Homemade Soap - How to Make Soap at Home
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Making your own soap at home is a fun and rewarding skill. Homemade soap is delightful to use on your skin or hair. Hand made soap makes a wonderful gift. There is no end to the variety of scent, color, shape and herbal ingredients. The recipe that I will share below is made with inexpensive ingredients and easy to find, inexpensive equipment.
The only problem with homemade soap is that once you start using it, you will be hooked forever.
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A Word About Lye and pH
If it doesn't have lye in it, it's not soap. Some producers of 'homemade' soap, understanding peoples' aversion to lye, list sodium hydroxide as an ingredient instead of lye. Sodium hydroxide is lye.
Many commercial soaps do not list lye or sodium hydroxide as an ingredient. That's because the cleansing bar you buy the does not contain lye is not soap - it's detergent. They may add lanolin or other softening agents including glycerin which is a by product of soap making. But without lye, it just ain't soap.
Lye can be dangerous, yes. But life is fraught with danger. Stoves are dangerous. Crossing the street is dangerous. Get over it. If you follow the rules and proper handling procedures, you will be fine.
The soap making process creates a chemical reaction called saponification, after which fat is no longer fat and lye is no longer lye - together, they have become soap!
Soaps and detergents have a slightly base pH. To assure yourself, if still in doubt, purchase some pH test strips. Use the strips to test the pH on various bar soaps and personal cleaning products. Then, test your own soap after it has cured. You'll see that the pH levels are similar.
Another method of testing pH is the simple tongue test. Touch the tip of your tongue to the cured soap. If you feel a slight buzzing sensation, the soap is not cured. If you don't feel the buzzing, it is soap. Of course, even when the pH is fine, soap is still not going to be tasty.
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Lye - Safe Handling Procedures
- Never use aluminum in the soap making process
- Do not touch lye- wear gloves and protect your eyes
- Do not leave the lye solution unattended. Keep away from children and nosey pets
- Open a door and window or activate an exhaust fan to avoid inhaling dangerous fumes
- If you get lye on your skin, rinse immediately. Vinegar counteracts lye because it is an acid. If you don't have vinegar, you can use orange juice.
- If you spill lye solution on the counter-top, wash immediately with vinegar. It is best to cover counter-tops with plastic for safety and to avoid a big mess.
Always add the lye to the water. (Otherwise can create a dangerous reaction)
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Make Soap at Home - Equipment Needed
Use only stainless steel, enamel-ware, glass, Pyrex, wood, or plastic in the soap making process. Never use aluminum
- Large enamel ware or stainless steel pot
- Large mixing bowl or container made of stainless steel, glass, enamel-ware, or Pyrex for lye solution
- Scale that weighs in ounces
- 2 Glass covered thermometers
- Several large, plastic spoons
- Plastic containers for weighing water, fats, and lye
- Molds for soap - commercial molds or you can just use plastic food type containers
- Trash bags to cover counter
- Stick blender
- Stove
- Sink
- Apron, safety glasses, rags or paper towels
Homemade Soap - Here is the Stuff You Need
Home Made Soap Ingreients
- Water
- Fats - white, hydrogenated vegetable oil, like Crisco
canola oil
caster oil - find at health food or ethnic stores
coconut oil - at health food or ethnic stores
- Lye ( found at plumbing supply stores or use Red Devil brand found in many supermarkets)
- Sugar
- Coloring agents (if desired) - shredded crayons, commercially available coloring agents, herbs
- Essential oils - do yourself a favor - don't use fragrance oils
Herbs - parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
How to Make Soap at Home - Recipe
- 42 ounces Crisco
- 5 ounces canola oil
- 5 ounces caster oil
- 5 ounces coconut oil
- 17 ounces water
- 6 1/2 ounces lye
- 1 Tablespoon sugar
- 1 1/2 ounces or more of essential oil
- coloring agents
- herbs (optional)
Weigh the fats
Add lye to water then add rest of the fats to the pot
Add lye solution to fat when both have reached 110 degrees F
Mix with stick blender until trace
Make Soap at Home - Method
- Dissolve sugar in a small amount of hot water (set aside and use when you weigh the water)
- Weigh 42 ounces Crisco (or similar product) into container. Weigh the container first and adjust the scale to zero.
- Place Crisco in large stainless steel or enamel-ware pot on low heat
- Weigh 17 ounces of water (including the sugar water). Weigh empty container first and adjust the scale to zero
- Weigh lye, weighing container first, and pour the lye slowly into the water. Ensure adequate ventilation. Cover your nose and mouth. Stand slightly away from the mixture as fumes will rise. Gently stir until crystals have dissolved
- Measure canola, caster, and coconut oils separately (again, wight the empty container first) Add to the fats in the pot
- Use a separate container for the lye, the water, and the fats
- Allow fats and lye solutions to come to the same temperature - about 110 degrees F. this can be tricky. The lye solution takes some time to cool. If one of the mixtures is still warm and the other is near 110 degrees, place the container of the warmer ingredients in a cool water bath in the sink until the mixture cools.
- When both mixtures have reached 110 F, slowly pour the lye solution int the fats
- Mix with stick blender until the mixture reaches the trace stage. That is when you drag a spoon through the mixture and it leaves a path. It's kind of like pudding.
- Add coloring agents and herbs
- Add essential oils
- Stir
- Pour the thickened mixture into a mold that has been greased with olive oil. You can use a large, rectangular Tupperware type container
- Lay plastic wrap over the top
- Cover with a towel
- Set aside for 3 days
- Remove soap from the container. Slice into bars
- Store the bars of soap on a rack where they can get good air ventilation. Soap must be cured for 30 days before use. Do not use soap before it is cured.
Pour soap in mold - isn't it pretty?
You can stack the molds
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Coloring Agents
Do not use food color. Uncolored bars are white Here is a list of some natural coloring agents
- turmeric - golden, more makes it orange
- French clay - green (an astringent_
- ground crayons - the color of your choice
- sage - dull green
- cocoa - brown to very dark brown
- coffee- brown (good for a super-cleaning bar) add as part of the lye solution
- powdered commercial or liquid pigments - the color of your choice, available at some craft stores or online
- ground calendula petals - yellow
- paprika - orange - don't use hot paprika
- cinnamon - reddish brown
- oxides - inorganic colors, make sure you buy cosmetic grade (they dry darker than when first added
- And other ingredients
- Herbs - produce nice flecks, very pretty - sage, thyme, chamomile flowers, sea kelp granules, dried orange rind, mint leaves, herbal teas (steep 3 tea bags in water, cool, and use as part of the water/lye solution), oatmeal (an exfoliate that soothes dry skin, use about 1/2 cup)
How to combine lye and water
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Aromatherapy - What Different Scents Can Do For You
- Aromatherapy Benefits - The Aromatherapy Benefits of Various Scents
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More on the Benefits of Aromatherapy
- The Benefits Of Aromatherapy: M. D. Anderson Teaches How To To Soothe And Heal
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Some Soap Molds
You Can Buy One of These Molds for $25.00 or You Can Just Improvise
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Comments
Congratualtions! A really great hub!
This is such a rewarding project…Thanks for the history, recipe and tips on how to make soap. My daughter has made soap (in different colors and shapes) as a thank you hand out. The recipients loved it!
Delores, I am in love with this hub! What a fantastic intro. I love that you really drove the point home. I have to say I really learned A LOT in that first section, so thank you so much. I want to make those blue soaps in the first photo! So absolutely gorgeous. To me, a beautiful bar of soap is a work of art. Call me crazy. =] had to tweet and facebook this.
I don't know, whenever I read your name in my inbox, I automatically think Waterlilies and so it was with great pleasure that I saw the first photo of turquoise soap above, reminiscent of one of my favorite impressionist paintings. It FELT right, lol. Thanks for a great hub!!!
Homemade soaps can be perfect! Thanks for sharing ideas and recipe, Dolores.
You always giving very nice and useful information for all of us.You have done a great work again. I really appreciate your work.Thanks Very Much...........Waiting for another one.
Dolores, You did a great job on this hub...so thorough, easy to read and understand and interesting. I don't think you left anything out....and the images really helped to understand the process. I really enjoyed this.
Might have tried this years ago, made all sorts of things then. Interesting hub but not for me these days.
Absolutely, positively everything I can possibly need to know about soapmaking! And for some unknown reason I have been wanting to work with lye! Perfect!
Excellent hub! Many thanks!
Interesting and informative hub. My Grandmother used to make lye soap. Brings back memories.
Thanks all for visiting my hub. I really appreciate the comments. Gina, all real soap contains lye and is not harsh at all.
BK - the lye can be dangerous, but if you follow the rules, it's just fine. Be careful!
ethyl - I love to make big messes and soap making is a bit of a mess, but makes the house small great!
alek - am glad you enjoyed, it's really a lot of fun.
naveen, glad you stopped by, i hope to post more info at some point.
Tatjana, as much as I make, I enjoy checking out the soaps that others make as well.
Thanks you, Story, I appreciate your interest.
Frieda, thanks so much for commenting and I really appreciate the tweet! The blue one is actually sort of greenish in real life, sometimes the colors turn out to be a bit of a surprise, even after doing this for several years! Frieda, I make a nice lavender/lemongrass that's blue. Once you get into it, you really can't go back to commercial soap.
Nancy - I hope that your daughter gives you some of her soap. There are so many ways to do it, so many recipes, but I thought I'd stick to an inexpensive one.
chiara, thank you for commenting.
dohn, you are so funny! I think they like to avoid saying 'lye' because it just sounds so nasty. Thanks!
This is a wonderful step by step article for the art of soap! Thank you. Home made soap can be so beautiful and fragrant as well as an excellent gift and your article covered everything anyone would need to know! Lovely.
This is a wonderful HUB; my wife and I try to be "organic" having been long haired radical love child in the 60's. I now own a Pro Family Fishing Park and my wife is a certified massage therapist specializing in Lymphatic Massage. So need less to say this HUB works for us and I think I'll try making soap to sell in our Bait and Tackle Gift Shop.
Thanks for the informative HUB.
Pastor Brady
Sarah, thanks a bunch, I am totally addicted to homemade soap.
PastorBrady, there are tons of recipes out there, but this one is the least expensive to make. I'm glad to have you visit my hub - good luck!
I had to read this because it was interesting. But no way I would ever do that. All those ingredients must not be cheap, and who has the time? But it is very interesting.
Mike - making soap is a big mess, it takes about 3 hours to make, maybe 15 pounds of soap. That's a lot of soap. I'll send to a bar for your birthday!
excelent hub, there are everything we need to do it
let's do it
thank you
I like this. I always wondered how they made soap.
Lye in soap is fine. The guy sprinkling it around the periphery of his property was pretty funny!
nice hub lady. But i think making it in home is very time consuming. And god knows either we are using right potentiality of chemicals in it or not.
Nice introduction I will get hub too.Thank you very much.
I was always hesitant to mess with making soap because of the lye, but you make it sound like it is not too bad.
Useful and excellent info. I like it. Thanks a lot.
Thanks so much for stopping by, ledimi, ProfeCompu, Clara, tO8e15m and Kyon.
SweetiePie, I am happy to amuse you but I don't know about the guy sprinkling lye around his property - I looked back and see nothing - but who knows? Will that keep out some pests?
Artemus, I can't believe that you of all people would be hesitant to use lye. Aren't you the guy who could make a bomb out of a pack of playing cards?
Thank you for the hub! It was very informative and I will be trying this with my daughter who has been wanting to get into soap making as well.
I don't have the time to do this right away, but what an informative hub! Thank you!
anginfit - I hope that your daughter is grown or almost grown - soap making is not a project for very young kids - I hope you two have fun! And it's great to do with someone else.
Thanks for the comment, J, it does take time and makes a mess. You have to be the kind of person who likes that sort of thing.
I thought of FightClub and the main character making soap with liposuctioned fat. Great post, I think this would be a fun hobbie to have.
So, what happens if you do use aluminum? I'll take your word that it's no good, but I'm curious.
As fun as this sounds, it seems like the a bad project to try in a small, poorly ventilated apartment. But I did run out of soap today...
What's the advantage of real soap over a detergent?
Nice introduction. Thank you.
Jacob, yes, I often think of that too, and of how much money I could save. I just found out that I missed Chuck Palahniuk speak at the local library.
EA - Great question. All I can tell you is that the use of aluminum can cause a dangerous chemical reaction with the lye. That's all I need to know. And making soap in your apartment is no problem as long as you open a couple of windows, maybe run a venting fan, or stick one of those little fans in the window to vent the fumes. Detergent is very drying to the skin and can be really nasty on sensitive skin. Soap, especially home made, is gentle - even the kind made for oily skin. Home made soap feels great, smells wonderful, and you can use it on your hair. Fine and straight hair fluff up some when you use home made soap on it. And, of course, when you make it yourself, you have the pleasure of creating an original product. Once you decide which essetial oils to use, color the soap, and add herbs, oatmeal, or whatever, there is the great satisfaction of using a product made exclusivly for you!
tudsanee, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.
I have had an interest in making my own soap for a while. This was a great hub and plan to use it myself to make personalized gifts!
Thanks!
Lady, it does make a great gift. Just remember that it has to cure for a month. Thanks for stopping by!
Loved this hub. Maybe in the fall when things slow down. I've used handmade soaps for years and love them. I've enjoyed getting them from a variety of locations during my travels and when I use each one I'm reminded of where I bought it. They last so much longer too. I got a bar of Lilac Olive Oil Hand Soap at The Olive Store in Temecula, CA, and it lasted an entire year. I was amazed.
Great hub.
KE - a year? wow! The best way to make the soap last is to leave it unwrapped, it gets harder that way. I'm glad you enjoyed my hub.
I have thought about doing this but it is so really detailed. You have given such precise instructions, so I am bookmarking your page. Thanks so much for sharing!
Thank you Dolores, for sharing this great recipe for hygiene. We always use soap (bat or laundry) everyday, so, it's wise to know how to make it at home if our budget is tight. I bookmarked this already.
Thank you frogyfish - it may sound like a lot of into, but once you make the soap, well maybe, a couple of time, it's pretty easy. Good luck!
travelman - the home made soap is sort of a hobby, life style choice kind of thing. It does not save money. I used to figure out how much each bar cost, but prices have risen. I should do that and add the info.
Wow. I had no idea making soap was so interesting. I've have to give it a try.
Thanks
You go girl! Loved the way you made it sound easy, cause it is. Like you said the key is the lye. I admit I felt the same way about that--Yuk! Lye! No lye, no soap! Time for me to make some soap!
What a find in hubpages! Great hub....lol altho I never saw "Granny" measuring ingredients and using scales while she was concocting soaps and such on the Beverly Hillbillies! Seems that woman made everything imaginable just by throwing stuff into a pot and stirring it up....This is a wonderful hub!!
HK - thanks for stopping by, I appreciate your comment!
Thanks, Olive. I wanted to make soap for years but was afraid of the lye. Then I thought, sheesh, dangerous stuff is all over the place!
Wealthmadehealthy - I'm glad you enjoyed my hub. But you see, Granny had been making it for so long, she was such an experienced soap maker, that she had a totally practiced eye!
Wow, this is really cool! I can't help but think of Fight Club and the part where Ed Norton gets lye poured on his hand. Such a good movie...
BlueGreen - that's funny, how several people thought of Fight Club. Well, I pretty much stick to vegetable oil, which is fairly inexpensive but not as cheap as the fats Ed Norton's character used. Thanks for commenting!
The first thing i thought of when I read the title was Fight Club. Very cool hub.
Wonderful info on soap making. Literally every question of mine answered. I have always wanted to make homemade soap. And after reading this Hub I know I could do it.
This is a great hub. Have always wanted to learn how to make my own, but was afraid to try it because I didn't have the ingredients and had to spend a fortune for homemade lye soap at flea markets and other places. The Amish sell it for pennies but I don't like their choices of fragrances. Will bookmark this for future use. And homemade lye soap is great for getting rid of poison ivy, too. Thanks so much for sharing. :)
MaryElena, I am so laughing at how many people are reminded of Fight Club! Thanks for the chuckle and for commenting.
cathy - good luck with the soapmaking and thanks for stopping by.
Raggits - the ingredients of this soap are pretty easy to find and the recipe is fairly inexpensive. Good luck, I hope you enjoy making soap!
Bokmarked, I will try this out surely. Thanks for sharing
thanks a lot and please anyone checkout my hub if yo like michael jackson
Really a great hub. Thanks for sharing it with us!
A fascinating hub - but seems the ingredients are complicated. I haven't a clue what some of them are or where to find them.
In My countryside market there are lots of soap brands & apart of it some organic home made soaps are also available but all of them are very expensive so by getting this idea i am planning to make the soap at my home & then gifting them to the friends ^& relatives!GOOD isn't it?
First of all, this Hub is great, the how to pictures are amazing!... for all those who are already making soap, and would like to turn it on a home-based business, it is possible!, you just need to package it like a pro, and we can help you with that with affordable manual wrappers. Please let us know!
japind - thank you so much for visiting and commenting.
anthony - yep, it does sound a bit complicated but when you really think about it, there are less ingredients in soap than in a pot of stew! Most of the ingredients can be purchases at regular grocery stores. Some of the fats may be found at health food or ethnic stores. It's a lot less complicated than it looks. Thanks for the comment!
ajayrocks, I hope that you try it and enjoy soap making!
triton - I actually sold some of the soap once, and made my own crappy looking packaging. So I am giving you this plug and will stop over myself!
Nice hub about Homemade Soap - How to Make Soap at Home
.
Thanks
Thanks, sumon6, I am glad that you enjoyed the hub. I appreciate your visit!
jayb - thank you for visiting my soap hub, i am glad that you enjoyed it!
ruffian - thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment!
Delores,
Your hubs are always so interesting and well written. I'm going to use this article to convince my wife to make some soap!
Thanks, Mo. Why don't you make it together! Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Quite educative. Why not i start making my own use home soaps with this help . so glad and appreciated thank a lot
truysus, good luck, I hope that you enjoy making the soap. thanks for stopping by!
very interesting and informative hub thank you for sharing
Thank you so much for this information. I've always wondered how to make soap and you've given enough clear instructions to give the courage to try.
This is Awesome. This makes it looks sooo much easier.. and fun.~ Thanks for the detailed instructions! :)
Tracy711, thanks for visiting my hub and commenting. I sure appreciate all these comments!
hiyauriah - I wanted to make soap for years and the first time or two, it was a bit of a struggle, but so worthwhile. Practice makes perfect!
sherld30, thanks for the wonderful compliment, I am glad that you enjoyed the hub.
I always thought it would be fun to make my own soap but have never gotten up the guts to do it. I have all the ingredients too, even the lye.
for many moons this has been a desire of mine,i love the way you took the fear away.this hub is a definite bookmark...thx 4 share
Fight clubs soap was better
I'd be "lyeing" if I said I had made soap at home before.
When my Pennsylvania Dutch grandmother became a widow, she cut off her long hair, bought a bunch of pastel pantsuits, went on her first airplane trip, then sold the farm and moved into a raw young development. She was ecstatic - "it's so easy to keep clean," she gloated - and almost the only thing she brought with her from the old homestead was a box of her homemade soap, to remind her of how much she hated having to make it! Hah. Thanks for this wonderful, detailed page.
Great hub!- I've always wanted to learn how to make my own soap...thanks for sharing!
Wish we could smell it.... I love homemade soap! I have not tried to make this type of soap but your hub makes it sound like it is something I might like to try. Thank you.
I made soap with my niece nephew a few months ago, & we had a blast! Brings back fond memories.
olga - if you've got the goods, go for it. (You have caster oil?) Thanks for commenting.
loveofnight - Thank you for visiting. I've got you beat - I wanted to make soap for 30 before I got the nerve to do it.
spider - oh, did you use the soap that they made on Fight Club? I thought that was a fictional story. I wonder if you would follow their detailed recipe, you could sell it without getting sued for intellectual property piracy. I bet you'd have a lot of customers!
john - So glad that you made that comment. It's about time that someone did!
chpapelhillfiddler - Thanks for sharing that wonderful story but I like the idea of the plain grandma better than old Mrs. Fancy Pants. But, I guess, it's better to be happy than quaint.
Kendra, thank you for stopping by to read my hub and for commenting on it. Give it a try!
Tesa, I appreciate your visit and comment. I'll check with Hubpages and see if they can come up with that application. It would be great for recipes - imagine the smell of cookies.
Jessica, it's nice to make things with the kiddies. I'm glad you guys had fun. Thanks for sharing!
Jessica
Great information. Do you have an idea on how to make black soap? This is West African local soap made without the use of chemical. If you have any information pls can you share it. This is a good info.
Hi--this is such a minefield for anybody who is interested in making soaps at home--very informative and I love how you made it into a step-by-step guide! Wonderful information and background, kudos to you on a great hub!
Great Hub! You make it seem so easy.
this is vry interesting..I always wondered how, now I know..,thanks
obsessedpreserver - great, you can take a break from preserving and still get to make a big mess! Thanks for commenting.
jackie - it's not too hard once you get used to it - thanks!
nikko - I'm glad that you enjoyed the hub. I really appreciate feedback like yours.
hybridway - I really don't know how to make the African black soap that you mention. I can't remember how that soap smells and what essential oils it contains. But you can make a very dark or black colored soap by using coffee instead of water and adding cocoa as a coloring agent. I made something like that last year and scenting it with patchouli and it worked out well. Thank you for your interest!
I can't help but think of the film FightClub when I hear about home-made soap!
Nice hub!
johnnyfr - I know. Me too. And so do lots of other people who came here. This soap is a bit more expensive to make than the stuff they made in Fight Club. Thank you for visiting my hub!
Why would anyone bother to go through the hassle of making soaps at home?? Just buy it, saves all the hassles.
This is a fantastic Hub. To make your own soaps as beautiful as those in your photo is a great exercise in self-proficiency combined with art.
I've always loved the handmade soaps I find at the State Fair. The ones I like best are goat milk soaps, with different scents. Rosemary Lavender is my own favorite. From talking with the family who produces the soaps, it is my understanding that their process is different - I believe no lye is used in those particular soaps.
Correction: After looking for information online, I decided that it is unlikely that the goat's milk soap I love is made without the lye.
Soap making is always fun! I know that I love using Goats Milk SOAP with the Lye. I am allergic to most of the other detergent stuff that they decide to push into the soaps and they wonder why so many people have skin problems now compared to years ago. Which is better shoving your skin full of chemicals or natural items that are not made by man? If you ask me I prefer the natural route!
Rene - I can certainly see your point. Soap making is for those folks who just have a need to make things. I even attempted to make paper several times. For some of us - it's just fun! Thanks for commenting!
Staci - I just bet that if you read the ingredients, lye is listed somewhere, somehow. I had a bar of soap that the makers claimed contained no lye - it contained sodium hydroxide which is lye. There are tons of recipes - I'd love to try the goat milk - and I am only offered one here because this one is pretty inexpensive to make with easy to find ingredients. Thanks!
Staci - thanks for coming back after your research. I really appreciate it.
Isabellas - it seems funny that a product we call natural and gentle contains lye. But when you really think about it - it is not lye any more. The chemical process creates a whole new item - soap! Thank you for commenting.
What a great informative Hub is this! Many people may be unaware of this simple and great idea of making their own soap according to their taste! Great job indeed!
wood ashes from a camp fire become lye when water, such as rain mixes with it. That is what is used when making the african soap. The color is mostly rancid oils.
Lye crystals will eat through aluminum when it is activated with water.
Soap can be cured in 24 hours by placing your soap in a solar oven created by using a cardboard box and a clear plastic bag. If it is not cured, it will eat through your clothes.
Hardness of soap depends on the ratio of oil to water
This reminds me of "Fight Club":)
I know my wife would love to try this though. I'll bookmark this hub for her. Thanks Dolores!
ratnaveera - thank you for visiting, I am glad that yo enjoyed my hub.
Jaynie - I've read about the creation of lye from fire ashes, that's how they did it in the old days. Also, some real purists and people in rural areas do that. I've thought about trying it but it's just too much. Thank you for the information.
As for the heat cure which cures the soap up much faster, I have tried it many times and feel that the texture of the long cure is so much nicer and smoother that I always just let it sit for the 30 days. I've been wanting to try the solar over and understand that you can use one to cook foods as well.
StevenCavendish - Thank you. I hope that your wife doesn't go dumpster diving behind the cosmetic surgury office. There are certain parties that do not approve of dumpster diving.
I like making home-made soap, but not good at making soap base. I tried making lye soap base and it molded or didnt turn solid. I have to buy my base already made, then mix herbals and scented oils.
Kathy - some recipes (including food) take a while to master. Sometimes it's just not worth the trouble. The soap that I've described here takes some time so really solidify and a month to cure. Even then it is not as hard as commercial products.
I am very spectical about this. Is it healthy?
Awesome hub! My girlfriend got a soap-making kit from her mother--it makes excellent (although not terribly long lasting) soap. Thanks for the specific information!
Thankyou, Ive made soap before and this hub is better than any book I have read on how to make soap. You show the lye and the reaction when it is mixed with the other ingredients as well as the great soap you create from it all!!!!!
Bookmarking this hub. Soap making is something I haven't thought about for years but you've made me take a fresh look at it. Definitely have to make some soap when I'm less busy.
Thank you, i like to use homemade soap. All my other soaps are from whole foods. love all koma.
edi - home made soap is gentle for your skin. I know of one young lady who has a terrible time with cleansing products but she loves this soap!
Direx - I am glad that she enjoyed making soap. If you leave soap out unwrapped, it dries out more and lasts longer. Thanks for commenting
salt - thank you so much, I really appreciate the feedback. I may make another hub about aroma, herbs, and little changes you can make so that you can use this one recipe but produce many different looking and smelling soaps.
Jerilee - For the first time, it takes a good morning or afternoon's worth of work. I usually make two batches thinking if I've got all that junk out, I might as well. Thanks.
hinckles koma - I haven't shopped at Whole Foods for a while, but I'd like to see what they have in soaps. This recipe is not exactly cheap, maybe about $2.50 a bar to make, but I cut the bars pretty big.
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wow...i wanna try this.. i think it's really fun.. thank for sharing.. :)
pink, it is fun, if you like to make a really big mess when you have fun. Thanks for commenting!
i must admit that soapmaking is the one craft I've always been afraid of. As you say the "lye" sounds dangerous.
after your detailed descriptions I may just try my hand at it!
I have always wanted to try this but I confess I've been to chicken. Maybe I will see if I can get my sister-in-law in on it and see what happens. You make it sound easy! Thank you! :)
Great work. I believe my favorite part by far was the "soap is dangerous, life is dangerous get over it." Ha! Love it. This will be my retirement hobby if I ever gain enough money to retire
Hendrika - lots of things are dangerous! Cooking is dangerous! Go for it - just don't get lye in your eyes. Wear safety glasses. Thanks for the comment and have fun with the soap.
Pam - I've been making soap with a friend lately and it is a lot of fun. You wind up making so much more so you can have a greater variety of scents and colors. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment!
Ben - I know. I can't understand people who say they won't know what to do with themselves when they retire. There are so many cool things to do and learn...possibility is endless. Thanks for visiting the hub!
Great info and very nice hub
interested in visiting each others blog
Thank you for stopping by the hub j, glad you enjoyed it.
rajeshwarprsd - as am I. Thanks.
What a find that I kept passing over time and time again. Silly me! One question: Can you use honey instead of sugar in the mixing process?
I am thinking about home-made Christmas gifts and this may be a new thing for me. I have done individual cakes and fudge and I am looking for something different. I put this hub in my favorites!
Sorry to come back, but I read in one of the comments that this soap doesn't quit get hard as commercial soaps. Do you know if this can be used as a liquid soap and what would be the recipe for that?
Lady - if you want to make it for Christmas gifts, you'd better hurry up because the soap takes 4 weeks to cure. I am sure that you can use honey, you can use just about anything but sugar produces suds. And, this is a softish soap. If you store it in the open air it will harden somewhat but no where near as hard as commercial soaps. I am going to work on a new harder version and will write a hub after I make sure that it works. One reason that this soap is softer is that the glycerine produced during the process stays in the soap while a lot of commercial soaps have the glycerine removed. Thanks for checking out my hub, I hope it works out well for you!
Great info about soap and how to make it! Very interesting. I must say that we should drink the orange juice and just pick up some vinegar (if it's not already on hand) when we get the lye before trying this!
Well I may make this fro other occasions since it is almost too late. Thanks for the information though. I will wait on your next hub.
Good idea, linda, vinegar's cheap and a perfect foil for the lye. But why are we drinking the orange juice (aside from it being so delicious)? Thanks for the comment!
Lady - it's not too late. I haven't even started on my Christmas batch! Don't make me panic. But maybe I should.
It isn't that. It's that I don't have the supplies yet and can't get them for a couple of weeks yet. We are are a much tighter budget right now and we are playing catch up and stil have not paid taxes on the house which were due in July. So I am trying to find something that I can do with what I have right now.
Lady, I know, you'd think something like homemade soap would be cheap. It comes to about $2.40 per bar to produce. The Crisco type shortening can be found at Aldi's for way cheaper that in the grocery store. (Who would think that a stupid product like Crisco would be so durn expensive?) The lye I get at a plumbers' supply for $10.00, which is enough for quite a few batches. The other oils can be found at ethnic or natural food shops, sometimes cheap, sometimes not. The essential oils are quite expensive, though. Good luck. Not having money is a bitch.
I love to save money and give homemade gifts but even something like jam costs alot once you buy the jars and lids, and the sugar. Nothing is cheap anymore. It's a mess.
I do understand that. I was/is a seamstress and it used to be cheaper to make clothes for yourself and others.....until the greedy people got into the mix. Now patterns are almost more expensive then the thng you are making and the material--well that has been jacked up way to high if you ask me. It's crazy now a days!
Lady - I know, fabric is unbelievable. I wanted to make my sister a bag for Christmas and the fabric that I really liked was $35.00 a yard! What!? So when I found a $10.00 off coupon, I bought 1/3 of a yard, so that worked. If you are a seamstress, I bet you have lots of scrap material that you could use to make gifts.
Nothing anybody wants though. I just gave all my scraps to the Elementary schools around the area. I know they could use it.
I'm going to make some right now, don't need to buy this stuff anymore!
This is extremely interresting. never thought it could be as easy.
My kids love you 4 this one, coz we are having stacks of fun...
I am not a full time worker. I have some time in which i can do these things. I always look for new things and saving money. I like this way and i will apply it to make my own custom soaps. Good work.
Lady G. Oh well. I have a whole box of scrap material I don't know what to do with, though one year I raided it and made tote bags.
Bestcell, this is the cheapest recipe I could find but it can still produce a really nice batch of soap. Thanks for visiting the hub.
Men are not dorks - unless you mean in a good way! If the kids are helping, please be very carefull with the lye. Plus, kids are shorter and can easily get it in their eyes so make sure they wear protection. Thanks for commenting!
Patrick - yeah, this kind of thing does take time, but it's great when you have the time to do it. You can customize this recipe in so many ways! Thank you for stopping by the hub. Good luck with the soap making.
Really cool! Now I can't wait until I need another shower...
Jawa, well since it takes a month to cure....you are going to wait until then? just don't sit too close, okay? ha, thanks
What an awesome hub. Really well explained step by step. I'm always looking for new recipes. Thanks for sharing.
regards Zsuzsy
Zsuzsy Bee, thanks! So glad that you liked it. It's a fun, fairly inexpensive project, but watch out, once you try it - you get hooked.
Dolores I agree that you can get hooked, I've been making soap for probably 20 years. Your recipe is a bit different from mine so I will have to try it next time. Thanks again for sharing.
zs
Zsuzsy - I checked out your hubs thinking that maybe you wrote one about soap but found, instead, your recipe for moisterizer. Very nice. Must try! Thanks for stopping by!
My mother and daughter have started making soap and we were just discussing how to give it color. I have sent them this link so they can read your good info on the subject!
came across this from random serach. verry good read :D
Good posting
It would be fun to make my own but I am too intimidated. It makes me think if the scene in Fight Club with the lye.
Godslittlechild - of course there are commercial dyes available that give you a wide variety of colors. I just like the natural ones best.
Thank you, ewansean!
Appreciate it, Ashton!
Artemus - I will confess that for years, I too, was afraid of the lye. It's more dangerous to drive a car than to make soap! Of course the whole Fight Club thing may frighten people off. They sure don't want to be getting into a slub fest with themselves.
you know it's even look tasty )
My Granny used to do soap when I was a teen, years ago...
still can't forget those delicious smell from the kitchen
Fitter - yes, the whole house smells wonderful when you make soap. I like to set it out when its cured, it smells good for ages! Thank you for commenting.
This is really neat!
But isn't it a little hard to make?
Great hub...the title made me think of Tyler Durden and Fight Club.
The home-made soap looks so cute!
Vampire - it may sound hard because I gave very detailed instructions. Like anything else, the first time seems harder, and it gets easier as you go. Try it, you might like it! You can make black soap!
Unique - I'm so sick of hearing about Fight Club - it's no fair, they got their ingredients for free! haha. Thanks for commenting!
scheng1 - it is very pretty, especially when you have made many different kinds and colors. Thank you.
I did this with a class of grade 2 students many years ago for Christmas gifts to give at home. Was a huge hit with everyone and became a tradition in the school. Parent volunteers did most of the work but the kids designed the forms, chose colors and then wrapped the soap in their own recycled paper we also made.
Great hub.
Very helpful.
Mardi - wow, that's quite a project for second graders. But with the parental support and everyone working together, I bet you all had a great time and made some wonderful memories.
beadams - thank you.
Wow, this is a great hub! Now I can make soap for myself and know what's in it. Thanks for sharing all this wonderful info with us.
Thanks for the great hub on making homemade soap. Greatly detailed instructions! So helpful.
Wow! cool ideas.. I thought soaps can only be manufactured in the factories.. didn't know we canmake them at home as well ... nice article :)
Amazing techniques to make soap at home. i usually do not know that we can actually make them at home. thanks for sharing..
Naomi - it certainly is a wonderful thing to make. I just made a ton of it today and the house still smells wonderful. Thank you for commenting!
Miss Marsh - I appreciate your saying so. I enjoyed making the hub almost as much as I enjoy making the actual soap.
Clara - back in the day, they all made soap at home out of lard and ashes. Ugh. You can make almost anything yourself! Thank you for stopping by.
neysajasper - it's a bit of a commitment and a mess and you have to wait for a month to use it, but I love making soap. Thank you for commenting.
I stay away from soapmaking just cause a friend once burned her hand badly cause a bit of lye got into her glove.. It completely turned me off trying it, as you can imagine!
Thanks for commenting, Belly Fat. I've spilled lye on myself, I never wear gloves (of course one should) and with a sprinkle of vinegar, I was fine. Sometimes gloves are more dangerous because of the situation that you described.
you want to avoid using lye in glass containers... it can cause etching. It will weaken the glass and you may eventually find tiny amounts of glass in your end product!
It would be fun to make your own soaps and create the scents that you want not want a manufacturer has created for you.
Makes me want to try it. Very good hub thank you.
Coolmom - making soap is a lot of fun and very rewarding. I have a stack of it curing in my bedroom and, boy, does that room smell great! Thanks!
Coolmom - making soap is a lot of fun and very rewarding. I have a stack of it curing in my bedroom and, boy, does that room smell great! Thanks!
During my school days, I, along with a friend toyed over the idea of making soap at home as a business. We even created a brand name and I designed a wrapper too! However, it did not get off the ground as the big 'uns were not in favor of the small 'uns handling money! LOL!
I do not remember the formula right now, but I do remember that one of the ingredients was coconut oil!
Thanks for writing this article. :)
quicksand - ha, another soap making business gone south. A friend and I sold some at a boutique. There was a terrible storm, the roof leaked, and most of the soap was destroyed. So most of our money came from insurance. Thanks for commenting.
dohn121 says:
3 months ago
What an amazing find! I just saw you pop up on my email inbox and decided to come on over! I always wondered how soap was made. Thank you for this, Dolores. I am definitely bookmarking this one. I guess those people that claim that their soap doesn't have lye were lye-ing? Sorry, I couldn't help myself!