickr user Cuttlefish)

There are many scents, such as beeswax, you can use to personalise your soap (photo courtesy of flickr user Cuttlefish).

After you understand the basic soap making ingredients and have mastered a basic soap recipe, you can further personalise your homemade soaps by adding soap making oils. This article will give an idea of the benefits of adding oils to your soap, but for our comprehensive post on essential oils, fragrance oils, example oils, their properties and quantities to add to your soap recipes, please click here.

There are a variety of oils that can be used in the soap making process – each oil has different properties, making the saponification process a bit different for each, and resulting in different qualities in the soap produced.

Each oil must also be used in a slightly different quantity. Below is a brief list of the many oils that can be used to make soap, the qualities of each, the quantity in which each should be used, and when each should be added to the soap mixture. Continue reading “Scent Your Homemade Soap With Soap Making Oils”

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Soap Making With Lye, And A Free Soap Recipe

Lye is one of the fundamental ingredients of soap making, so it’s important to understand how to use it properly (photo courtesy of flick user maoquai).

If you enjoy this article and want to learn more about making soap at home, get instant access to our free soap making guide which covers all the basic elements of soap making, or get 10 years of soap making experience in our comprehensive Soap Making Bible with exclusive web bonuses for less than the cost of your first batch of soap.

Lye is one of the three key ingredients in the soap making process.

Lye is a caustic alkaline chemical that dissolves substances like fat, and has a high degree of reactivity with other materials.

It is also known as Sodium Hydroxide.
If you know about soap or have been learning about making soap, you might know that almost all handmade soaps are made of Sodium hydroxide except for a few liquid soaps that are made of Potassium hydroxide.  Potassium hydroxide, unknown to many, is also a type of lye used to make liquid soap.

It is important to note though that potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide are not interchangeable in soap recipes. So to put it simply, basically all soaps are made from lye.

Lye is a very important ingredient in making soap as the hydroxide in lye binds with the fats to form soap. Lye is extremely caustic and can burn the skin.

When lye is mixed with water and oils, in a chemical process called saponification, the lye turns the fats and oils into soap.

Lye used to be made by soaking wood ashes in water, but now it is readily available at most hardware and grocery stores.

There are certain precautions which must be taken when working with lye for soap making; it is a corrosive chemical, which can cause severe damage to skin, eyes, and the respiratory system. Continue reading “Soap Making With Lye, And A Free Soap Recipe”

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Soap Making Basics: Soap Ingredients

Soap Making Basics: Soap Ingredients

Before you try to experiment with your homemade soap it’s important to understand the basic soap ingredients – photo courtesy of flickr user mommyknows.

There are a variety of reasons that people decide to make their own soap.

Some do it for a greater degree of customization; some because commercial soaps are too harsh for their skin; still others because it’s a fun and rewarding hobby.

To get started making your own soap, you will need to consider three things:

* Your ingredients;
* Using the right equipment; and
* Your soap making method.

The ingredients are, arguably, the most important component of the soap making process. Continue reading “Soap Making Basics: Soap Ingredients”

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The Best Equipment To Make Soap At Home

It's important to use the right equipment for soap making - photo courtesy of Flickr user maoquai

It’s important to use the right equipment for homemade soap making – photo courtesy of Flickr user maoquai

Making soap at home can be a fun and rewarding hobby. It’s also essential to have a good soap making guide – it can be dangerous if the soap maker doesn’t research their materials, and take the proper precautions when making homemade soap.
Continue reading “The Best Equipment To Make Soap At Home”