Steps to learning how to make soap

So if my last blog post hasn't scared you off, and you still want to learn to make soap, here is a more detailed list of steps to follow to help you succeed:

1. Read everything you can on the subject online. Read the tutorials, and watch the videos on Youtube. Then take about half of what you read with a grain of salt. What works for some folks might not work for others. Some instructions aren't complete or specific enough, so they only provide enough info to cause a problem. About the only thing I would take seriously 100% of the time are the safety precautions. Also, consider the source. Make sure that the person whose advice you are reading actually has years of experience in making really good soap. Even after you become an expert, keep up to speed by continuing to read new material posted online.

2. Go to the library and check out every book on soap making. Before reading a book, go online and read the reviews. Soap makers will comment on what they agree with in the book, what they disagree with and why. Few books are perfect. A lot of the old books contain advice that has since been discounted. Some contain outright errors, such as instructing you to add water to lye. When making soap, NEVER ADD WATER TO LYE! ALWAYS ADD LYE TO WATER! If you add water to lye, it will cause a chemical reaction similar to a volcano. Not only will your lye solution shoot out of your container, but you could get burned. If you read both the book and the reviews, a more clear picture will begin to emerge. If you read several books this way, the picture will become clearer.

3. Figure out where you will store you tools and equipment. Some essential oils and base soap making oils keep their quality longer when stored within certain temperature ranges. My tools and equipment started in a kitchen cupboard, then they took over a room in the house.

4. Decide on your method. The two main methods are hot process and cold process. Hot process involves cooking the soap until it is fully saponified. It can be used the same day it is made, but for some reason it really seems to be milder after a couple of weeks. Cold process soap is simply stirred together until it reaches a stage called "trace" and then poured in molds to continue the saponification process over several weeks. Usually the soap cannot be touched with bare skin for at least a week, and then it still needs several weeks to become mild enough for use. Newcomers often start with hot process because they can try their new soap sooner.

5. Pick your formula. When starting out, skip the fancy color swirls and fragrances, (unless you decide to start with melt and pour.) Most people recommend starting with an ultra simple, quick tracing formula with few ingredients. As you go through steps 1 and 2, you may find that a few formulas seemed simpler than the rest. Also, start out with smaller batches. Keep them down to about one pound or 500 grams of base oils until you get the hang of it.

6. Begin assembling your tools and materials. This is not as easy as it sounds. People tend to start with equipment that they find in their kitchen, and discover that once something has been used to make soap, it can no longer be used for food. I recommend using the cheapest tools you can find until you discover whether you will be making soap regularly. Use kitchen tools that you were planning on replacing anyway. Do not use aluminum! It reacts with lye. Some people recommend glass, wood and plastic, but all of these things become lye- damaged over time. Wood will splinter, glass etches and eventually breaks, and plastic - well it's the best option of the three. I just don't prefer plastic. I used an old crock-pot for hot process soap making, but found the lye dissolved the glaze over time. Fragrance oils and cosmetic colorants are also hard on equipment including plastic mixing bowls and spoons.

With the exception of soap molds, in my opinion, stainless steel works best in the long term. It's possible to find old stainless steel pots at the thrift store, and they work fine. Restaurant supply stores sell stainless steel receptacles in a variety of shapes and sizes. One of my favorite soap making tools is a long handled, stainless steel spoon, designed for stirring really huge pots in commercial kitchens. I use it to stir the lye into the water, and the length of the handle helps keep my face away from the lye fumes. It's also great for stirring 5 gallon buckets of handmade laundry soap.

The raw materials can also be a little tough to find. At first, a beginner might prefer to stick with materials they can find locally rather than going online. Non-hydrogenated palm oil can be found under the name brand Spectrum Organic Shortening. An acceptable coconut oil can be found under the LouAna brand name.

Lye is a bit trickier. It isn't as easy to find as it once was. Some "lye" drain openers also contain extra ingredients such as aluminum flakes which you do not want in your soap - and this isn't immediately apparent from reading the label in the store. You may have to do some research online to find 100% pure lye.

Stick blenders tend to be something that many soap makers won't do without because they speed trace. Many soap makers never touch a stick blender though. I recommend starting with a faster tracing formula to start out with. An example of a slow tracing formula is one that uses 100% olive oil, which can take hours to come to a trace.

The one thing that you must have is an accurate digital scale and extra batteries. People measured their ingredients by volume in the old days, but weight is the best way to get an accurate lye ratio.

7. Once you have the book knowledge, tools and ingredients, mentally think the whole process through step by step. Sometimes in soap making you need to be able to react quickly. You might want to make sure you'll be able to get the dogs and cats out from underfoot, and you know ahead of time what you'll do in the event of a spill. Can you quickly get to a shower? Do you have enough bowls and containers to weigh and measure all of your ingredients? Do you have a dust mask to wear while measuring your lye? Inhaling lye particles can be very uncomfortable.

8. After mentally rehearsing, prepare your work area. You'll need to cover your work space with newspapers. If you keep things like toasters and coffee makers on your kitchen counter like I do, consider covering them with clean trash bags while making soap to protect them. Make sure all your equipment, tools and ingredients are at hand.

9. After making and enjoying your first batch of soap, if you want to try making more, proceed with developing your skills. Try different simple formulas in small batches. (In fact, most of the time, it's a good idea to make a small batch any time you try a new formula or technique for the first time.) Experiment with single oils to get a feel for how each oil creates a different texture. Make a small batch of all-coconut soap, a batch of all-lard, a batch of all-sunflower oil, etc., so you can see how the different oils process differently and lend different properties to a soap's hardness, cleansing ability,and the quality of the lather. As you begin working with color and fragrance, continue making small batches in order to see how different ingredients speed or slow trace. Learn to identify and deal with issues such as false trace and ricing. As your skills improve, you'll also begin to develop your own style.

10. Start developing your own formulas. People who are considered master soap makers don't just copy other people's formulas. They design their own. You might start by exactly following a formula from a book or online, then tweaking it to your individual preference. As time goes by, you'll being using your creativity and originality to create totally unique formulas.

It is possible to make a very simple batch of soap after watching one Youtube video, and without doing a whole lot of research, reading soap making lists, or spending hours on soap making supply websites. You can always do it that way, and if in the process you get bitten by the "soap bug," you may find that you'll go through the above steps anyway.

Good luck!