Soap Making Supplies

Soap making is a fun and useful craft, allowing you to make personalized gifts for everyone on your list without a lot of time, effort, tools or expense. If you’re new to soap making, there are a few supplies you will need, and a few special items depending on the type of soap or bath product you are making. This article will not attempt to explain the different processes involved in soap making, but it will give you an outline of the tools you will need before you get started.

Most traditional soap recipes contain lye, a caustic and highly reactive chemical used in drain cleaners, among other things. Lye can strip paint, burn your skin, damage your eyes and can be fatal if swallowed.

You’re probably wondering why you would want to use such a thing on your sensitive skin. Lye actually can be a gentle cleanser when used in the right proportion (and we have chemistry on our side, so we’ll use the right proportion) and it allows you to make and use a soap that is all natural.

But because lye is very reactive, you have to be careful when selecting the tools you will use when making lye soap. Do not use aluminum, zinc or tin materials around lye. Stick to stainless steel, glass, plastic or earthenware containers, stirring implements and molds.

For any kind of basic soap recipe, you will need:

• a mixing container

• a heating container

• something to stir with

• two candy or meat thermometers (one for the fat mixture and one for the lye mixture)

• a scale for measuring materials and measuring spoons

• rubber gloves, eye protection, pot holders and an apron

• soap molds

You’ll want your containers to be roomy enough to hold the materials for however large or small a batch of soap you’ll be making. Bigger is better, because bigger pots are less likely to boil over. Containers with spouts for pouring are helpful, but not necessary.

It should go without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that these implements should be dedicated to soap making. After lye has touched something, don’t ever use it for food again.

You might also want at metal whisk to help you combine the fat and the lye mixtures, but a spoon works just fine.

Now that we’ve covered the hardware, let’s look at the actual ingredients used in basic soap making:

• Lye: As mentioned above, lye is used in a lot of old-fashioned soap recipes for its superior cleaning power (it’s pretty cheap, too). You can buy 100 percent lye in the drain cleaner section of your grocery or hardware store, but if you aren’t 100 percent sure that the product is 100 percent lye, don’t use it. Lye can also be purchased over the Internet, for instance at Boyer Corporation.

• Fat: The other key component to soap is fat. Traditionally, lard was used in soap because it was readily available after the pigs were slaughtered down on the farm. You could also use tallow (beef fat). If you prefer vegetarian soap, there are all sorts of options these days, from coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil, soybean oil, even cocoa butter or other exotic “butters” can be melted and used in soap. Your recipe will probably recommend a certain type of fat be used, and while you are learning the tricks of soap making you should follow the recipe. Chemistry is tricky business.

• Water: Some water is mixed with the lye to help it dissolve. Use distilled or filtered water to limit the number of unwanted additions to your soap.

• Fragrance: If you like, you can add fragrance to your soap by adding a few drops of essential oil in whatever scent you like. Use essential oils, which come from the pure plant, rather than fragrance oils, which are often made from chemicals. A little bit goes a long way, so start with just a few drops. You can always add more to the next batch if it doesn’t turn out smelling as strongly as you’d like. Record keeping is essential!

• Coloring: You can color your soap with food coloring; just add a few drops, stir and see if the color is to your liking. Go easy on the color because too much could stain your clothes and towels.

• Herbs: In addition to oils, herbs can be added to your soap to make it smell or for medicinal purposes. Find a recipe that calls for herbs and then substitute your favorite.

• Other additives: Different recipes will call for different extras, but there are all sorts of additions that can be used in soap, from oatmeal to sea salt, pumice to poppy seeds. As you work more with soap you will learn what these additives do and how to use them.

As you learn more about soap making, you will find out about glycerin, castor oil, sodium hydroxide, borax hot process soap making and many more terms and techniques. You’ll be tempted by recipes for body lotion, shampoo and salt scrubs. And that’s OK. Making bath products is a hobby that can quickly turn into an obsession, but you can also be happy working with the basics outlined above for a very long time.

Keep good records of the recipes you have tried and how they worked out, so you can learn while you are developing your skills, and make enough soap to share with everyone.

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