Homemade Soap

tallulah_beaulah

jos22 wrote:

Has anyone tried this? Is it cost effective?

jos22 wrote:

Just thought I'd lay out my costings in case anyone's interested. I just used one of my home made bars of soap for the first time, and it was a success, so I feel I can share my cost info:

37oz olive oil - £5.58 (Co-Op)
7oz coconut oil - £3.26 (Health Food Shop)
12oz distilled water - 30p (guess) (Chemist)
6oz lye - 61p (B&Q)

I used the lye calculator here:
http://www.the-sage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php

I can't remember how much I paid for the distilled water, so I guessed that figure, (also haven't figured in electricity for heating the oils).

I got 15 bars of soap for £9.75 (65p each). I used a roasting tin as my mould, then cut out the bars, so they are all irregular shapes. So, in the interest of being extra retentive, I compared the cost of 100g of my soap with 100g of two shop bought soaps:

My soap: £9.75 for 1616g = £1.66 per 100g
Co-Op Pure soap: 39p for 125g = 32p per 100g
Olivera Olive Oil soap: 1.95 for 125g = £1.56 per 100g

Now I'm upset coz I thought I was doing well with 65p per bar, but when compared by weight, mine is the most expensive. My oils were food grade though, so I think I could cut the cost.

I'm not sure how these figures sit with MSE thinking. Feels good to make my own soap and know what's in it though!

Angelina-M

Aww thanks for posting that. I'm so glad you are enjoying it!

Right well first of all I would have had more 'fillers' in than you have. IE sunflower oil, rapeseed oil. Both lovely oils but really cheap.

I buy a whopping big box of 12kg of coconut oil for about £18 so that would work out far cheaper than yours. Sorry I dont know how much ounces are as I work in grams for soapmaking.... and im too tired right now to go and do a comparison, I just want to show you how you can make it cheaper.

Water. Well if you go to a car suppliers you get five liters of the stuff for a couple of quid. However, as I mentioned before, I rarely use water and it can work out cheaper than your 60p price to use other items. For instance I watch out for goats milk going on the reduced section at sainsburys (its usually down to 25p) and then freeze that for soapmaking. Or i'll buy a bag of value carrots for about 30p and they are great in soap.

Lye, I usually buy from home bargains in the red tubs as I dont like a lot of that hanging round the house. Its 89p for a tub.

So I bet by using more fillers and finding suppliers that dont force you to buy in huge bulk, you can cut your costs down by half.

Also, dont ever compare your soap to shop bought. Its a million miles apart!

Pat on the back for giving it a go! :T

Babylonian_2

Angelina-M wrote:

Any idea on a price for the pomace? I use olive oil and love it but I know pomace is a lot cheaper. Wouldnt mind giving the pomace a go.

Hi - just caught up with the thread - I have a receipt from June 2005 which was £6.00 for a 5 litre can

Angelina-M

Thanks for that. Im sure I saw a five liter container in a big Tesco for £7.99 I may as well give that a go as theres no delivery charges this way.

I do make a lot of soap so it will be cheaper to change to pomace.

Justamum

How does the soap-making process turn caustic soda into something safe and suitable for putting on the skin?

Angelina-M

Its a chemical reaction where every caustic atom needs to team up with an oil atom (cant think of the real names for them sorry) once they've found a partner they sort of neaturalise the caustic and become safe.

This is why its so important to weigh your ingredients correctly so there are no caustic atoms left roaming about to damage the skin.

Soapmakers often superfat which means to add approx 5% more of the oils so that once the caustic atoms are all paired up, there are still oil ones remaining to make the soap nice and gentle on the skin.

I usually add a luxury oil at trace (near the end of soapmaking) in the hope that all the atoms are paired up and the luxury oil will remain in the soap. There is no way of knowing if this works but it does make the soap lovely and gentle.

silverbirch1

Hi Tallulah Beaulah

Where did you get your coconut oil from (or where have you found that's cheaper?). Is it an essential oil like you can get in the Body Shop?
Thanks.

tallulah_beaulah

Hey Silverbirch1

I got my coconut oil from a health food shop. It was in the fridge section and in a biggish tub. It looks a bit like lard when you open the tub (but smells really good!). As I said, it was quite expensive because it was food grade, but on the plus side if you have any left over you can cook with it.

I found this site which seemed to have cheaper soap ingredients, of course, there's p&p too:

http://www.thesoapkitchen.co.uk/

HTH

Angelina-M

I wouldn't use edible Virgin coconut oil in my soap, firstly its too darn expensive! And I have a feeling its a different sap value than cheapo coconut oil.

I save virgin coconut oil for body butters etc. If you dont want to buy it online, have you tried asian supermarkets etc?

whatatwit

Angelina-M wrote:

Thanks for that. Im sure I saw a five liter container in a big Tesco for £7.99 I may as well give that a go as theres no delivery charges this way.

I do make a lot of soap so it will be cheaper to change to pomace.

In my Makro leaflet, there is Olive Pomace Oil for £9.59 for 5 Litres (zero vat), just in case Tesco price has changed.