How to make DIY soap easily... without tearing your hair out.

Soapmaking is simple. I swear it is. No, really.

When I first started investigating making soap, I did what most people do, I looked it up on the internet. About a dozen websites later, I had more questions than answers, and I was severely confused. There was really no single place I looked that was straightforward to help me decide if I really wanted to try it. I needed to know what ingredients and materials I needed, and what could be skipped.

I finally had to trudge down to Barnes & Noble and start paging through every book they had until I found a book that was easy to understand and gave me the important information I needed. I walked out with The Everything Soapmaking Book since it was the most informative book there and answered the questions I had. I recommend you buy it as well if you intend to go crazy making the bubbly stuff.

Yesterday, I spent the day making a batch of hot process soap and documenting it with pictures so I could finally give people a complete picture of the difficulty and involvement. This post will be long, but hopefully, it will be what you need to answer the questions you probably have about the process.

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The base recipe I am using will make a smallish batch of soap and is as follows:

567 g Olive Oil (or vegetable oil)

340 g Coconut Oil

340 g Purified Water

127.5 g Lye (Na-OH or Sodium Hydroxide)

2 Tbsp. Castor Oil

On top of those ingredients you also need:

Crock pot with removable liner

Hand blender (you can find them for $10 at Wal-mart, and is a necessity)

1-2 wooden spoons

glass candy thermometer

PH papers ( a roll of paper is better than the sticks)

small glass bowl and a couple cheap plastic bowls

cheap electronic scale

rubber gloves, simple face mask, eye gear

soap molds ( you might need a knife too if you use a mold like mine)

any soap fragrance/color/additive you like

paper towels

You might have to go to several places on the internet to find what you need. The good news is that by using the internet, you can find great deals on things and a much wider selection. It will also help you imagine more unique soaps.

You also might have some issues buying Sodium Hydroxide, as it is a toxic controlled substance (it is also used to make bombs). You can buy it locally for the best price. Na-OH is most commonly used as drain cleaner. I found mine at Lowe's in a big container in the drain cleaner section. You will have to read the label to make sure it is 100% Sodium Hydroxide crystals without any other additives. You can see the red and yellow bottle in the above photo for reference if you are having trouble finding it.

First things first. ONCE YOU USE SOMETHING FOR SOAP-MAKING, IT IS NO LONGER SAFE FOR FOOD. Keep this in mind when you are shopping. Everything I buy for soap-making is cheap enough that I won't have to spend more than 15 bucks to replace it, and it has it's own location for storage in my pantry so I do not confuse it for food-safe.

If you have bought a scale and it does not measure in grams, remember to convert the recipe to ounces or whatever first.

Place a plastic bowl on your scale, tare it to 0 and measure out your coconut oil and olive oil (separately) and dump it in to your crock pot. Turn the pot on to high. Don't forget your castor oil!

While you can make soap without coconut oil, it is preferable if you want a bubbly soap, otherwise it is flat.

You can leave it to melt on it's own, but it will go a bit faster if you use your stick blender to break it up. We are trying to get the temperature up to above 125 degrees, so put the lid on it!

While we are waiting, use your small glass bowl on the scale and measure out the purified water (remember to tare!). You should have a couple inches from the water to the lip of the bowl for safety. Try to do all this as close to the crock pot as possible to minimize possible splashing.

Now, you need to put on your safety gear. Gloves, mask, and eye gear. Don't skip anything. You can wear a full apron for added protection, but it isn't as necessary.

Open your sodium hydroxide jar. If it has become chunky, put the lid back on and shake it up. KEEP YOUR GEAR ON. Lye is nasty and can

really ruin your day, so follow safety before everything else.

Use a clean, VERY DRY plastic bowl on your scale and measure out the Sodium Hydroxide. To make sure there are no mistakes, I reserve a specific bowl for the dry crystals to make sure there are no incidents. If there are any chunks, break them up with a wooden spoon.

Now, carefully pour the Sodium Hydroxide into the glass bowl with the water while using the wooden spoon to slowly stir. You are aiding a very hot chemical reaction so keep stirring and don't splash while you add it. Once every crystal is dissolved, you can stop stirring.

You can remove your gear at this point, just don't stick your face over the bowl. Keep your eye glasses available though, you'll probably want them again shortly.

At this point, I suggest rinsing out/washing any used bowls, and your wooden spoon, since you will be waiting. I also suggest doing a quick counter clean-up to prevent any cross contamination.

Get your candy thermometer out and check the temperature of both the crock pot and bowl of lye water. You can set your paper towels out at this point and rest the thermometer on them. Just remember not to touch the wet end!

The goal is to get the lye to drop to a reasonable temperature while getting the oil temp raised. At about 122- 125 degrees is where we want both containers to end up. We want them as close as possible in temperature before we combine them. This is especially important if in the future you decide to use milk in your soaps as you don't want to burn the milk.

When the temperatures match, put your glasses back on (and gloves if you are afraid you'll splash), and get your stick blender going in the crock pot.

The oils should be nice and clear. Slowly add the lye mixture while you blend, making sure not to break the surface with the blender. As you mix, the oils will become opaque. This what happens when you bring soap to "trace". You CAN do this with a wooden spoon, but it takes a lot of stirring and time. The stick blender makes trace happen instantly.

Lower the crock pot temperature to low, put the lid on, and clean up anything dirty (except the stick blender, just rest that on a paper towel for the duration).

After about 10 minutes, I open the lid on the crock pot and start to add fragrance and color. This is where having experience helps.

When you buy fragrance or color, pay attention to what the manufacturer says about it. In this case, I am making chocolate oatmeal. The chocolate fragrance I am using turns the soap a chartreuse-ish hue. To offset the color change, I add unsweetened cocoa powder to it instead of a soap coloring. I also add the cocoa powder early on instead of later to keep it from looking grainy or "glisteny". I want it to be a solid chocolate brown.

I add a little fragrance now, to let it cook in and will add more at the end. Some fragrances break down or smell funny if you add it early on so watch out. It comes down to preference and manufacturer suggestion how you add the fun stuff, but you will learn as you go. If you are uncertain, just wait til the end. Just remember to keep the lid on!

Your soap will go through a few stages. It will first be oily with tiny solid chunks, but as it starts to "boil" will start to solidify. From time to time, stick your blender in and even it out.

It is important to keep an eye on it, as it can overflow. This is the reason we are starting with a smaller batch, soap overflow is not so fun to clean up.

We are ideally cooking the soap for 3 hours, as we are trying to attain saponification. You can click that link to see the definition. We are basically forcing another chemical reaction where we turn caustic soap into safe soap.

This is where the pH papers come in handy.

I can go through a lot of pH paper so having a roll like this one is beneficial and cost effective.

We are looking to get the pH of the soap mixture to an 8. After an hour and a half, I start testing the the soap.

First, use the stick blender to even out the soap. After putting the lid back on, tear of a small piece of pH paper and set it by the sink. Take a bit of cooled soap off the blender and wet it under the faucet while creating a lather. At this point the soap is safe to handle without gloves, so don't worry. Use some of the bubbles to wet the pH paper. Compare it to the chart to see where you are in the cooking process. Test every 30 minutes.

Once it reaches 8, you have usable soap! You can continue to cook it if you like. It basically makes the soap harder the longer you cook it. It also makes it harder to mold, so keep that in mind.

Once your soap meets your desired end result, move your temperature to warm. If you turn it straight to off, it can harden up really fast.

Add in your remaining color (this is a great time to make swirls of color), fragrance, and any other additives you want to stay whole.

Make sure you add your fragrance first, then your color, and finally the additive. I used more chocolate fragrance, and then oatmeal in my soap.

You could also add sugar, ground rice, poppy seeds, or anything else to add texture or decoration. Just fold evenly with a wooden spoon, and don't go overboard. Also, add a small bit at a time. Sometimes the soap doesn't latch on to the solid things you put in and can end up a crumbly mess.

Now, grab your mold!

My mold is a basic 8 bar mold of about 3.5 ounces per bar. I have 2 of these, as well as a mold that has 4 round and oval bars in it. I only use the round mold when I have more than what fits in the 8 bar, but not enough to fill the second 8 bar mold. I ALWAYS keep all my available molds on hand, because I never know just how much I really have, especially if you change up ingredients.

Use your wooden spoon to spread a thin layer on the bottom and then evenly fill up the mold. Smack the bottom on the counter to even it out to release any air bubbles, just don't smack too hard. The soap is still hot!

You will notice that the soap is not thin and smooth, like traditional cold-process soaps, it is a bit chunkier. You most likely wont end up with a smooth back, but it will still make a nice clean mold, provided you don't let it cool too much beforehand.

Now, let it set until it cools down before you even attempt to free it. If it doesn't seem to un-mold easily, you can stick it in the freezer. I have to do this with my plastic molds. The softer you allow the soap to be the harder it will be to un-mold and can be a bit sticky, so keep that in mind when choosing decorative molds. You might not get as pretty an end result as you hope.

Once it is un-molded, clean up your soap. Trim any weird ends, cut it to shape, etc. I have to cut mine into the individual bars and clean up some stray ends.

Homemade soap is not the same as commercial soap so it does not have the same shelf longevity, and once you use it, you will notice the difference. BUT, this also means you have to use your soap faster. So if you are only making it for your personal use, don't make more than you think you can use in 6 months. Give away or sell the excess. Just make sure to tell whoever you give it to that they need to use it up within 6 months.

Also, watch how you store your soap. I store mine in my pantry on the shelf with my soaping supplies, stacked in 3's, wrapped only in air.  If you choose to store yours differently, remember, never wrap it in plastic, it will destroy the soap. Use tissue paper, regular paper, or box it, and keep it out of the sunlight til you need it.

And, that is it. I hope this is helpful enough to give you a real hands-on example of making soap. If you have any questions, please let me know. I am bound to have forgotten something!