Making the soap yourself is simple, you only need to follow 2 simple rules: the highest quality ingredients should be weighed carefully. It is better not to use a ready-made soap base if you do not know its composition. It is more fun to invent and create soap from scratch. How do you make soap?
Why is it worth making soap?
The huge advantages of homemade soap are the ability to eliminate any potential allergens and hit the point with your favorite fragrance. Homemade soap is also a great decoration of the bathroom or kitchen, and when we refine the recipe and get into practice, it is also a wonderful and ingenious gift for loved ones for every occasion.
You can add to the soap what is good for the skin, i.e. precious plant oils / fats, olive oil, avocado oil, sweet almond oil, shea butter, which smooth, soften and grease, nutritional additives such as goat’s milk, yogurt, honey, aloe. Very nice additions are spices or herbs cinnamon, pepper, turmeric, sage, calendula, which affect the color and texture of the soap, and essential oils, which, in addition to the beautiful fragrance, also have an anti-acne or anti-fungal effect.
How to make a soap?
We will present a recipe for soap using olive oil. Prepare 750 g olive pomace oil 251 g distilled water and 91 g sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or soda.
- Heat oil to about 100 degrees Celsius.
- Then pour sodium hydroxide into distilled water. NaOH for water – in this order to avoid any possible splashing of hydroxide. NaOh will form a lye from water. To avoid a violent reaction, use refrigerated distilled water. You can store sodium hydroxide in the freezer.
- Cool the lye and oil until they reach a temperature in the range of 35-45 degrees Celsius. You can cool both mixtures in a water bath or just wait
- When the right temperature is reached, pour the lye into the olive oil and mix gently. Be careful not to splash yourself with corrosive substances.
- Mix patiently until you get the consistency of pudding. When the mass reaches the consistency of pudding, it is ready to pour it into mold. At this point, you can add essential oils or spices to the mass. Remember that when you add essential oils, raw soap thickens very quickly.
- If you want to avoid air bubbles inside the soap, lift the mold and drop it onto the counter 2-3 times. Leave the raw soap for 24-48 hours in a warm place.
- Then proceed to cutting the soap. To cut the soap, use a sharp knife, tin, fishing line.
Put the cubes on the tray (one that is no longer necessary for you), previously lining it with baking paper. Cover the top with paper and lie down for aging for approx. 6 weeks. You need to age it – a freshly cut soap still has too high a pH and would be very irritating to the skin. To start using soap, its pH should drop to a level between 7 and 10. After this time, you can enjoy your own hand-made soap because it will change its reaction, will harden and will be milder for the skin.
