I just got into making soaps about 6 months ago. I love making them and we love using them. I saw the other post about soaps and was wondering if anyone else makes soaps? Here a picture of my beer soap.
I do. I have found that it takes the smell of cows off your hands better than anything else! I make basic lye soap out of beef tallow and lard. I also make a castille soap out of olive oil, coconut oil and tallow. If we happen to be rich that week we buy scent oils too.
I only made cold process with no fragrances. But I would like to try hot process one day.
Really pretty simple if you have a stick blender. Just get the oils at the right temp and the lye water at the right temp and mix with the stick blender until it traces. If you ever try it, i'll give you my recipe which is just really a basic one I sort of pulled from all the resources. This winter when we butcher the hogs I am going to try to make the old fashioned recipe where you mix it all in a big iron pot outside and stir all day. We'll see how it turns out. Again my only goal is function not aesthetics so I am not the expert to ask anything :)
I make goat milk Soap and lotion along with an array of other things. I have been making soap for many years. I use a cold process-oven process method.
Christy
I also make soap.
I love homemade soaps ;D.
I also make soap. I make one huge batch, then divide it into two or three smaller batches that I scent and augment differently. For cleaning up grimey hands and getting rid of smells, I make a Tangerine Scrubber soap using tangerine EO and cornmeal - works great. I personally really enjoy an oatmeal soap for the bath and my face.
Once the weather turns too cold to be working much outside, I plan on using my cow's cream to make some soap.
Commerical soaps make me itch like crazy. Once I started making my own, I've never gone back.
i make goat milk soap, cold processed. i have not made it into a business as i'm too busy with cheese ( not enough milk left) and bread making.
I've made soap in the past...kind of a hit and miss affair. I had to quit because my friends and family had more soap than they could use in a lifetime. I still have a few yellowed bars in the laundryroom.
Tropit is it a hit and miss affair because of inexperience or because of the recipe? I'm not sure I am understanding.
Oh...I think it was lack of experience. I was making milk and lard type of soaps. Sometime things would come out great, but other times the soap just didn't get quite hard enough. Then, it was just a goopy mess. Still, other times it would look great, but didn't really lather up as nice as I had hoped.
do you have a specific recipe that you use? Inconsistent results usually come from inconsistent measurements - it is always best to use weight, rather than volume when making soap.
The soap calculator here: http://soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcwp.asp (http://soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcwp.asp) is a great resource for when you have differing amounts of ingredients. For example, plug in the amount of pork lard, beef tallow, and olive oil you are using, and it will tell you how much water and lye to use. It will also give you the qualities you can expect from the ingredients you are using, so you can figure out what you need to add to make it lather better, for instance.
Don't give up - soapmaking is a great hobby! Very comparable to cheesemaking, IMHO.
Thanks for the tips and calculator. I guess when I run out of milk, I'll try another batch of soap. Christmas is coming.
I always add coconut oil for the lathering effect. It works great
I make goat milk soap, cold process, use mostly essential oils for fragrance and like to incorporate other additives such as Rose Hip powder, Comfrey leaves, Green Tea, Eucalyptus and Lemongrass powders and Rose Kaolin Clay just to name a few. I like an interesting bar that will catch someone's eye as well as their sense of smell when they pick up a bar. I sell a lot over the internet from online purchases off my website and I participate in several Craft Fairs each year. A lot of my milk/cheese customers also purchase soap.
I use coconut oil for that purpose also. Another additive that helps with lathering is paraffin wax,but you don't need much. I usually add about the size of a crayon to a batch of soap.
I agree with MrsK, each oil needs a differrent amount of lye to soponify, so you can't just swap and alter amounts or types of oils used without re-calculating the amount of lye that you use.
MrsK thankyou for the tip on paraffin, I haven't heard that one before and surprised me as beeswax actually reduces lather. How big would your batch be? I am interested in giving this one a go. 1tlbsp of sugar per pound, also ups the lather.
I'm glad you asked, Tea, because it made me go back and read over my recipes. It has been nearly 2 years since making my last batch (17 1/2 lbs of fats/oils) and I didn't use any paraffin in that batch, but it came out nice and gave good lather. I broke that batch into three parts to make three distinct soaps: Oatmeal/lavendar, Tangerine Scrubber (I add cornmeal), and Parsley and Sage deoderant soap.
However, the recipe I found that I used the paraffin in used just over 11 lbs of fats/oil and I used half a bar of paraffin, so about 1/8 of a pound of the wax. As I remember, that was a really lathery soap. I melted the paraffin separately and added it at trace.
I'll start a new thread and post my recipes.
Thanks, I am going to have to give this one a try.
I used to make soap back in 2000-2002. But for some reason, here in Florida the lye was taken off grocery stores shelves, and at the present time it's almost impossible to find any. All lye-based products still sell, but not the ole Red Devil, or similar pure lye that can be used for soap.
The soap I made, even with essential oils, always smelled like unscented Ivory soap. We used it to wash the dogs, and hands. Whoever said above that it's great for taken heavy duty stuff off the hands is right.
I stopped making soap mainly for the shortage of lye. But, also because when I ordered essential oils from a Canada website, after 911, the package almost caused an international incident. Someone thought the essential oils were chemicals for bombs, or something.
So, that swore me off of buying stuff like essential oils online. Though I found a good website based in India that sells bulk for affordable prices. I guess that buying from them could still put me in a terrorist watch list, or something.
Buying essential oils in this area can cost more than buying pure gold.
I could pick up the hobby again, if I were to find a local lye source.
I don't know of the "cold" method, but I'm going to dig into it.
:)
Cold process soap is soap made with lye and fats/oils. As opposed to melt and pour soaps.
If your soap still smelled like Ivory after adding essential oils, it was probably because you didn't add enough of the EO's. And they should not be added until the soap has reached trace, otherwise the continuing chemical reactions just tend to destroy the EO's anyway.
If you are ordering your oils online, why from Canada or India? Why not from US companies?
Red Devil lye (and other pure lye products) are not available over the counter anymore because it is used in the manufacture of street drugs. (as stated above). So you will need to order your lye online, as well, unless you have a local chemical company that you can buy it from.
Depending of the strength of the EO/FO they can be used anywhere between .25 - 1oz per pound of raw soap. So when making big batches, it is easy to use quite a few $$$'s just in scent.
I was using cold process then, and didn't even know it. ;D
I ordered essential oils and other stuff from Canada because they had better prices than the stuff I saw being sold online in US companies. The shipping was just about the same as if ordered from the US, so why not?
That was until my shipment was flagged by customs. :-\
The company in India that I'm putting my eye on is "Seema International." http://www.mentholindia.com/index1.htm (http://www.mentholindia.com/index1.htm) is their URL, they sell mostly mint products, but if you click the "Shop Here" button on top you get their huge listing.
I read their shipping cost is also similar to that in the US. That is yet to be seen.
???
Should have know I'd stumble across a topic like this on this message board. My Mother-in-law just gave us all of her soap making recipes. She used to make and sell soaps out on the west coast for many years so they are pretty tried and true recipes. Well my wife wants us to make some and as I was looking through her notes and process (as I didn't have a clue what it involved) I found there to be a very close resemblance to making cheese. So I told my wife we should be good on the equipment and process.
Well last night we put together the order for the pieces and parts and so it looks like next week or weekend we'll be making soap! So I guess I can join this club as well! ;)
First one we are attempting I'm told is a Calendula/Chamomile soap. She seems to know exactly what that is like and what it will be... me I'm more of a process and ingredient guy. As it looks like most of you are doing, this will be a cold process soap with olive, palm and coconut oil for the fixed oils. Some beeswax, lye and water... plus all of the foo-foo stuff ;) We'll see how it goes!
Ryan
Good luck, Ryan!
Just be very, very careful with the lye. I can never be cautious enough with it. I have gotten just a tiny bit on my hand when rinsing out the container and it burns big time! I can't imagine what a spill of it would do.
Soapmaking was one of my hobbies, haven't made any for several years but I still have all the supplies. I make a really nice oatmeal/milk/honey soap.
I love soapmaking. My favourite soap to date is hemp oil based soap, which after curing has a lovely grassy straw scent and great lather. It is quite an indulgent soap, but really worth it (10% superfat).The recipe is below for those who are interested:
325g coconut oil
260g palm oil
130g shea butter
130g palm kernel oil
455g hemp oil
494g water
178g NaOH
10% is a high superfat, I was wondering if you have had any problem with this soap going rancid? Not sure that it would hold in our hot humid climate. Just wondering.
Tea, I only make small 1 - 1.5kg batches at a time so the soap isn't around long enough to go rancid. Also, I keep my soap downstairs in shoeboxes as our house is built into the side of a hill making downstairs a cool and stable temperature environment (although i don't think it is cool enough to keep cheese down there). I think I might try and obtain a maximum/minimum thermometer and see what sort of temperature variation we have down there this winter though - I can only hope!!!
My wife makes soap. She adds bees wax from my bees to it.
I've made hobby type soap in the past but find similar problems with getting lye for many years. I just use craft supply stuff as a teaching project for my granddaughter. I did make a mistake once long ago by putting too much dried lavender in my bars. LOL. Can we say rough?
My great grandmother made hers in yard using homemade lye...she told me they made it from wood ashes. I remember her telling me that she "tasted" the soap...can't remember if it was to tell her when it was ready to cut or when it was cured enough. While I was interested enough to ask her about it...I sure didn't know enough to ask questions on *HOW* that was done. Sometimes the details don't make sense till you actually try making an old craft...that's when all the little questions start popping up. I'm sure if they could make lye way out in the brush a long wagon ride to anywhere, that it wasn't too difficult...LOL. I know she saved up "grease" that was past it's prime over the year as one of the ingredients. I don't think "oil" was something they would have had access to...I never saw it used until the 70's in my family. So lard was the main fat other than butter and who would use their precious butter for soap? I remember my Mom talking about the smell of the yearly soap making which was done in January in N Texas which was hog killing time back then.
Something that alot of the younger folks don't know is that used grease/oil was a commodity and was (and possible still is) collected from many places (school cafeterias, restaurants, byproduct industries, etc, for pouring down sewers/septics were NOT good) and it was then sold to make soaps and cosmetics and such. There actually was businesses that their whole job was picking up barrels of the used grease/oil from these establishments. What they did with or how they processed it for selling I can not tell you. I saw a Modern Marvels (history channel) show about Pigs and they said that up thru the 1950's most of the hogs raised in the US were raised for their lard for not only cooking but industrial applications such as soap.
My family oral tradition is that eating lye soap was a cure ??? for rattlesnake bite...my mom's dog was called "Rattler" and he was known to eat lye soap when he got bit, which apparently happened a few times. I can't imagine how lye soap could possibly "cure" such a thing....but perhaps there is something in the story.
If time permits tomorrow we are going to make soap from the rendered fat. Everyone around here made their own lye from oak ashes by putting it in a barrel and letting rainwater drip through it. Everyone had their own test for the right strength. I hope to try this soon. I have made soap many times from lard but never in a washpot like they use to do.
I've read about making homemade lye and I believe one of the tests of proper strength was that it would float a fresh egg.
I've thought about trying to make my own, just so I know how. I know that Carla Emery has instructions in her Country Living Encyclopedia. I'll have to make sure we burn nothing but oak in our woodstove for a day or two and keep those ashes to use.
I also "taste" my soap to see if it is cured properly for use. I just touch the tip of my tongue to a bar - if it tingles, it needs to cure longer. Make sure to spit after doing this!
I also make soap. Right now I am making a few batches of goats milk soap to stock up my own supply, and to give as gifts for birthdays, Christmas, etc. I used to make it to sell, several years ago, but now I just do it as a hobby
Mary
HI everyone! I'm kinda new here but I am interested with the whole soap thing. For starters where could you buy soap making tools? are there any soap recipes you follow? Hope somebody gives me an info about this. would appreciate it. :)
There are many soap making supply stores on the internet. http://www.brambleberry.com/ (http://www.brambleberry.com/) is a little expensive but they have excellent quality that a new soaper can trust. They also have recipes and tutorials.
Here is a new one from me,