Soap Making Instructions

There are several different ways to make homemade soap. Most beginners start with glycerin soap, also known as melt and pour soap making because its made by melting a soap base, adding color, scent and other additives, and pouring it into molds. For more information on this type of soap making, read Making Glycerin Soap.

The next level of soap making for most crafters is known as cold process soap making. It’s not truly a cold process, because the fat has to be heated, and when you add water to lye it heats up as well. But this is the easiest traditional soap making method and it’s basically the same procedure regardless of the ingredients your recipe calls for.

What goes into soap?

The only required ingredients to make traditional soap are lye and fat. In the good old days people used lard and lye, but there were no scientific formulas or recipes for soap. Lye is highly caustic, which means it burns the skin and eyes. If you use too much lye, washing up will be a painful experience.

So why do we still use lye? In the right quantity, it’s actually a gentle and effective cleanser. Our foremothers knew what they were doing, and now that we can read and follow other people’s directions, we’ll only make soap that has enough lye to be effective without irritating our skin.

Other ingredients common in cold process soap making include fat, usually in the form of oil (all sorts of oils, from olive to coconut, hempseed to palm, castor to almond, can be used), though some recipes use butter (shea butter or cocoa butter) or animal fat (lard or tallow), water to dissolve the lye and essential oil for fragrance.

Tools of the trade

All materials used in soap making should be used just for soap making, and they should be made of nonreactive materials. Glass measuring cups are great for mixing the lye and water, while a stainless steel pan can be used to melt the fats. Use plastic stirring implements.

You’ll also need two thermometers to take the temperature of the lye mixture and the fat mixture. Candy thermometers are fine for this. You’ll want a scale and measuring spoons to measure ingredients, and of course molds to put the soap in to cool. A stick (also known as immersion) blender can also be very helpful.

Finding recipes

There are all sorts of sources for recipes on the Internet. If you are looking for recipes that use a particular oil, use your favorite search engine to look for soap recipes using that ingredient. If you’re looking for olive oil recipes, you can also search for castile soap, as olive oil is usually the main ingredient in this type of soap.

Here are a few general soap making sites that you can look at for recipes:

• Teach Soap look down the left-hand side for different recipes. Some of these are advanced, but the small batch ones are particularly good for beginners.

• Snowdrift Farm has a couple of good recipes.

• Soap Delicatessen has a ton of great recipes, including some interesting things like beer soap and dog shampoo bars.

• Soap Nuts has a good collection of recipes provided by visitors to the site.

• Soap Crafters has a good basic recipe with step-by-step illustrated instructions. If you want to know what trace really looks like, look here.

Making soap

After you have picked out a recipe and gathered your ingredients and supplies, it’s time to make soap. Because you’ll be working with lye, you’ll want to wear a long-sleeved shirt, gloves and goggles. Be careful not to inhale the lye fumes.

Mix the lye with the water (use cold water, some recipes even suggest partially freezing the water) in a large glass mixing cup. This mixture will get very hot. Once the lye has all been mixed in, allow the mixture to cool to about 110 degrees F.

While the lye mixture is cooling, combine all the fats in a stove-safe pan and melt the solid fats. You’ll want this mixture to be about the same temperature as the lye mixture, so allow it to cool after melting if necessary.

When your two mixtures are around 110 degrees, or whatever temperature your recipe calls for, add the lye mixture to the fat mixture, being careful not to spill. Stir with a plastic or steel spoon until tracing occurs.

Tracing is a fancy soap making term for when the soap mixture is ready to be molded. It occurs when the mixture is about the thickness of a thin pudding and when you lift the spoon from the mixture, the drops that fall off the spoon into the pot make dents on the surface of the mixture.

When this happens (which could take an hour or more stirring by hand), add any fragrance, color, dried herbs or any other additives mentioned in your recipe. Stir gently to make sure everything is mixed in and pour into molds. Spray the molds with rubbing alcohol to prevent air bubbles.

Allow the soaps to sit for about a month before using.

Speeding up the process

Many soap makers today speed up the process of getting to tracing by using a stick blender instead of doing all the stirring by hand. Using one of these blenders (which can be purchased for $15 to $20 at most any discount or department store) cuts down the tiem to trace from about an hour to about five minutes.

It is recommended that you blend for a minute or two and then stir with a spoon to see how the soap is progressing before blending further. The more experience you have, the easier it will be for you to tell when the soap looks right. If you mix too much, the mixture will seize.

When you have a light trace you can add the fragrance as before and blend very quickly with the stick blender to make sure that everything is mixed in properly. You will have to work faster when you use a blender, but for the most part that’s a good thing. It gives you lots of time to make more soap.

Related articles

Soap Making Supplies

Soap Making Recipe

Making Glycerin Soap

Soap Making Mold

Candle Making Supplies

• How to Make Key Chains with Beads
• Easy Homemade Christmas Cards
• Make Your Own Holiday Photo Card
• Christmas Craft Projects

• Free Knitting Patterns
• Free Beading Pattern
• Free Baby Knitting Patterns
• Free Baby Crochet Patterns
• Free Sewing Patterns

• Soap Making Supplies
• Making Natural Soap
• Soap Making Mold
• Category:Soap Making
• Soap Making Kit