Making Cold Process Soap
I have
always been interested in making my own bath products and it has been
a great learning experience.
There are
three different types of making soap:
-
Cold Process
-
Hot Process
-
Melt and Pour
I will
begin with my experience making cold process soap.
One thing I
noticed as I began to search out how to make soap was that everyone
has their own style and way of going through each process. It made it
a bit nerve wracking for me to decide whose technique I should try
until I get a few batches under my belt and venture into my own way
of making soap.
 |
| Uncut bar of soap |
A few
things I’d recommend one to do if they want to learn to make soap:
Watch many
videos on youtube about making cold process soap to see how people
make their soap. Some people do have their own “how to” videos
which are helpful- here are some links to two people’s videos (of
the many people’s videos I watched) to learn from in the beginning:
Jen
Soap Queen
Another
thing that is important besides watching videos is to read through
soap making websites and what they offer. As with the web, however,
not all sites are that good. Here are some links to good sites:
If possible
it would be good to also get a book or two on cold process soap
making.
It is
suggested that what you use for soap making not be used for food
prep, especially your lye container.
Supplies
and Suppliers
There are
numerous soap making suppliers and it seems the soapers on youtube
use several different suppliers to obtain what they use. The dollar
store has many of the utensils used in soap making for a great
savings rather than getting them from a soap supplier. For example,
mixing bowls, rubber spatulas, rubber whisks, rubber gloves, etc.
Walmart and Amazon are also places to obtain much of what is needed.
However, for fragrances and colorants, I feel it would be better to
buy those from a supplier for “soapers”. On the lovinsoap
website, she has a long list of soap suppliers you can go through and
check out each one to see which one suites your likes/needs.
 |
| Cutting unit with soap |
 |
| Finished soap bars |
Fragrance
oils
Since
fragrance oils are synthetic it is wise to make sure they are
bath/body safe and phthalate free. It is a challenge to blindly order
FO’s (fragrance oils) online. There have been a handful of FO’s I
did not like and did not use them. One thing that can happen (and has
happened to me) is that the fragrance will disappear from the soap in
a relative short time, for reasons I don’t know.
When buying
FO’s it is helpful to read comments about how they perform in cold
process soap. For example, do they accelerate the batter or cause
ricing (which means the batter starts looking like there is small
rice in it but it goes away with stirring/mixing the batter)? Some
can even cause the batter to seize and you end up with soap on a
stick. Floral FO’s seem to accelerate the batter the most, but
there are other FO’s as well and some essential oils do as well,
but many FO’s and EO’s do not cause issues with the soap batter.
Most people
use one ounce FO for one pound of soap- that’s when using 16oz of
chosen oils to make your soap.
Colorants
Several
different sources can be used to color your soap: Mica, Oxides,
colored clay, certain spices like tumeric and paprika.
If too much
mica is used it can end up bleeding from the soap-meaning the
colorant will make the lather turn that color and come off on a wash
cloth, though it rinses off the body but sometimes not the wash
cloth.
Oils
There are
numerous oils that can be used to make soap and they each provide
specific properties to the soap, such as lather/bubbles,
creamy/moisturizing etc. A good reference is from lovinsoap:
http://www.lovinsoap.com/oils-chart/
.
You will
also need Sodium Hydroxide known as Lye to make cold process soap. I
will cover the science of soap making in a future article as well as
cover more of my soap-making journey.
SpiceySuds
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