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If you have wanted to learn how to make soap at home, you will find a great hobby that is both enjoyable and rewarding. When you have mastered the basics you can then experiment with different scents and learn differing techniques. However, it is important to get the hang of the basic steps first because soap making is a home craft that some complexities and hazards involved in the process but once you have made your own from scratch your creative efforts will be well worth your labours.
The basic materials required are lye and water with oil or fat based material like lard, which is how your grandma probably did it. Be careful how you handle the lye as it’s highly acidic so you don’t want it to touch your skin or get in your eyes. You may consider using a respirator but wearing eye goggles to work in a well ventilated area will suffice. You will also require a few glass or plastic containers to heat the ingredients as well as a metal pot for the fat. Additionally you will need to pour your soap into a mold to cool and shape it.
If you have a cake tin lined with wax paper this will do but after it hardens you will need to cut it with a big knife that is very sharp or alternatively use some fishing line to make your own soap slicer. You may prefer not to cut your soap so you could use smaller soap bar molds like muffin tins or something similar instead. Cooking thermometers will be needed to get your lye and oils heated just right but you can buy one for very little. Lastly, you will need some wooden stirring implements and measuring cups though these should only be used for making soap not food.
While many recipes show you how to make soap at home, the basic concept is always the same and involves heating the lye with the water. This causes a chemical reaction that will make the mixture heat as the lye disperses. After this occurs, leave it to cool at 110 degrees while you heat your oil of choice, be it coconut, olive or even lard, till it reaches the same temperature. Then gradually pour your lye solution into the oil container and gently stir all your ingredients continuously.
To stay in control, pay close attention to your mixture as it begins to thicken. Remove your stirring implement and let some of the solution drizzle back into the pot as you lift it out. You will know your soap is ready if it keeps its shape as you do so. Be careful that you don’t wait to long though as some of your soap mixture may be difficult to remove from the container. If that happens, you may ruin your container for future use. Finally, pour the solidified soap into the mold with care then wrap it in a towel before setting it aside for 24 hours which is the appropriate time required for it to meld correctly. After this it should have set and you can cut it to size. It then needs to be stored on brown paper in a cool area of your home, but you need to turn each bar two weeks after it has set before allowing it to set for another two to three weeks. As you can see, the process of how to make soap at home really is very simple and after one month you will have your own home made bars that are ready to use.