Soapmaking
I am, very annoyingly, allergic to DMPA which is an impurity found in cocamidopropyl betaine. This is used to make nearly all liquid soaps, shampoos, shower gels and many cosmetics. I have ended up learning to make my own soap. As well as being able to control the ingredients, you can also make a far better quality soap than is widely available. There are many websites and books on soapmaking available, I will list some suggestions at the bottom of this page.Equipment Needed for soap making:
bowl
small measuring container for dry lye (I use a yogurt pot)_
large pot or saucepan (not aluminum)
stick blender
Weighing scales
Soap moulds
gloves
eye protection
apron
"Empress of Salford"- Coconut, silk and pearl cold process soap
This luxury soap is "superfatted", so some of the oils remain in the bar after saponification. This recipe is exact for a single standard loaf soap mould, which can be cut into 8-10 bars of soap.
Basic Ingredients:
Coconut oil 808g
Olive oil 100g
Distilled water 300g
Lye (sodium hydroxide) 132g
Additions (these are optional):
Essential oils 15ml
tussah silk (cotton ball size)
Pearl powder 1 tablespoon
Method:
Firstly prepare your work area and equipment. Get everything ready
- Get on your gloves, eye protection and apron. Work outside or in a well ventilated area.
- Weigh the distilled water (needs to be very accurate)
-Carefully weigh the lye powder in your clean and dry pot (be careful not to breath in any dust)
- Slowly add the lye powder to the water (NEVER ADD WATER TO LYE POWDER)
- The water lye mixture is now going to be getting really hot so be careful (DO NOT BREATHE IN FUMES)
- add in your silk fibres and stir in
Preparing oils: Weigh out the coconut and olive oils and melt them together in the pot Add the pearl powder
So you now have melted oils and your lye. Let these cool a little.
To make perfect soap you need to have oils and lye cooled to 32-43 degrees. You should get a thermometer and monitor it. I however, do not have a thermometer and I am also impatient, so I tend leave cool a little while and hope for the best. I get random cosmetic issues but the soap is always perfect to use!
Make soap! Carefully pour the lye into the melted oils and mix with the stick blender
add essential oils or fragrance (make sure you have these measured out and ready to go in before this point) and mix again with the blender
Tip into your soap mould (I made a double batch here) I made a bit of texure on the top with a spoon
Leave for a few hours to set. Again I am impatient, I just leave it for a few hours but some people do all sort of wrapping and insulating the soap to ensure it does through "gel phase" so you can get cosmetically perfect results but fuction over form for me!
cut into slices
Leave somewhere cool and dry for 10 weeks. Make sure you write down the date! I also like to record the batch and the exact method and ingredients, this helps track any issues!
Enjoy! Notes on using the soap This soap is very gentle and can be used on the face and body. I also use it to wash my hair. However soap is akaline and hair is naturally acidic, so this can make it dull, tangly and dry, so you need to add an acid rinse. I use a apple cider vinegar rinse, which is just a 5/1 radio of water to vinegar. I then add on a conditioner as usual.