Homemade Soap

StressedSteph

Hi all

I have had a dabble into the world of soap making and REALLY enjoyed it.

I am currently knitting some dishcloths and I would love to make a dish soap to add to them for gifts for friends.

I have struggled to find soap ingredients though and I wondered if any of you soap makers on this site had any tips on where I can get cheap ingredients.

Thanks
Steph xx

EagerLearner

Hi everyone, I just wanted to bump this thread as wanted to try to make soap for the first time, as inexpensively as possible.

I have olive oil, also some remainders of macademia oil, as well as some almond and some apricot.

If anyone can recommend a recipe that has worked for them, I'd be grateful as I only want to make around 4 bars to start, so I see if it's easy and don't spend too much... in the past I have lurched head on into making things and spent far too much!

For example, can I use the cheap coconut oil that Superdrug have in store? I see that www.justasoap.co.uk sell 1kg but it's over £3. Maybe it is cheaper than uperdrug, will have to check...

I looked at a lye calculator recommended by Rhonda jean at DownToEarth, but it scared me witless... also would have followed her basic soap recipe, but here in the UK rice bran oil is expensive...

On her blog she recommends:

230g caustic soda
460g olive oil (could I use pomace oil from the £1 store?)
600g rice bran oil (anything cheaper?)
440g coconut oil (can I use Superdrugs one?)
570ml distilled water (don't see this often - is bottled water ok?)

hannoja

Hi EagerLearner :hello:

This was my little recipe for my first batch of soap:

Simple Orange and Cinnamon Soap:

50g Coconut Oil*
250g Olive Oil
40g Caustic Soda**
100ml liquid (Orange Flower Water)
Additives:
Mandarin Essential Oil (1 tsp.)
Cinnamon (pinch)

I was quite pleased with it. It made about 4-6 bars and I've still got one left and we're using another. We rarely use soap to be honest, so it's quite a good thing for me to have a go at (We tend to use anti-bacterial hand-wash stuff for hand washing, and shower-gel-type stuff for body washing.).

It's funny that you just posted, since I've been thinking about having another go over the last few days. I do need to tweak it a bit though, since, as my OH says, it's a bit 'snotty', and it also lacks any smell - it just smells like.. soap! :rotfl: It was intended to be 'orange and cinnamon' but you can't smell either. The cinnamon does give it a nice, 'speckled' look though, which I like. The other thing I did wrong too was use the wrong container to set it in, resulting in some odd sizes of soap.

Sorry I can't help more, but hopefully I'll get around to trying again soon and let you know.

Gigervamp

The problem with making small batches, is that it's very hard to get precise measurements for the lye and essential oils. All soap ingredients should be weighed, including essential oils (not measured by volume or drops) and essential oils shouldn't be used at more than 3% of the total weight.

The lye calculator I use is the soapcalc one. It's really not that difficult to use. Ignore the stuff at the side that tells you the soap qualities and fatty acids for now. You'll only need that when you get to the stage of formulating your own recipes.

1. If you're making solid soap, you'll be using NaOH (caustic soda/lye) so leave that ticked.
2. Decide which weight measurement you're going to use (metric is better as it's more precise and easier to calculate your percentages) and add the amount of oils you want to use. Lets say a kilo, so add 1000g.
3. Leave the water at 38%.
4. Leave the superfat at 5. This leaves some oil un-saponified and is nicer for your skin. As we're using a kilo of oils, you want 30g of essential oil so add that to the box (be careful though, some oils should only be used at 1% or less. Do some research to find out which ones.)
5. Next click on one of the oils that you're using. Lets say you're going to do an almost castille (mostly olive) with a bit of castor to add more bubblage and less snottyness! So you click on olive pomace, and in the next column, (column 6) click the + sign. Then put in 95 in the % column. Do the same with the castor, but put 05 in the % column.
Next click on the calculate recipe button, then view/print recipe which will open in another page.
There you'll see that for 950g olive pomace and 50g castor, you'll need to weigh out 380g water and 128.36g of lye.

Always use a lye calculator when using someone elses recipe to double check the lye needed because even in books there are some mistakes. And always use one when substituting an oil.

Two places that I recommend for more information are Uksoaping and the Soapdish forum.
The files section at Uksoaping has recipes using British ingredients such as Pura, as well as information on the EU Cosmetics Directive.

Please be aware that it is illegal to sell soaps and bath/body products unless you've had a safety assessment done for each recipe.

Angelina-M

Some fab info there from Gingervamp. Always check any recipe through a calculator, better to be safe than sorry.

As for colouring. Its possible to get a lovely orange colour by using carrot juice as this doesn't change colour with the lye. I've also got a nice green soap curing at the moment that I used nettles with. Nettles seem to keep their colour also, other than that everything goes brown.

I always use 5% - 10% of castor as it adds a nice bubbly lather to the soap.

I make luxury soaps using a good percentage of shea and cocoa butter plus oils such as avacado and jojoba. But I always start with a base of coconut and palm.

I don't like all olive soaps (castilles) as in our house soap is always left stood in water (hubby and teenage son :rolleyes: ) and they go 'snotty'

I also make HP soap that involves using heat to cook the soap and make it ready to use straight away. I don't think its as pretty as CP but its the way to go if i'm getting low on soap and cant wait a month.

I often put things like oat flour or aloe vera in my soaps, even honey as I like the silky/creaminess they add but you have to be careful with any sugar type additives as they can cause the soap to get to hot if they are insulated to well.

I hope you enjoy your soapmaking. I haven't bought soap/gels/handwash for years and I hate having to use them when I go to someone elses house as I find them too harsh after using lovely homemade gentle soap.

love2shopforbargains

I can be soooo ditzy, thought this thread was about homemade soup, lol

love2shopforbargains

Although I am now interested in making homemade soap, lol

EagerLearner

Thank you so much Gingervamp and Angelina_M - I have looked at the calculator again following your info and makes more sense now!

Can I use any pomace oil ie: the £1 store?
Also how many oils can I use in a recipe without ruining it - say 3 or 4?

I was thinking pomace, castor oil, apricot and maybe coconut, but not sure of the % to use...? Is there a basic rule?

Sorry for all the questions, I do not want to mess up...

EagerLearner

Hi all just a *bump* re the questions I asked above... anyone know?

Also bought some castor oil from chemist today, which is a start, plan to get the caustic soda on weekend.

Gigervamp

Pomace is fine. In fact you'll find a lot of soapers prefer it and of course, it's cheaper!
A lot of people find that a high % of coconut oil is drying, so generally it's only used at about 20%. Castor, you'll only need a small % of too, about 5 or 10%. Haven't used apricot oil in soap so I can't comment much on that but it looks like it would give the soap a nice conditioning quality. Might be expensive to use in large amounts though, so keep that to about 20%.