growing and learning | |
homestead challenge post #2: making soap for beginners
06:23 PM, Monday, January 8, 2007
.. 4 comments
.. Link
Back in May, I wanted to make soap. Jonash2004 had just done so for the first time, and she was my mentor through the process for me. so I will tell you, if you have any questions, flood her messge box with them and do not bother me!  lol! no, seriously, while I am sure she would be happy to help, I am also very happy to answer questions about the happy event. it is easy, really and truly, and as long as you are careful, a lot of fun.also, read through our May archives to see the problems and solutions, etc we encountered as we embarked on this journey. here is Ashley's private message to me about soaping (posted with her permission) Ok, here goes the soap thing again! :) For starters, I would go to www.millersoap.com. This is an incredible website!! From this website I learned that it is almost impossible to ruin a batch of soap. You might have to reheat it and do a “remake” –but from this site I got the confidence that enough effort would bring forth soap. They have a troubleshooting page and a “botched batch” page where people write in about their “terrible” soap that can’t be fixed and throw it away before they read the advice to at least reheat it and try again once before giving up. Lol #2, If you are interested in making soap, I would go here for recipes: http://www.pvsoap.com/recipes.htm I used the Cold Process #1 recipe from this site. Not only does it give you the recipe, it also tells you what utensils you’ll need. #3 My husband made me a soap mold out of a piece of left over cedar wood and some extra wood siding we have for our house. It’s 12” x 11” and 3” deep. Roughly. We just used what we had. You can buy a plastic pan to mold it in, or pvc pipe cut longways,or whatever. You just want to be able to wrap it in a blanket. We lined our mold with a garbage bag and it just lifted right out. I have a piece of cardboard for a lid. #4 Use a stick blender. I haven’t yet, but it’s supposed to cut the stirring time down to minutes!! If you do use a stick blender, especially for the first time, you want to know what soap “trace” looks like. I had to stop and have my husband stir while I went online and searched for a picture to see what we were trying to accomplish. http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/coldprocesssoapmaking/g/glosstrace.htm There, you don’t have to search. Hehehe! I stirred slowly for about an hour. I read a novel and my husband played Risk on the computer and I missed it changing colors but it was a great story so I didn’t mind too much. lol So, basically, if you want to make soap you are going to mix the lye and water. Mine got to 170 F. So keep away from your kids!!!!! Don’t breath the lye for about two minutes after you mix it. If you accidentally do, don’t worry, you’ll be coughing. Then the odor is gone. Mix oils and heat to blend them. Wait for the lye water and oils to be between 90-100F. The trick is to have them CLOSE together in temps. I think my water was 96 and the oils were 97-98. This will help them blend. Then stir. It will get to the consistency of gravy; mine never got as thick as honey. (Or some people’s gravy, lol!) Then you pour into the mold and put freezer paper on the soap (you don’t have to do this, it’s supposed to keep down ash, but ash isn’t the end of the world, it’s just a white film on top of your soap). I used parchment paper, I'm not sure that did the trick. I put the cardboard lid on and wrapped it up in a blanket and left it alone for 18 hours. That might have been the hardest part for me! That and waiting around for things to cool off. When both pots reached 120, I started putting them in the fridge for 5 mins at a time, taking them out and stirring and checking the temps. That helped speed it up! If I do it again, I’ll use a stick blender and heat my mold up in the oven for ten mins so it doesn’t suck heat out of my soap. Then it won’t be a bit darker in the middle, it’ll be more uniform. Now, my husband, who is a numbers genius/geek figured up that it cost $13.61 (approximately) worth of ingredients to make this soap. All of the ingredients costs me $19, with just over $7 of that being olive oil. [NOTE: if you go to Millersoap.com, they have a few very neat charts. It will tell you what the different oils do, moisterize, condition, foam, whatever. So, while lard soap would be cheaper, it wouldn't be quite as nice as my olive/coconut/veg shortening recipe. Coconut oil is foamy.] And, I bought some things, like two thermometers and a kitchen scale, the scale was $7 and the two thermometers set me back $6 apiece! Then I bought a pitcher for $0.97, wooden spoons for $1.37, ect. So there is some investment. The nice thing is, if you try this and absolutely hate it, you can use the rest of your oils for cooking and pour the lye down the sink to unclog it. I’m not sure what to do with extra thermometers and stuff you don’t want to reuse, but all in all, it’s not too bad. I think I spend $40 in setting up with ingredients and utensils. Most of that is because I’ve only been married less than two years and I don’t have extra spoons or anything like that I could part with to just use for soap. My mom gave me a big pot she didn’t want anymore, so that helped. I was somewhat surprised at how making it was a lot easier than I expected. I guess that’s why it’s called “cold process” soap. But I expected to stir this hot, bubbling toxic mixture until everything cooked together, and it really wasn’t like that at all. The lye does pretty much everything. When I poured the soap into the mold, it was really cool, like 80F, but the next day when I unwrapped it, it was quite warm to the touch. That’s the lye still at work. We cut up the soap last night –we used a knife, everything I read said to use a wire and two chopsticks but we couldn’t get that to work—and there is 29 creamy white bars of soap drying on top of the entertainment center now! Olive oil, coconut oil, and veg shortening, the recipe I used makes a nice white bar. My husband likes it, but I might eventually (I’m not sure I want to mess with this recipe, it worked, you know!) try to find a recipe with canola oil. I read that it lends a pink shade to the soap! Hope this helps and feel free to write and ask all the questions you want! Ashley ~ Psalm 127 So, anyway, there it is. easy soap. and it is such nice soap too.... happy soaping, and let me know if it works for you! Leave a Comment { Last Page } { Page 133 of 206 } { Next Page } |
About Me My Profile Archives Friends My Photo Album Linksspinninggrandmahomestead articles unusual farmchick miles from babylon much forgiven The Maples Susan Godfrey's NT site CategoriesRecent Entrieshomeschool reading help?mommy brag vertigo and electrolytes, help if you can anxious for fall 1/8 of a cow FriendsFaithfulAcresdhcfarm quiverfull Roberta67 NewHarvestHomestead quiverfullacres KellyKJV HSBFrontPorch HandsNHearts Trina tioga12 gokings13 jinyeah3 smmagers Boltbabe Homeschoolmummyx3 glenda MicheleC11 VTLinda lvg4him MyThreeDaughters Emily23 Brownsmichelle jenna ZookeeperCat Jonash2004 agodlyhomemaker Cindeerella erisarei jwells ourlilhomestead CandyFoote wtbsmom teapots66 melm Homesteadheart Hisirishgem Darcy mdonohue workinprogress Lmhodge Purewater HeMarriedMedusa blessingsbaound mvose1051 haflinger hxb kimmie blessedmomof10 CedarCityMom elliepea zoggypdx ahall003 naughtydebbers Sita KrisM Joymommy boellner lizbet evamommy ibuwolf happywife inthedeepwoods Chas bang1430 findingcontentment Agsd7 juliejuliejulie amogk MommaBear9 hostlerhome nicolepatrick87 daughterofGod solodeogloria Charity amomlikeyou connielj tinabacon9 darbyfamily MomToAll rkmyersrus gabbie427 bfitz Southernangel amaliayosa anoldfashionedgirl homesteadnpink mommaofmany addiema oldfashionedgirl feeforaine starfishmama GodsMaidenAuthor Sanctuary lovetwins mom2mckjklj knitmama faithfarm knitteralaska boonefam Handmaiden AnIntentionalPeasant NevadaGunn oldfashionedgirl2 gilsanla |