Handling Lye

The scariest thing about making soap is dealing with lye. Lye is caustic and it burns the skin. It's a poison which can harm children and pets if they get into it. It's sodium hydroxide, and it's used to make soap and certain foods like hominy and pretzels.

I think it's wise to never underestimate the need for safety precautions when using lye. Yes, plenty of people make soap barefoot without wearing goggles or gloves, and Goddess bless them, but in my opinion they are either unusually graceful, very lucky, or "cruisin for a bruisin."

Some say you should make your caustic solution in a jar in the sink. Place the jar in the sink. Pour in your water, then stir in the lye. This way, if it spills, it just goes down the drain. I don't do that. You just never know when someone will want a drink of water, and there in the bottom of the sink is a jar of caustic solution. I really don't want to start chasing people away, wild eyed, with a wooden spoon in hand!

Instead, I purchased a 20 liter bucket with a lid. I found it at a food service wholesaler called Smart and Final Iris. It has a wide, stable bottom so it's not at risk of tipping over. With the lid on the bucket, I can walk away from my caustic solution. I have curious cats and children who know better than to throw things in the house but do it anyway. With my luck, if I leave a jar of caustic solution in the sink and go to the bathroom, upon return I will find a football in the sink, a scalded cat, and two kids wearing innocent expressions.

I line the bottom of the bucket with old newspapers. On top of the newspapers, I place an 80 oz. pickle jar. It's larger than the largest mason jar I have, and the glass is sturdy and heavy. I wanted a sturdy jar because the water gets so hot. I simply went to Wal-Mart to the bulk foods aisle, bought the biggest jar of pickles I could find, and encouraged the family to eat pickles every day until they were gone. Yes, in my house we all make sacrifices for soap.

When making cold-process soap, you need to know the temperature of your solution. For this I use a stick, similar to a yardstick. I tie a string onto the middle of the stick, and tie a glass thermometer to the string. The stick lies over the top of the bucket. The string is long enough for the thermometer to submerge in the solution without touching the bottom or sides of the jar.

Afterward, the lye stirring spoon, jar, thermometer, and stick are all stored in the bucket.

They say that you should always pour the lye into the water. If you pour water into lye, you'll get a dangerous volcanic reaction. I've never made this mistake. However, I have made another mistake - I've inhaled the vapors from the caustic solution. It's awful. I won't be doing that again. Very unpleasant. When I pour the lye into the water, I do it by the open door. It's another good reason for the bucket - I can put it on the back porch if I want to. I'm a klutz, and it's hard to pour lye without looking at the jar or inhaling, so I wear a face mask while making the lye solution. Even while wearing the face mask, I try to hold my breath while stirring and looking directly at the solution, turning away to take another breath.

The caustic solution will get very hot when the lye is first added to the water. Oven mitts are necessary while handling the jar.

The first time I made soap, I wore a face mask and goggles during the entire soap making process. The goggles fogged up and I couldn't read the scale. I missed a decimal point and had to rebatch. Now, I only wear the face mask while making the caustic solution. I do use reading glasses, which provide some eye protection.

I also wear foodhandler's gloves while making soap. I bought them at the food service supply store where I bought the bucket. They only go to the top of the hands though, so my wrists get a bit itchy as the vapors rise from the soap. A bit of vinegar takes care of it.

I save old towels and tee shirts to protect surfaces. I cover the counter tops with newspapers, and keep a large old towel nearby to mop up spills. Sometimes a batch of soap will catch me off guard and expand, spilling over the top of the pot. It just happens. Soap can be surprising. I place more towels or newspapers on the floor in front of the counter. The old towels are tossed directly in the washer after making soap.

I keep vinegar on hand to neutralize the lye. Spilled lye crystals can be hard to see, and a spray bottle of vinegar is handy way to deal with the last of the mess.

Immediately after each process, I clean all soap making utensils. For a while I thought it was cool to not wash out the soap pot after each process, thinking that the soap remnants in the pot would help the next batch. While some folks do toss a scrap of soap into the new batch to help things along, leaving caustic soap remnants on soap making tools can shorten their life. Now I neutralize the soap pot with vinegar after each use.

I save the containers that cottage cheese, yogurt etc. come in, and use them for measuring lye. (The lids make excellent disposable spoon rests.) I place a drip coffee filter in the plastic container. A one-pound cottage cheese container nicely holds a drip coffee filter. The plastic container gives the coffee filter stability. I make sure everything is very dry - lye is attracted to moisture like a magnet. The filter goes in the plastic container, which is placed on the scale. The weight is zeroed out with the tare feature before the lye is weighed.

As the lye is poured into the water, the mixture instantly heats. As the vapor rises it dampens the remaining lye in the filter. This is where the coffee filter is handy. It can be lifted it out of the container and the last of the lye crystals brushed into the water without having to scrape out the container. Afterward the filter can be thrown away and the container can be recycled. At first, I was using the coffee filter without the plastic container, but it's difficult to manage a wobbly paper filter filled with lye.