How to Soap

[8greenbeans]

I know we have at least a couple of soapers on here! It has been on my to-do list forever to learn to properly soap. Are there any videos or books that you would recommend learning from?

As a side note - is there anyone who filters their own lye from wood ash? I will start out with store-bought lye - and likely use that forever - but I'd like the skill of at least knowing how to make it from wood ash.

[Starlady]

LOL, funny that you put this up just now, making my own lye is number one on my 2018 skill list!  I'll probably only do it once just to know how, but it would be awesome to make a soap with everything grown on my little farm or sourced very locally.

Although there are hundreds of websites with awesome soaps, swirls, mountains, etc., one thing I did learn with the melt & pours I started out with is to keep it simple at first.  Just working with hot liquids, fragrances and colors can be a lot to absorb and it helped me figure out how NOT to set up my kitchen or work area.  For my 1st cold process soap, I plan to focus on one small simple batch just to get a handle on the order of things.

I've been through nearly 3 dozen soap books on Kindle and haven't found ONE go to book yet.  For the basic understanding, Anne Watson's Smart Soapmaking is pretty good for basic info, safety, etc. with several recipes, although mostly veggie oil based & she has a couple of other specialty ones out (Castile only, etc.)  DON'T waste your money on The Complete Soap Making Guide by Emily Larson!  For $9, it's actually more of a pamphlet and is not the reference material they lead you to believe.  Amazon refunded my money on this one, lol.

Right now, I'm using a combination of several books, plus the Brambleberry.com lye calculator to come up with what I want  - a lard based soap with some veggie/nut oils to give a good rich lather.   I've not yet found a book of just lard based soaps.   I'm still looking for a comprehensive list of the various liquid and solid fats along with the lye amounts needed that is not internet or kindle based (you know, just in case).  I've got everything in place mentally, just need to set the time to do it after the new year.

Since I'm in the boondocks, on limited bandwith satellite, I can't do a lot of videos so I haven't even looked.

[8greenbeans]

  Sounds like we are on the same wavelength!! I just want the skill for exactly that - just in case. Sounds like we are likely in for lots of printing at some point soon. We need those calculators - if they are online and not readily found in books then printing or handwriting is our friend.

Good to know Amazon refunds money when things like that happen! I have a few books I grabbed for free on Kindle that I really need to take a look at and see if they are worth printing out or buying. While not in the boondocks yet, we do have a lot of people on our bandwidth using it up.... so I tend to only watch videos that are recommended and when not many people are home.

[Fixit]

Have I made soap yes . Do I make soap no. Have I leached lye . Yes once . Here's a biodiesel sit that sells things you might want at a good price in bulk . http://www.dudadiesel.com
 They have your lye in bulk powder and for those that play with other things they care bulk sulfur and other goodies.

[Starlady]

I found what I was looking for on a website!    I'll attach the doc but basically it takes a few of the most common fats, gives you their sodium hydroxide (NaOH) SAP value (read the doc to see how important this is as opposed to the potassium hydroxide (KON) value & why you might need BOTH!)

I edited the doc to get rid of her email and sales stuff plus left room for you all to add handwritten notes of whatever you find in books/websites on other fats - just make sure you know which SAP value you have.   I left the website name on the bottom of the doc for credit & in case anyone wants to go check out her other stuff. 

BUT, the value to this doc is that it gives you the simple MATH necessary to  figure out how much lye to use for any fat, or any combination of fats. THIS is what I needed!  She also gives the more involved math to figuring how to convert the KON SAP value to a NaOH value, as she states most charts only give you the KON value.   So, if things go bad we can still invent our own recipes depending on which fat we might have available AND which lye.  Because if we are making our own lye, it's potassium (KON) not sodium (NaOH).

For example: down in S. GA, y'all can grow olives for oil.  In Zone 7B, I can't so I'll be relying on animal fats mostly, plus sunflower oil.  There are other websites giving the SAP values for chicken, duck, goat, goose fats plus, corn & flaxseed oils etc., so I'll be handwriting those values in from a couple of the books I do have that already have them.  Because I'll want everything in one place, not to jump from book to book when I want to make up a recipe.  And some of the books only have the potassium value, now I can convert - but I'll also be stocking up on sodium, LOL.

Yaaay, us!

[8greenbeans]

Awesome! Thank you!!! I just printed it!!

[Starlady]

Whooo-hoooo!   I'm cookin' soap........got trace on my 1st try.  Another hr or so and it'll be ready for the molds.

I tried to upload a pic but tinypic isn't working for me, even when I join, I can't upload.   

Oh well,  I'll keep you advised as to progress.

[Lilburner]

I have a question about ashes.

Wood stove ashes are hardwood ashes. But you used paper, maybe some heart pine to get it lit. Does that ruin it, or is that little bit of hardwood just benign?

Also - how fine should you screen it to keep coals out. Window screen OK?

[Starlady]

The paper shouldn't be a problem but any pine will be according to what I've read.....something to do with the resin.   I use oak twigs & small branches on my paper to get a fire going.   If I'm burning pine, I make sure to put those right on the garden or the compost pile.

I would think a window screen would be fine, as long as you're not mashing the stuff through.  All I can find is that you want powder, not pieces.
 

[Ravenwood1950]

This is a skill I want to develop this year as well. Star Lady, can you video you making the soap to teach us folks that are so far away? I am going to print out you doc now.
Thanks,
Ravenwood

[Starlady]

Hold off on printing that, I made a better one, with BOTH values for all the fats you could think of and some I've never HEARD of!   I'll put it up here tomorrow night.

And NO, I don't do videos......I can barely stand pictures, lol.

But I will say, it was way easier than it seemed like it would be.  You just have to get your stuff organized and it goes pretty smoothly.   I've already got it in the molds and it's cooling off and hardening pretty fast.  Hot process soap isn't pretty but I put it in decorative molds anyway just to see for myself. 

As soon as they get the post up for the spring campout, I'll volunteer to do a class on it.  And another canning class if folks want it.

[tlwagg]

This is also something that has been on my to do list for a few years. I've looked at the soap making starter kits but am unsure which one would be the right one for me. I wouldn't mind getting a group together of all of us that would like to learn to make soap if we can find a teacher.

[Starlady]

I'll be happy to do that teaching.  I'm having a very small class (my space is limited) at my house the end of this month.

So far I've done melt & pour (which is what most of the kits are, so don't bother really) and hot process.  I'll have a batch of cold process done & drying before class.  So far, everything has worked perfect!

Just about anytime in Feb is good for me, I just can't host it if it's open to all members..  Pick a date, post it on the calendar and link it to a post so you get points & then we'll figure out how I get points for teaching it.  I'd suggest, jmo, that I do it and everyone else observes - you don't want 6 people walking your kitchen with lye water!  Also pick hot or cold process, I'll bring all the stuff and take whatever we make home (because we can't even cut it till the next day).

[Starlady]

Final report on my 1st hot-process batch:

Way easier than many books lead you to believe.  I was so nervous about putting the lye in the water, I had to sit down from relief & have a cup of coffee to let the adrenaline go away!  I used just under 4.5 oz of lye and 9 oz of cold (about 65F) distilled water and it raised the temp to 140F.  No fumes, although I did do it on the porch railing just to be safe.  Melted the oils/fats in the crockpot (I used my older cooking pot & bought a new one for food) and then when the temps were within 10F of each other I carefully & slowly poured the lye water into the pot, stirring gently the whole time.  I used lard and some coconut oil for lather.   Because my crockpot is 7 quarts and I was only making 2lbs of soap, I tipped it a bit and used the immersion blender to bring it to trace in about 5 minutes.  Covered it, cooked on low for an hour (stirring the edges in every 15-20 minutes), then used pool strips to test it - very high alkaline, so I cooked it for another hour, stirring & mixing the edges down.

Pool test strips don't really work well.  Still showing high alkaline, I put a half teaspoon on a plate to cool, then washed my hands with it.  No burn & great cleaning, leaving my dry hands feeling soft.  So I glopped it into the molds and within 2 hrs was able to take it out.  Small decorative molds so it cooled & hardened fast, but unless you glop it in pretty fast, you lose the design AND it starts to harden so that it looks like each spoonful in the mold doesn't look like it joined up well with the others.  2 days later I took the raggediest looking one and took a shower with it.   It lathered up well on me and the loofah, plus I tested a washcloth, too.  I was clean, no burns, it didn't fall apart at what looked like seams AND my skin felt amazing!  If I'd just poured it all into a bar mold & cut it after cooling it would have been smoother.

In hindsight, I now know that I overcooked it (but for my 1st try, I feel better safe than sorry) so I went ahead and ordered the liquid lye tester (phenhol-something) from Amazon.  If SHTF this won't be available but I'll have a lot more experience under my belt by then and will test by hand after the 1st hour.  The soap would have looked more homogenous & the color would have blended in better if I'd poured it after that 1st hour but it works & I'm pretty happy with it.

Cold process soap is much smoother looking and lends itself more to color designing (swirls, etc.) but takes a couple of weeks to saponify and then another 3-4 weeks to evap the water.  It's also much harder on scents (both chemical and EssOils) since the soap actually heats up while it's curing & you can't control that.  If you make a big batch, you need a lot of safe room to let those bars dry up.   Since I'm not going into the soap business, I probably won't even bother with that until next September to make pretty gifts.   Hot process bar soap is usable within a few days (it takes longer for the water to dry out in a bar soap than my skinny molds), although a week is recommeded to let it get even harder.

Happy soaping!

[Starlady]

A few of us got together at my place this past Saturday and did a test on a 'secret' way of making hot process soap more fluid so you could pour or scoop it into molds without ending up with a seam at each spoonful and still have it ready to use within a day or so.  It worked like a dream.  If I'd added a bit more, or some water I could have made pretty swirls like cold process.

Because I'd already made just lard and coconut oil soap - which turned out great, I modified the recipe using soapcalc.net to get a much more moisturizing bar, so I want to remind those who got a sample that it will not last as long as the 1st batch - the lighter green sample you got, it's much softer.  I like soapcalc.net's lye calculator better than Brambleberry's because it gives you a pretty close idea of what your recipe's properties will be:  hardness, cleansing, conditioning, moisturizing, bubbles, lather & other stuff I don't care about, LOL.

Found a soaping book at B&N today and accidentally flipped open to the page that informed me:  Essential Oils REALLY don't need to be used at the high end of the recommended amounts on hot process soap.  Because we are adding them AFTER the saponification, they don't lose as much of their scent as they do in cold process soap.   I chose the medium-high range because I love strongly scented soap.  I could still tell I'd used Sandalwood 24 hours after yesterday morning's shower!  So, if you copied my recipe and don't like a VERY strong scent, drop it down to 1 ounce or even 3/4.

For those of you who already know how to make hot process soap - the secret is 1 T of plain regular yogurt per lb of soap after the cook. DON'T use non-fat yogurt.

For those of you who are interested in learning how, go post that on the Camp Out post so we'll get the class set up.