How to Make Soap at Home
Learning how to make soap at home is a simple way to save a little money on an essential household item. Once you perfect your own soap recipe, you can make a cleansing agent that’s exactly to your family’s specific needs. You’ll smell exactly the way you want to smell, and be able to avoid allergies that many commercial soaps cause.
Below is a recipe to make soap at home. Once you make soap once or twice, try adding or subtracting your own ingredients, to create the smells you want and the hypo-allergenic soaps you want. Let’s start with a list of items you’ll need to make soap at the house.
Making Soap at Home
Making soap at home requires a number of ingredients, to do the job right. You not only want an effective cleaning agent, but you want a cleaning agent that looks right and, more important to most people, smells right. Here are ingredients you’ll need for this soap recipe.
- Lye
- Coconut Oil
- Vegetable Oil
- Olive Oil (non-virgin)
- Vinegar
- Distilled Water
- Cricso Shortenings
- Soap Fragrance
- Soap Coloring
- Colored Crayons
Soap Making Tools
To make soap at the house, you’ll also need a number of soap-making tools. Here’s the minimum allotment of tools you’ll need for this job. These should make your soap production quicker, easier, cleaner and safer.
- Soap Molds
- Rubber Gloves
- Measuring Cups
- Measuring Spoons
- Stirring Spoons
- Mitre Boxes
- Candy Thermometer
- Bath Towels
- Safety Goggles
- Spatula
Dissolve Lye in Water
Add 32 ounces of softened water into a bowl, preferably glass or plastic. Next, dissolve 12 ounces of lye into the softened water. It’s probably better to do this in the open air, or under an exhaust fan, because of the lye.
Remember to add lye to the water and not water to the lye, meanwhile stirring with a plastic spoon. Let the mixture cool.
Add Coconut Oil – Add Vegetable Shortening
Melt 24 ounces of coconut oil along with 38 ounces of vegetable shortening in a stainless steel pot. Next, add 24 ounces of non-virgin olive oil to this mixture, then allow the oils to cool.
Preparing the Soap Molds
Prepare the soap molds by greasing them with Crisco.
Mix the Oils with the Lye
Once the lye mixture and the oil mixture are room temperature, it’s okay to mix the two of them. Add the lye to the oils, while stirring slowly. Be prepared to stir constantly and don’t stir so briskly that you cause the concoction to bubble.
Test the Soap
How to Make Soap at Home
Occasionally dip your stirring utensil into the soap mixture, then let it drop pack into the pan. When this substance starts to keep its shape for an instant, before reverting to the mixture, you’re almost ready to proceed to the next step.
Dip a cup into the soap.
Adding Extras to the Soap
You’ll next want to add coloring and fragrances into the soap, but taking whatever coloring, grains and botanical fragrances you’ve chosen and mixing them into the cup of soap you just collected.
When this is mixed into the soap, combine the contents of the cup into the full pan of soap. Stir to mix.
Soap in the Mold
Add the soap mixture into the soap molds. Wrap the soap mold in a thick towel, then leave it covered for 18 hours. You expect the mixture to heat up, then cool down.
After 18 hours, uncover the mold and let it set, uncovered, for another 12 hours.
Removing Soap from the Mold
Once this 30-hour process is finished, wiggle the mold to loosen the soap from the sides of the mold. Turn the mold over on a clean counter and remove to a clean cutting board.
Next, cut the soap into bars of soap with a knife or mitre box. A mitre box lets you square the corners, so it produces more professional looking soap.
Curing the Soap
Finally, soap needs to cure for up to 3-4 weeks. The larger the bar, the longer it’s going to take to cure. Once you have cured the soap bars, it’s ready to use. The process is time consuming, but the soap you make at home is going to be made to order.
Soap Additives – Soap Colorings
Add one of the soap colorings below to add color to your soap bars. Play around with the amounts (roughly 1 tablespoon) to produce the colors you want.
- Crayons – Colors the Soap
- Candle Coloring – Colors the Soap
- Titanium Dioxide – White Soap
- Liquid Chlorophyll – Green Soap
- Turmeric – Yellow Soap
- Paprika – Peach Soap
- Cayenne Pepper – Pink-peach Soap
- Cocoa Powder – Brown Soap Coloring
More Soap Additives – Nice Smelling Soap
- Essential Oil – Various Scents
- Rose Water – Rose Smells
- Ground Cloves – Clove-Scented
- Ginger
- Lemon Peel – Citrus Aroma
- Orange Peel – Citrusy Fragrance
Soap Additives for Problem Skin
For those who want to add ingredients to help their skin complexion or problem skin conditions, there are several options. Oatmeal helps your complexion. Tea tree oil is good for problem skin and allergies. Geranium oil works to combat dry skin, while cornmeal adds grittiness to a soap, for those who like gritty soaps.
Making Soap at Home
Know that when you learn how to make soap at home, you won’t get the mixture perfect the first time. This is going to require some trial and error, to get it just the way you want it. For that reason, I recommend making small amounts of home-made soap at first.
Don’t get discouraged, if your soap is perfect the first time out. Play around with it a bit and learn which scents, colorings and additives work best for you and your family. Get feedback from everyone in the household and improve your soap-making as you continue to practice.