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Soapmaking
 Questions & Answers |
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These are some questions that someone just
getting started have had and I wanted to share
them with you. If you find that there is a
question that is not answered here, please
contact me and I will gladly answer it and place
it here. 
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When making soap, why do I need to be careful?
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When you make soap from scratch, you are working
with a caustic substance, lye and if this gets
on you skin or in your eyes, it will burn and
you will need to wash it off immediately. That
is why it is best to use gloves and ware eye
protection when mixing the lye water and the
soap up. Also if you ever do get a splash on
you, rinse and wash the area very well, you may
see some drying and a good made from scratch
lotion will help that. If you do not make
your own, you can use any lotion that you have
to help relieve the dryness. Please understand
that this is not to scare you, but just like
working with power tools or using an electric
knife to carve a Turkey, you just need to take
some precautions to be safe. Soapmaking is a
wonderful, addicting craft and after you make
soap the first time you will see why we all
enjoy it......ok, love it so. :-) Take a look through
the soapmaking section, for equipment needed and instructions.
And there is a formula scection as well.
NOTE: Always add the lye to the water, never the other way around. If you add
water to the lye, you will have a volcano reaction that could also cause the
mixture to come out of your container and burn you badly. Remember ... snow on
the lake ... add lye into the water.
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What kind of oils do I use to make soap?
Food grade oils are what are used for making
a natural soap. Olive Oil, Lard, Tallow, Shortening, Sweet
Almond, Avocado, Apricot Kernel, Sesame, Emu,
Hemp, Palm, Palm Kernel, Jojoba, Grapeseed,
Castor, Coconut, these are just a few of the
oils that are used. A basic recipe should have
about 50% solid oils/fats in them to make the
bar hard so it will last longer. There are many
variations on formulas / recipes and you can take a look at
the formula pages click for formula / recipe section info to see some
different recipes.
On this page you will find some info on some of the different oils/fats that are
used in making soaps and also other sundries.
click for Oils that can be used info
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Can Oils be substituted for each other in a recipe / soap formula?
Yes they can, but I never do more than 2 substitutions in a formula. If
I decide to do more than 2 substitutions, I will recalculate the formula
to make sure that it will have the right amount of lye. Many oils
/ fats
have the same sap value and in the section on the site where the formulas
are, you will find many soap formulas that I have given some suggestions for using
different oils in place of each other in some of the formulas. Mostly that
Lard, Tallow and Palm Oil can be used in place of each other. But there are other
oils that can be used in that way as well.
There are many other formulas listed in my
soapmaking book that can be ordered here
click for info on my self-published soapmaking book
Before doing a formula in this manner, you need to know if the oils are close in sap values.
The sap values do vary at different times of the year, but I have set the ones in
my lye calculator at a middle range in order to calculate the oils.
click for the lye calculator
This is a method of making soap that I developed some years back
because of the many different oils that we use and some people find they can not get some oils, but can get others.
This has always worked very well for me when I want to have a formula printed and ready to go, but might want
to use a different oil than what I first did with the formula.
click for Sap Values and other info on oils
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What does Superfatting mean?
The purpose of superfatting is to keep some of
the oils suspended in the soap so that the soap
will be milder for the skin and also adds to the
moisturizing effect of the made from scratch
soaps. This can help many people that find that
their skin dries from the bars that are mass
marketed as soap, due to additions of detergent
ingredients, salting down the soap to get out the
natural glycerin that is made in the saponification process
of making soap. These additions can be and are drying (irritating)
to the skin because it strips the natural oils
from the skin. This causes the skin to over produce oil, to replace
the oils that was stripped from the skin. This is what causes breakouts in
our skin. In being able to make ones own
soap, you can control the amounts of suspended
oils to help keep the natural oil in the skin and at the same time gently
cleansing the skin.
There are a few ways to do what is called
Superfatting in soaps. The most used way it to
use less lye (lye discounting) in the Cold Process and Hot Process of making
soap, to make a soap at
a certain percent of superfatting. As you learn
more about soapmaking you will understand how
this is done. The other way is adding a special
oil when the soap is at trace, this way that
special oil is the one that is most suspended in
the soap.
Another way is by making a soap with a Natural Hand Milling base
or making your own base and then melting it down, adding small amounts of
a special oil or 2 to make that oil more available to the skin.
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Do
I need to use a preservative in the soap?
From the beginning of my journey to learn about
soapmaking, I wondered why someone would even
want to use a preservative, just does not make
since. Sooo, from my own experiments I see NO
need to use a preservative in a bar soap. Now if you were to
superfat over 15%, you might just want to use an antioxidant
if the soap is not going to be used in a year or so,
but again I see NO need since we either sell,
give away or use the soap waaaaay before that.
:-)
Now there are some recipes / formulas that call for
fruits and veggies to be used in them. Antioxidants such as
Grapefruit Seed Extract, Benzoin and Vitamin E have been used.
Benzoin can be a sensitizer, so that one is not recommended.
GSE and Vitamin E will give a little help, but will only retard the
superfat oils from going bad as fast. My recommendation is not to
superfat more than 10% and when superfatting at that high level, use
the soap within a year or so. And of course it is usually used well before then. :-)
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What can be used as molds for soap making?
There are many things that can be used, these
are some that I used when I was learning. Square
plastic dishes, cardboard boxes lined with
plastic, the round cups that applesauce or
yogurt comes in. Small bowls, round, square or
oval, PVC and Down spouts, Jell-o molds, Candy
molds. There are many things that can be used,
some prep on them will be needed.
Remember NEVER use Aluminum. Aluminum is a
reactive metal and will react with the lye and
add things to the soap that you don't want in
them.
I still use the plastic single bar type molds now and the, but
mostly I use the wooden TLC Soap/Cutter Molds™ that
my DH (Dear Hubby) Eddie designed. They make my
soapmaking easier because I use the mold and cut
the soap in the same mold and do not have to
have a separate cutter in order to cut the soap.
They are listed on the site with pics under the
Molds page.
(click to see molds)
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What can I use to
make the soap release better from plastic containers?
This question has many answers and that is
because everyone finds their own method. But
here are a few that work.
You can coat with a
mixture of Olive Oil and Lecithin or Lanolin or
spray with Pam cooking spray. These are the ones
that I would recommend. Others have and do use
Petroleum Jelly or Vaseline, but because these
are chemicals and not a natural oil, I do not
recommend them. They also leave the soap
slippery on the outside and this has to be
washed off an can cause yellowing of the soap
where it had this on it. If the soap still will
not release after the insulation period, another
way that works great is to put it in the freezer
for a couple of hours or more, then take it out
and let it sweat a bit. This usually makes it
release and if that don't work, use a blow dryer
on the outside of the container and the heat and
a bit of pushing will usually make it slip out.
If that sounds like a lot of work, take a look
at our molds on the Molds page.
(click to see
molds)
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How do I seal PVC or Downspouts to use as a mold?
I used a double layer of a 1 mil plastic that I
taped on the one end with a heavy duty plastic
tape at first. I even got good at being able to
shake out the soap after it had been in the
freezer and then thawed a bit, of course
sometimes using the blow dryer to heat it up and
make it slip out better. This way I did not have
to re-tape the molds every time I used them. :-)
Another way that several of us used later, is
Paraffin Wax, melted and poured into a lined box
or a plastic container, about 1/2" or so and the
Downspouts or PVC put in there while the wax is
still liquid. After the wax is solid and cold
they pour the soap into the molds and let it
insulate and then pull the mold out of the wax.
This is a much easier and less time consuming
method to use for sealing the PVC or Downspouts.
You can use the wax plug to push the soap out of
the mold also. And the wax is remeltable to use
again.
Also if you look at the place your purchased
your downspouts or PVC, they usually have end
caps that you can use. You might need to slip a
piece of plastic between the mold and the cap to
seal it, but that is probably all that will need
to be done. I have never used these because I
started using the molds that Eddie makes for me
and got away from using the downspouts and the
PVC.
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What can I do with a failed batch of soap?
There are many kinds of failed batches and any
of them can be Handmilled to make a wonderful body soap
or made into Laundry soap.
Hand Milling instructions
Formula / Recipe pages
So you don't trash that soap batch because it
does not do what you want to expect it to do. Mill it down and make a good soap out of it.
If you feel you need more help than you find in the pages above, let me know.
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