How do you make home-made soap? By Mel Rimmer

The most important thing you need is an accurate set of scales. Soap is made by reacting an acid (oils and fats, such as sunflower and olive oils, are acids) with an alkali (sodium hydroxide otherwise known as lye). It is important not to have too much oil or your soap will be greasy and unpleasant to use.  Conversely if you have too much lye the soap will be caustic and could burn anyone who tries to use it. So it is important to stick to the recipe. Don’t substitute one oil for another or the balance of oil to lye will be out of whack. And it’s important to measure accurately.

You also need a pair of goggles such as you get from a DIY shop, and a pair of rubber gloves. This is to keep you safe from splashes of caustic material such as lye or caustic soap mixture. Get a large stainless steel or enamel pot. Don't use cast iron or aluminium as the caustic ingredients will attack them. Get glass or plastic jug, again, the material is important. You’ll need a jam thermometer, a wooden spoon that you will only use for soapmaking, a rubber spatula is helpful but not essential and so is a stick blender. You’ll also need a mould, such as  a 2 litre ice-cream box, a couple of washed out 1 litre fruit juice cartons with the tops cut off or a couple of washed out Pringles cans. You’ll also need some old towels or blankets and a sharp knife or cheesewire.

Soap Recipe

10 ounces coconut oil
12 ounces vegetable shortening such as Pura
9 ounces olive oil
4 ½ ounces sodium hydroxide
13 ounces (by weight) distilled or spring water
1 teaspoon lavender essential oil (optional)
1 teaspoon clary sage essential oil (optional)

Click here to find supplier for ingredients.

1. Place the fat and oil in a large stainless steel or enamel pot. Heat the oils until they are melted then remove from the heat.

2. Pour the water into a large plastic or glass jug. Wearing goggles and rubber gloves add the sodium hydroxide and stir until dissolved.

3. Place a jam thermometer in the water/sodium hydroxide mixture and put it somewhere very safe from being knocked over by the cat, the kids, your partner or yourself. Get your mould ready. Measure out your essential oils because you won't have time later. Keep checking the temperature of the water/sodium hydroxide mixture.

4. When the temperature is about 50 - 55 degrees C (which could take about an hour or more) put your gloves and goggles back on and add it to the oils.

5a - the patient way: Every five or ten minutes put on your goggles and gloves and give the mixture a damn good stir with a wooden spoon. Check for "trace", which may take around 30 - 60 minutes - see step 6.

5 b - the impatient way: Get out your stick blender and whizz that mother for less than five minutes until "trace" - see step 6.

6. The soap will thicken. When it gets to the point when a ribbon of soap trickled off the spoon into the pan stands up as a visible line on the surface of the soap for a few seconds before sinking back in, that is called "trace" and it means you've got to move fast. Add your essential oils and give a good stir by hand. Don't use your stick blender this time or you will end up with a pan full of solid soap you'll never be able to get out.

7. Move it! You've got to get this soap in the moulds quickly before it sets solid. Pour the soap into the moulds – a  rubber spatula is good for getting all the soap out. Tap the mould gently a couple of times to make the top level, and then wrap it up with with old towels or blankets for insulation (this helps the saponification process) and put it somewhere it can stay undisturbed for about 24 hours.

8. Washing up - keep your gloves on (and your goggles if you're paranoid) whilst washing up. The fresh soap is very caustic and can burn you if you get it on your skin. You'll need more detergent than you usually use, but if you have plenty of detergent and hot hot water you can get everything spanking clean and don't need to worry about using the same pans, jugs etc for food in future. I do.

9. After 24 hours it's gloves on again (don't need the goggles this time) to demould the soap. If you used juice cartons or Pringles tins the easiest thing is just to cut into them a little with scissors and then rip the cardboard away. If you used an ice cream box you should be able to tip it upside down and ease the soap out. Now using a sharp knife or a cheese wire cut the soap into blocks however you like. I'd reckon on getting 12 good-sized bars out of a batch this size.

10. Lay out the bars of soap on something like a piece of cardboard or wood, cover with an old blanket and leave it for 4 weeks before using. I'm not kidding. The sodium hydroxide hasn't all reacted with the oil yet and your soap is still very caustic. If you used it straight away you'd take all the skin off your hands. It will also dry out a lot and harden in the 4 weeks. But in a month you will have a real treat - beautiful mild hand-made soap.

Buying soap making ingredients

You can make soap from ingredients available in your high street. Sunflower oil, olive oil, lard and dripping (if you’re not vegetarian or vegan) and many other fats and oils can be found in your local supermarket. Try health food shops and ethnic food shops for interesting oils such as cocunut oil, sweet almond oil and apricot kernel oil as well as essential oils. Sodium hydroxide can be bought in your local hardware shop, perhaps in the cleaning or plumbing supplies section. It is used as drain cleaner. But you might find it easier to buy soaping supplies online.

These are suppliers I have used:

The Soap Kitchen www.soapkitchenonline.co.uk

Soap Basics www.soapbasics.co.uk

The Soap Tub www.meltandpoursupplies.com

Soaping Books

I started with Melinda Coss’ “The Handmade Soap Book” published by New Holland Publishers ISBN 1-85974-006-5. It has very clear instructions for the beginner and lots of excellent recipes with a clear photgraph for each one.

I also like Susan Miller Cavitch’s “The Soapmaker’s Companion” very much. It’s published by Storey Books, ISBN 0-88266-965-6. The batch sizes are larger than in Melinda Coss’ book, but the recipes are more “earthy” which I like a lot, and they have silly names like “Down The Garden Path”, “E-I-E-I-O”, and “Blowin’ In The Wind Laundry Soap”. It has no photographs but it does have line drawings to illustrate the techniques.

Another book is “Making Scented Soap” by Linda Hamblen, published by Collins and Brown, ISBN 1843400561. This has recipes for bath bombs and massage bars as well as soaps. The photography is stunning but some of the recipes use very expensive ingredients, such as lavish amounts of rose absolute.