It's a pleasure to make soap, use it and give it to others. For many people, soap-making is a satisfying creative process. If you make your own yogurt, sour dough starter, bread, lotions and creams, soap making is a natural step to take. Even if you don't already make your own versions of those products, there are good reasons to make your own soap. The most important is the ability to control the quality of the ingredients in your soap.
Lye
Lye was originally leached from hardwood ashes. Because people lacked accurate scientific information about lye and fats, making soap was a hit-or-miss process. If the soap didn't have enough lye, it was too soft and difficult to use. If the soap-maker used too much lye, the soap would be too harsh. It isn't possible to make natural soap without lye, but with accurate scientific information, you can use the right amount of lye for the oils and fats in your soap, so that at the end of the soap-making process there will be no lye remaining in the soap.
Fats and Oil
Animal fats were traditionally used to make soap. Soap-makers saved or scrounged animal fat, washed it in boiling water to remove contaminants, and used it in approximately equal amounts with lye to make soap. However, any fats or oils can be used to make soap. You can even use shortening, which is a hydrogenated oil, making a harder soap. If you don't want to use shortening, you can use natural palm and coconut oils, which are also hard at room temperature and make a harder soap. Pure fresh cold-processed oils can be purchased at a health food store or ordered online from soap-making suppliers. There are a wide variety of vegetable, nut and seed oils available for soap.
Fragrances
Essential oils (EO) are the water-soluble fragrance molecules of plants, obtained by distillation. EOs don't contain fat molecules, so you can test your EO by putting a drop on absorbent paper. If the EO completely evaporates, it is genuine. If an oily mark is left, the essential oil has been combined with a carrier oil, such as jojoba oil.
Colors
One of the pleasures of homemade soap is the range of natural colors that can be obtained from natural ingredients such as herbs, flowers or clay. Pure oils come in subtle color variations as well; for instance, olive oil has a greenish hue. If you want to use intense saturated colors, you will likely have to use synthetic dyes.
Liquid
You can use a variety of liquids, including water, milk, tea or hydrosol. Use a lye calculator or saponification chart (easily found online) to figure the right amount of liquid for dissolving the lye.
Saponification Values
To make high quality soap with no residual lye, use the saponification value of each different oil or fat in your soap to tell you how much lye and liquid are needed to completely saponify the oils. You can find lye calculators and saponification charts online, and use them to make your own recipes.
References
- Early Days
- Front Range Living: Soap Dish
- "375 Essential Oils and Hydrosols"; Jeanne Rose; 1999
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