Archive | Soap

Soap Making

By Linda on October 11, 2011 in Soap

Well, I did it, I made soap! It took quite a while for me to move past the fear of the Lye (Caustic Soda) ingredient, but now that I have made my first batch, my fears have passed and I am so excited to make more!! I referred to the soap making process on Rhonda’s blog and followed her steps. I got everything ready first, put all the materials out on the newspaper covered counter top. I measured out everything and wore my safety goggles and rubber gloves and off I went. My wonderful friend Heidi is a mine of information and she has been guiding me through the process and helping me with lots of my questions. She also suggested a recipe to use that was calculated on Soap Calc, you just put in your ingredients and out pops the correct amounts to use.

I used:
olive oil pomice
coconut oil
distilled water
Lye

You can refer to Rhonda’s blog for the weights.
It is very important to work in weight rather that mls.
First, I measured out the oils and put them in my pot on the stove, put my candy thermometer on the side of the pot and started heating the oils up to 70 degrees C slowly.

Then I weighed out the Lye, (this was nerve wrecking, well, because it was Lye I suppose!)

Ok, so now it was time to add the Lye to the water, it is very important to add the Lye to the water and not the other way around or you will have a bad reaction! So this was the MOST scary part, but I did it and guess what? It was absolutely fine:) I placed another candy thermometer into the jug with the mixed Lye / water solution and watched as the temperature rose. It is amazing to see the temperature go up as high as 80 deg C all on its own. The oils were heating and the Lye was heating and then they both started to cool and needed to reach 50 deg C at the same time.

Yes, safety gear, I didn’t take these goggles off until my soap was in the moulds:)

Once my oils and Lye had reached 50 deg C at the same time, I poured the oils into a stainless steel bowl and then slowly added the Lye / water solution. Then I started to mix with a spoon, I mixed and I mixed and I mixed… for and hour and 20 minutes and I still hadn’t reached trace yet. Well, I then found a whisk and I reached trace in no time, thank goodness! So next time, I will be using a metal whisk and soon I will buy a stainless steel hand blender with a slow setting. Trace is when the mixture becomes a little rippled on top, or makes small waves that stay there and don’t fall back into the mixture.

Then I carefully scooped my soap mixture into my moulds and covered them to cure.

The following day, I popped the little soap blocks out of their moulds and they are still curing. So there it is, soap! I am so pleased with my first experience of the process of soap making, please do refer to Rhonda’s blog as it is very detailed and she has been making soap for years and she has blogged step by step instructions for soap making. This is my first attempt and I just wanted to blog my experience and share it with you, I have not blogged the entire process here that you would need to make your own soap.
Wishing you a wonderful day,
xo
Linda

Father and Son

By Linda on October 8, 2011 in Family, Recipes, Soap

We have had a lovely Saturday, we were busy most of the morning with shopping, I have been slowly gathering all my ingredients and materials for the cold processed soap making. I found some candy thermometers and I have my oils ready. We came home and Richard and Kye baked banana bread together, it was so sweet watching the two of them mixing and eating the ingredients… It was a special time… If you would like to make the recipe go here.
Well, now I am off to the kitchen to attempt my first soap batch from scratch, I am a little nervous but Richard is there to lend a helping hand, wish me luck! I will let you know how it all turns out soon.
xo
Linda

Botanical Soap Tutorial

By Linda on October 6, 2011 in Botany, Christmas, Crafts, Homeschooling, Soap

Erin is busy with a Botany block at the moment for Spring, she has been learning all about flowers and plants and as an activity, we decided to make some little soap bars. We didn’t actually make soap from scratch, but we melted down glycerine soap in a double boiler and added dried flowers, Lavender essentail oil and poured it into moulds to set. It was such a sweet project for us to do together and most importantly we had fun!

Thank you so much to everyone who sent me links for how to make soap from scratch, I am so looking forward to doing this. I am still collecting all my ingredients and I should have most of them by next week.

The project from today could also be used for Christmas gifts, you can really add so many different things, dried flowers, essential oils etc…

This is what we did:

Materials:
Glycerine soap bars
Dried rose petals
Lavender essential oil
Double boiler
Moulds
Stick for stirring

Method:

1. Cut up the glycerine into little cubes.
2. Set up a double boiler, I used a pot and immersed an old, clean tin into the water.
3. Heat up the water.