How to make soap

IrishAbroad · Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:49 am

Oh and as with all skin products, always do a patch test first (you know, a little on the inside of your elbow to make sure you don't have a reaction)

ina · Post: # 5120Post **ina** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 10:01 am

IrishAbroad wrote: and to try and put peoples mind at ease my "full" title is...
Dr. Martin Montgomery PhD Org. Chem. QUB. (doctor of chemistry)

Nothing to be ashamed of. But maybe you should be ashamed of using your working time and, I'm sure, your employer's computer, for posting mail on this website

???

Don't worry, guess where I am sitting just now... But I've hurt my foot and had to find a "job" I can do sitting down for a while, so I've got an excuse

.

Anyway, yes, I'll try and get that stuff next time I'm at the hardware shop. B&Q is quite a few miles away, so I'll try the locals first. (We don't have Wicks and Do-It-All up here...)

Have you ever used beeswax in soap? I could imagine it in a mix with olive oil.

Ina

IrishAbroad · Mon Jul 18, 2005 11:00 am

LOL - Well I work as an independant consultant and the company I currently work for are more interested in results than my "other uses" of company resources

Yes I have seen some recipes using about 5% beeswax melted in the oil. I will be trying it soon. They do warn though that any sugar (honey etc) causes a much faster reaction so the Lye water (the caustic soda water mix) must be left to go cold before the oil/wax (with undoubtedly some residual honey) is added. It is supposed to make a very good soap.

And as I'm in Paris we get 2 hours for lunch, so technically I'm on lunch now

Wombat · Post: # 5145Post **Wombat** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:27 pm

I just bought a local book on soap making, and the idea of shampoo bars has caught my eye, so I think I will have to give that a go!

Nev

PS G'Day Martin - I used ot be a chemist before I took to OH&S!

IrishAbroad · Tue Jul 19, 2005 8:39 am

Well if you can get your hands on pure Potassium Hydroxide (Potash) I believe the recipe is the same - just use Potassium Hydroxide (Potash )instead of Sodium Hydroxide (Caustic Soda) and you end up with liquid soap.

leedarkwood · Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:03 am

Bear in mind that you can not subsitute potassium hydroxide for soduim hydroxide I belive, for safety sake run it all through the soap calculator.

Lee

IrishAbroad · Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:06 am

Just been playing around with a pretty good soap calc at

http://www.soapcalc.com/calc/SoapCalc.asp?sfgdata=4

It works for liquid soap too

Millymollymandy · Wed Jul 20, 2005 5:39 am

Mon dieu! Soap making is best left to the experts (you chemists!) after looking at that link. All this talk of chemicals - I admit I didn't have a clue what went into soap but I had a romantic notion it was a bit like candle making.......

No wonder my skin dries out like an old prune when I put real soap on it (so I only use shower gel type stuff for sensitive skin)!!!

Wombat · Post: # 5308Post **Wombat** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 9:29 pm

I made a soap mould on the weekend, so next weekend I will give soapmaking a go - something simple to start off with!

Nev

SUPEwoman · Post: # 5972Post **SUPEwoman** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:57 pm

If I'd considered making my own soap, I've now changed my mind! It's far too complicated & as I'm clumsy, I dread to think what might happen.

I had tried to find unaldulterated castile soap to blend & use but it was all very expensive, mixed with fragrances or in America. There's a company in Yorkshire make it, but you do have to buy 3 ton of the stuff!

As a child I can remember spooning sugar into my dad's hands as he rubbed in lard to get rid of oil & grease after working on the car. He'd finish up with "swarfega", not seen that for years, but then never really looked.

ina · Post: # 5997Post **ina** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 7:33 am

I'm going to make my own scrubby soap for filthy hands (which I quite often have, although is less grease, more muck etc); I've had the ingredients sitting on my kitchen table for a couple of weeks now and still not started on it!

I intend to use olive oil and bees wax, plus a bit of fine sand for the "scrubby" type. Maybe some orange oil for the nice smell.

Ina

Wombat · Post: # 6008Post **Wombat** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 11:46 am

Don't be put off making soap SUPE! If you wear the right gear (gloves and safety glasses) its no more dangerous than bomb disposal

Seriously it is not difficult. I've done it the last couple of weekends and if I ca do it, you can! have a look at www.soapnaturally.com.au and if you can get it their book (Called Soap Naturally oddly enough) is superb.

Most of the soapmaking books tend to be fluffy and nice and full of pretty pictures but light on detail. This one is a ripper!

Nev

JayBee · Post: # 6686Post **JayBee** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 10:07 am

Anonymous wrote:Unless i'm mistaken, the bit that you have left over, after extraction/separation of soaps and glycerin is, er, biodiesel !

(although I see no mention of ethanol - Biodiesel is vegetable oil with glycerin/soaps removed - and its production certainly involves sodium hydroxide).

Still working my way through the site and noticed this.

Yes, vegetable oil, caustic soda AND either ethanol or methanol can be reacted to create diesel - ethyl ester or methyl ester depending on which of the alcohols you use. After the reaction diesel can be decanted off the top leaving a glyceride for soap production.

Caustic soda is available as Sodium Hydroxide in many brands of drain cleaner. I use Jays Kleen Off. Useful stuff, it also acts as a catalyst in an aluminium/water reaction to create hydrogen. I use hydrogen to cook with and am experimenting to see if I can reduce my petrol usage. Internal combustion engines can burn many things other than expensive petrol.

Be careful with methanol. It is very poisonous. Ethanol is safer, if you drink it in moderation.

alexeix · Post: # 32501Post **alexeix** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 5:16 pm

Hi there,

I stumbled upon this web site and I'm intrigued about soap making...

I'm going to give it a go, but having read through this post, I don't see how much essential oil should be added for the fragrance.

Any suggestions?

Also, I've read elsewhere that you can mix olive oil with coconut, jojoba, almond oil, etc., but I don't know where to buy sufficient quantities in the UK. Can anybody recommend where to buy them?

I live not far from Reading, Berskhire.

Great web site!

Hepsibah · Post: # 32544Post **Hepsibah** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 1:15 am

Hi alexeix. You can buy all those things online if there are no stockists near you. The one I use myself is The soap kitchen online: http://www.thesoapkitchen.co.uk/ I have always had a good fast service from them and they don't charge the earth for postage.
I had the same problems figuring out how much essential oil to add to a recipe and in the beginning, I always put too little in. When the soap goes through the process of saponification, it turns a lot of the essential oil into soap too so if you don't use what seems like a lot, it is all gone by the time the soap is ready to use so there is no fragrance at all. I now use around 5ml in a 500g batch of soap and see how it turns out. Some essential oils hold up better than others so I do a test batch before making a larger amount.
Please don't be tempted to use fragrance oils in your soaps. They usually have an alcohol base that reacts badly with the soap causing it to 'seize'. When a soap seizes it turns very lumpy very fast and is almost impossible to get it into the moulds quickly enough. The finished soap isn't harmful but neither is it very attractive so seizing should be avoided wherever possible. The only exception to the no fragrance oil rule that I'm aware of are the ones sold in the soap kitchen as they are oil based and can be used in cold process soap.
Welcome to the site BTW.