Homemade Soap

Alisonpennypincher

I have read this thread and i am now intruiged, could somebody who has a bit of "know how" let me know what they think to the kits on this site? I am thinking about it as a starting point. I wuld love to use products on my son that i know about rather than lots of chemicals etc, and me as well of course!

http://www.makeyourowncosmetics.co.uk/kits.htm

TIA
Ali

JoeyEmma

Sorry, duplicate post!

JoeyEmma

Angelina-M wrote:

They look like really lovely soaps. Saponified oils means she makes them same as me, using the oil and lye reaction... saponification.

I'm really excited about them. I ordered four sample bars and including P&P they came to less than £8 (from America!)! I got the shampoo and soap samples.

The lady that runs the place seems lovely.

They rave about them on naturallycurly.com and thelonghaircommunity.com

I'm currently loving the ingredients. I've been washing my face with jojoba oil with a bit of eucalyptus added and it feels so much better. I've also been slathering my eczema with unrefined shea butter.

jembie

CFC wrote:

Hi Jembie, how about sharing your wisdom? Come on, spill da beanz - how is it made?

Don't really have any wisdom I am afraid. I bought the books but It was a few years ago. There is loads of sites out there dedicated to the subject though.

Angelselondon

Looks like a great new hobbie, might try it myself, may make some money by selling it at work.

Has anyone used the Soap Nut thing I read about yesterday, if so any information would be useful, where to get them, what to do with them etc.

Thanks

Angelina-M

Angelselondon wrote:

Looks like a great new hobbie, might try it myself, may make some money by selling it at work.

Has anyone used the Soap Nut thing I read about yesterday, if so any information would be useful, where to get them, what to do with them etc.

Thanks

You will need a certificate if selling them, even to workmates! Its not too hard to get the authorisation but you will need to spend a bit of money getting scales etc... mine cost me £190 approx!


JoeyEmma I use jojoba or olive oil as a face cleanser and they are gorgeous arent they. I couldnt go back to using chemical based ingredients now.

CFC

I agree with you AngelinaM, using a ready base doesn't appeal to me, I might just as well go and buy soap. You've got me very intrigued about making my own from scratch. I'm going to start looking through those threads.

For anyone who's interested, here's the link to 'how to do it from scratch' and here's another, with older methods and ingredients.

By the way, what certificate do you need if you want to sell them and why? (just curious rather than proposing to do it)

Angelina-M

Thats the thing, we come on here because old style appeals to us. When using a base that you have bought, all you can really do is add a bit of fragrance, colour etc, but with making it from scratch you can add ingredients that appeal to you. For example, some people add ground up things for exfoliation, this is particularly good for mechanics, gardeners etc. And what a lovely gift for your 'dirty hands' person, a soap that you have personalised for them!

The one thing that appeals to people about bases is that you can make soap like this You just couldnt do that with soap made from scratch. However if its gentleness and mild soap you are after, then from scratch is head and shoulders above a base.

You need a certification as basically you are dealing with a cosmetic product and lye (caustic soda) is a hazardous substance if not used correctly. You need to prove you know where your products are from and if you change from say shea butter to cocoa butter in a recipe, you need to let them see that. They have to 'ok' your recipe so you have used the correct amount of lye etc.

Edit to add: I cant get my link to work, so just google for pics of melt and pour soap!

tallulah_beaulah

I just made my own soap for the first time about 2 weeks ago. I made it from scratch. It was much easier than I thought it would be. Mostly I used instructions from this site:
http://www.millersoap.com/index.html

I'd been curious about making soap for ages but was scared about lye, then I found out that it was caustic soda and available in B&Q and other hardware places (no less scary, but a little more familiar, I'd never seen "lye" anywhere).

The process was less difficult than I thought. I was very thorough about getting everything prepared in advance, weighing everything carefully etc. as long as you read instructions like those on Miller's site (link above) and be sensible it's really not a scary process.

My soap is still "curing" it won't be ready for another couple of weeks, so I can't tell you exactly how it's come out, but it looks like soap!

I costed it up and I've got fifteen large bars of soap for just under £10. One of my major ingredients was olive oil because I wanted to use mostly ingredients I had and buy as few things as possible for the project. I did buy coconut oil, and have since found I paid more for it than I needed to, so in future I should be able to make it for less.

Angelina-M

People seem to be scared of lye, but if treated with respect then its fine. Its the same with a boiling kettle, you wouldnt throw the water around and if you are careful with it, you wont get hurt. Same rules apply with lye.