making soap. . .part two

hello again, i am back with the exciting conclusion to making soap part one, with making soap part two!  i hope you were all able to sleep even though the anticipation was killing you.  so lets talk about soap molds first.  my first batch of soap i used a shallow cardboard box, that once held a 6-pack of soda, and lined it with plastic.  that worked ok, but i found it hard to cut and it didn’t look as nice as i wanted.  so i spent way too much time researching and drooling over expensive soap molds on the internet.  i wasn’t sure i wanted to invest that much since it was only my second batch of soap.  so soap mold dimensions are made according to how many pounds of soap you make (most recipes tell you).  mine didn’t, so i added up the weights of all of the ingredients and figured out that my recipe made 8lbs of soap.  most soap molds are sold as 5 or 10 lb molds.  but i found this site that sells 8lb molds and used their dimensions.  now i can assure you that i am quite handy and have a number of skills that are useful on the farmfront, but i am not a power tools kind of lady.  my father was a shop teacher, so you would think i was weaned on table saws early, but i have always had an aversion to loud noises and a penchant for crying during blender use.  so what i am getting at is, if i can make a soap mold, so can you.  i found some 1 x 4’s that we had been using to support trays under grow lights when we were starting seedlings and got an idea.  i also found a hack saw (they are very quiet).  in about 30 minutes i was sweaty but had cut 5 pieces of wood to make my mold.  i covered each side of the mold with freezer paper (shiny side out), like i was wrapping a present.  then i taped them together with packing tape and i had a mold!!  so back to soap.  once your soap has reached trace and you have added your fragrances and texture (optional) you want to pour the liquid soap into your mold box.

pouring soap into the mold

as you can see the mold is a very simple construction!  once the soap is in the mold and the top is evened out cover the mold with a piece of cardboard and then layer 2 bath towels over the whole thing.  the wood also works well at incubating the soap.  this is the magic part where is really turns into soap, i would explain it to you, but i prefer for it to be a mystery.  you want to make sure your soap is in a draft free area and don’t touch it for 24 hours (no peeking).  after your 24 hours take off the towels and cardboard but leave it in the mold to firm up for 2 more days.

soap curing for 2 days in the mold

once your soap is cured for those two days it is time to take it out of the mold.  it will still be softish at this point, which makes it easier to cut.  with my mold i just cut the packing tape and pull the sides away from the soap.

pulling the mold off of the soap

you can see from that photo that it looks like a square soap log.  once the 4 sides are off i like to score the soap so i know where to cut it.  i do that with a metal ruler and a box cutter.  you aren’t trying to cut too deeply, just give yourself a guide line.

scoring the soap

once the entire log is scored it is time to cut the soap into bars!

cutting the soap along the score marks

you can see that i am cutting the soap along the score marks.  i am also just using a bread knife.  i bought a pastry scraper to cut with but it still needs to be sharpened (hint hint pa).  once the bars are cut they will still need to cure further.  i usually lay them out on some cardboard and turn them once a week, because you want them to have air circulating around them.  cure them for one to two months before you use them!  and then your oven fresh soap is ready.

using the empty pizza box in our kitchen for a curing rack

the longer you let the soap cure the harder it will get, and the longer it will last in the dish.  so thats it for soap making.  then you just clean up.  make sure you wash everything that touched lye really well (i wash them all twice) and wear your gloves!!!  feel free to send any questions or needs for clarification our way.

making soap. . . part one

when p and i lived in maryland we lived in a tiny little fishing village right by the nanticoke river.  down the street from us lived a soapmaker.  he was an odd man, that always looked as tho he was going for a bicycle ride through the french countryside in the 19th century, wearing breeches, a chimney sweeps hat, and a jaunty little cravat tied around his neck.  although an enigmatic dresser, the man made great soap, and still does!  so after moving to detroit i was very interested in learning how to make soap, but it always seemed very intimidating along with the added potential for hurting myself.  along with loving soap, i also have a deep love for hippie books that are handwritten.  so one year for some holiday p gave me alicia bay laurel’s book ‘living on the earth’.  the book was written by alicia when she was 17, and is about her life growing up on a hippie commune.  i have the revised edition that came out in 2003.  it is a delightful book full of hippie how to.  there is a soap recipe in the book that i came across a few years ago.  it made soap making seem less scary than it had in the past, and i decided to give it a try.  my first batch of soap came out kind of hard and crumbly, but had a wonderful lather and didn’t dry out my skin.  so i decided to give it another try, and the second time it came out much better.  so now p and i prefer our homemade soap to any store bought versions, and make enough once a year to give as gifts and last us all year (in fact this year we are going to make two batches).  so i should state that i am in no way a knowledgable or professional soap maker.  there are lots of good resources out there about making soap,( books and the internet) as it is a precise chemical process that came burn you if you are not careful.  i am more of a one trick pony, i have a recipe i like and am sticking to it!

so on to the process.  so a few things you will need for making soap.  rubber gloves, safety glasses, and a nose and mouth mask or respirator, glass pitcher, a non metal pot (enamel or ceramic), a slotted spoon, immersion blender (optional) and a soap mold (although a cardboard box will works in a pinch), a scale, and a thermometer.  you need to procure some lye.  lye is sold as drain cleaner or tile cleaner, its other names are sodium hydroxide or caustic soda.  remember that lye is caustic and will burn you, and since it is caustic you should keep a bottle of vinegar close to as an antidote to lye burns.  always purchase lye that is ONLY sodium hydroxide, red devil is a brand that is consistently additive free.  also worth noting is that all soap measurements are done by weight, even the liquids are all measured by weight.  in a glass pitcher add 12 ounces of lye to 32 ounces of water.  you may want to do this outside, since you DO NOT want to breath in the fumes, this is also where those glasses, gloves and mask come in to play.  stir the lye until it is completely mixed with the water.  lye and water combined create a lot of heat, so i usually prepare the lye about 3 hours before i plan on making the soap to let it come down to temp (between 80 and 100 degrees fahrenheit), but if you mix it the night before and it cools down too much,  you can warm it up in a sink of hot water.  make sure you do not leave the lye where any animals, kids, or adults will drink it or mistake it for a pitcher of water!!

warming up the lye in a sink of hot water

next you want to prepare your fats.  you want 42 ounces of hard fats ( solid fats) and 42 ounces of liquid fats.  i use 26 ounces of coconut oil and 16 ounces of palm oil (because this is what is suggested in the book!) in a regular pot over a low flame melt both fats until they are liquid.  they will need to cool down to 80-100 degrees F.  while they are cooling mix up your liquid fats, once again by book suggestion i use 38 ounces (by weight) of olive oil and 4 ounces of other oils like almond or apricot kernel.  i like to hasten the cooling process of the hard fats by mixing the liquid fats with the hard fats.  even so it may take a bit of time for those both to cool to temp.

pouring liquid fats into liquified solid fats

once these guys are at the right temp pour them into that large non-metal pot.  you will also want to add 1 tablespoon of grapefruit seed extract or vitamin e oil (they are natural preservatives).  put on your lovely rubber gloves and glasses again and slowly pour the lye into the fats while stirring in a figure 8 motion.  (p and i couldn’t find safety glasses so we donned stunna shades in the kitchen at 7pm) be careful not to splash any on yourself or any companions.

fats and lye combined

from here you either keep stirring for up to an hour (in that figure eight motion), or use and immersion blender (often called a stick blender).  i always use the stick blender.  keep blending in short bursts, and then stir in a figure 8 motion afterwards until you get trace.  i am not going to explain trace because that will talk a while, but here is a link explaining what it is.

stirring with the blender, seeing the mixture get lighter colored and thicker

once you have reached the trace stage it is time for the good smelly stuff to go in! you can use any combination of essential oils you want!  i just keep adding a little at a time until it smells good.  it is always better to add a little than to dump in too much.  i wanted a textured soap, so i added a quarter cup of lavender flowers, but before i added them i mixed them with some liquid oil so they wouldn’t clump.  mix in you scent(s) and any texture you want (oats are nice too!).

we have trace, and are now adding lavender flowers

our next steps are pouring the soap into the mold, but i will cover that in . . .soap making part two!!  i know the anticipation is killing you, but this is already wordy enough.  so until then au revoir!