Making Soap Part 1

 

This post is designed to help those who are interested in making their own soap from scratch. I am not going to cover making "melt and pour" soap. You can buy big blocks of commercially made soap for melting down, colouring, scenting and molding. It is called "melt and pour", but you are not really making soap. "Melt and Pour" is commercial soap to which you add your own extras. You can find commercial soap that is unscented at the dollar store and melt it down, too. You can also melt down the tiny pieces of soap left after using up many bars in your own home and make new bars from those. None of this makes "handmade" soap. Its all still commercial soap made by someone else. How do you know it is made from organic products? Does it contain chemical latherers, hardeners, color or scent that dries the skin? Has the natural glycerin been removed? These are all questions that should be researched before using a brand of "melt and pour" soap.

Real handmade soap is moisturizing and good for your skin because of the large amount of glycerine present as a byproduct of saponification (making fat and lye into soap) and the lack of chemicals, usually added to commercial soap to make it harder, lather more, colour it and scent it. Glycerine is removed from commercial soap and sold separately. It is used in the manufacture of weapons and is worth more than the soap.

Saponification is a chemical process that changes the fat and all the lye into something completely different - soap. After saponification is complete, there is no more lye. Saponification takes place when specific weights of organic fat and lye are added together under controlled circumstances and temperatures. Petroleum products will not make soap. You cannot use vaseline, motor oil or any other petroleum products to make soap. The fat must be organic from a vegetable or animal source.

INGREDIENTS:

I make sure I have collected everything I need before the soapmaking day comes. I buy the goats milk at the grocery store or trade for it at a nearby goat farm. Country folk are usually happy to trade extras for handmade, chemical free, goats milk soap. I make sure I have enough lye. Yes, lye is necessary to make soap from scratch. No lye - no soap. Its that simple. Lye is sodium hydroxide, so when the soap label says "sodium" they are referring to the lye used. You will need distilled water or rainwater to mix with the lye flakes or crystals. Hard water will not measure correctly.

There are some new things called "soap nuts" on the market that say they can be used to make soap just by mixing with water, but it isn't the same thing. There are some plants that grow wild here, too, that are high in sapons and will make a lather when run through the blender with water. They are members of the saponaria family, like the bouncing bet saponaria that grows wild along the roadsides. Again, its not the same thing as soap. Does it clean as well? Don't know, try it and see.

One of the main ingredients that I have to locate is hard fat, preferably beef. Lard works very well, also, and is easier and cheaper to buy. Hard fat, as opposed to oil, makes harder soap that lasts a lot longer and does not dissolve if you leave it sitting in water. (This is important.) I have feelers out to friends who buy beef in bulk and know people with farms where beef are raised and sold. I hope to have some beef fat scraps and suet to render soon. Its not easy to find a lot of beef fat in one place anymore. Most people don't butcher their own cows but take them to a processing plant for that purpose.

Rendering is melting the fat and meat scraps until the fat is all liquid and the meat is cooked. This releases the fat in the meat as well. To do this, I put it all in a huge pot with a little water and slowly bring to a boil. Once it has boiled for just a few minutes and the fat is all liquified, it has to cool. I just leave it in the pot outside on the front porch, with a lid on and a weight on the lid to keep out critters. A bungee cord over the lid works for this, as well. In the morning it will have separated with the fat on top and the cooked meet and gelled juices on the bottom. I scrape off the fat layer and dispose of the rest. The chickens like the cooked beef and juices. Its all unseasoned and organic. (It is important for the chickens to get the protein and calcium they need to make hard shells. )

I will then go through the entire process again with the layer of fat, just to make sure it is pure. I put the pure, rendered, clean, white beef fat in bags and put it into the freezer until I am ready to make soap.

The day before I am planning to make soap I will take the rendered beef fat out to thaw. Sometimes I make vegan soap and use shortening or palm oil instead, but I only make a small amount. It is very expensive and not as hard a soap as what I make with the beef fat.

Another ingredient is the infused oil that I make myself from the thyme and oregano grown organically in my garden. I prepare this a few weeks prior to the soap making day (See "Processing Herbs for Soap and Salve") Thyme and oregano are natural antibiotics and antiseptics. Thymol is the active ingredient in thyme. Research was being done in the area of using thymol to mass produce an antibiotic, until penicillin came along. You can still buy oil of thyme or oil of oregano at health food stores for medicinal use.

Other ingredients are used in minimal amounts for various reasons. Coconut oil makes a thicker, richer lather. Sugar also makes more lather. Salt makes the soap harder and castor oil is added as a stabilizer.

Colour can be achieved any number of ways. Soap, with natural additions such as oatmeal or herbal teas and oils, does not usually need extra colour. Some foods can be used to add colour like strained baby food spinach and carrots. If you use milk, instead of water, the finished soap will be a natural shade of yellow or tan. I prefer to use mica for colouring. It's inert, so no one is going to react to it. Unfortunately, food colouring will not last. You can  purchase soap and candle colouring at craft stores or use melted crayons. You can buy organic soya crayons, if you want to keep it organic and healthy.  If you want to know what a specific commercial candle/soap colouring is made from, Google it. I like the baby food method, if I colour soap. Baby food is very pure and has no additives. Colour can be added at any time during the process. You can also make a marble soap by just swirling it into the liquid soap in the mold, using a knife or spatula.

As with colour, scents can come from anywhere. There are some great ones in the kitchen. You can buy essential oils and fragrance oils at craft stores. Perfume and body oils will not work. These will make the soap smell great – for the first day, then the scent will disappear. Essential oils will last for awile but not as long as synthetic fragrance oils. Again, fragrance oils are not specifically "organic". Essentail oils will give the soap the health properties of the oils, as well as the scent.

UTENSILS:

Along with the ingredients, I make sure I have the utensils I am going to need before I start.

Lye and raw soap, not yet aged, are both high in alkyline and will eat any plastic or wood containers or utensils that you use. (This is why you should be wearing rubber gloves.) Use stainless steel or glass for everything. Stirring the fat with plastic is acceptable as it is just fat, but once you mix it with the lye you will have to switch to a steel spoon.

You will need a very large stainless pot in which to melt the fat and a glass or steel bowl for mixing the lye with water. A hand blender is used to "stir" the mixture until saponification takes place. Women used to stand over a large pot with a big wooden paddle for hours and hours, stirring. Using a blender this way, the soap usually takes less than an hour to saponify. You will need a glass, candy thermometer and a digital weigh scale. A digital scale is the only method of measuring that is exact enough for making good soap that has no lye remaining.

After all of the ingredients and utensils have been collected, it is time to start making the soap.

First the mold is prepared. I use corrugated cardboard boxes lined with waxed paper, taped in place. It is important to keep this as smooth as possible and to make the corners as square and as neat as possible. Any folds or wrinkles will show in the finished soap. While some exterior markings will need to be removed, most of it will be smooth enough to use as is. You can use fancy molds for making guest soaps but they will need to be flexible or lined with waxed paper. If you don't line them, you will never get the hard soap out, even if you grease it. Flexible molds can be flexed to pop out the soap, much like an ice cube tray. You still need to grease these, however. Hot soap sticks like glue!

A piece of waxed paper will need to go on top of the soap to prevent a film of ash from forming. If you get some gray ash on top, you can cut that off the finished product. It must be removed as it is caustic!

UNDERSTANDING SOAP RECIPES:

I will be supplying recipes that I have used successfully in the past, as well as specific directions and pictures in the coming Part 2 of this soap blog, when I actually make the soap. I hope to give you an understanding of the recipe so that you can make adjustments to it for your own needs or even make your own soap recipes.

Soap recipes are calculated to use enough of the right kind of fat to saponify all of the lye. It is important that all of the lye be used up or the soap will be caustic. Different types of fat will use up differnet amounts of lye. All fats are not created equal. There are various tables on the internet that will help you to make your own soap recipes if you want to use various types of fats and oil. I have already gone through this.

Beef fat is the hardest and makes the best soap. I add a small amount of coconut oil for lather and the herbal soaps use some of the herbal infused oils, but my soap is made with mostly beef fat. If you use coconut oil, it should be less than 30% of the total fat as coconut oil causes your skin to be dryer. Because of the beef fat, my soaps are quite hard and will last a long time compared to many other homemade soaps. They still do not contain chemical hardeners and so may not be as hard as commercial soaps. They also do not require refrigeration. There is no beef fat in the finished soap as it has all been saponified. If I wish to make a superfatted soap for moisturizing, I will add special oils or fats to is afterwards.

Milk from any source can be used in place of most of the water. Some distilled water will still be needed. Initially the lye should be dissolved in a small amount of water with the milk added after it cools somewhat. This will prevent the milk from cooking in the heat from the dissolving lye, thereby turning the soap a brown colour. This doesn't harm the soap or the milk, it is just not as nice looking and will dull the planned colour of the soap. The milk will still turn it a slight tan colour but not as dark a brown as it would be with cooked milk. Herbal teas can also be used in place of the water in a recipe. Altogether, the liquid used should be 1/3 of the total fat weight.

Castor oil is added as a stabilizer and needs to be less than 5% of the total fat weight. It is added to the fat before mixing with the lye and needs to be calculated as a fat in the recipe when determining how much lye to use.

Sugar helps to make a richer lather and salt makes the soap harder. The sugar should be 1 teaspoon per pound of fat and the salt should be 1/2 teaspoon per pound of fat. Both need to be added before the lye and fat are mixed together.

When I procure a good lot of beef fat, most likely by the end of this month, I will make the soap. Part 2 of this Soapmaking Blog will contain recipes and pictures of the actual soap making process, taken on that day.

When you have your ingredients and are ready to make the soap, recipes, pictures and instructions are in the next post, "Soap Making - Part 2".

I am hoping that this blog will be a help and encouragement to those of you who wish to make their own soap and simply don't know where to start.

It is very rewarding and a lot of fun!

 

Making Herbal Salve

     

Making Salve

The first step is to infuse oil with the herbs. You can use any kind of oil that comes from plants or animals, (olive, almond, sunflower, canola, coconut - although coconut oil melts at 72 degrees F - warm room temperature, so I don't use it for salve. It would be constantly melted unless you kept it in the fridge.) - no mineral oil or petroleum products. There are several ways to do this. The easiest way is to fill a glass jar 1/3-1/2 full with DRIED, ground herbs. Fill to the top of the jar with oil, stir it well, use a tight lid, put in a warm place like a south facing windowsill, on top of your fridge, etc. and shake whenever you walk by. Open daily to stir and let some air in. Leave this for 4-6 weeks. If you want to do this faster you can use a slow cooker. Use jars that fit in your slow cooker with the lid on. Set the jars with lids on, full of herbs and oil, into the slow cooker and fill it 3/4 full with hot water. Cook on low for minimum 5 days, 7 days is better. Take the jars out every day, set on a towel, remove lid and stir. Put the lid back on and return them to the slow cooker. When all jars are out of the slow cooker, add more very hot water so it doesn't dry out. You will have to keep adding water to the slow cooker as the days go by. Just make sure the jars are out of it and it's hot water you are adding. You can turn it off over night so it's not cooking when no one is there to keep an eye on it. Mine goes off and on during the days when I'm cooking herbs. Be very careful handling the jars. They are HOT. Don't handle them with your bare hands. For faster infusion, you can use a steamer. I use the slow cooker method most of the time.

When the 5-7 days are finished, strain the herbs. Toss out the cooked herbs. There is nothing left in them of any use. I use a little metal strainer that I can set on a bowl or a wide mouth jar, to strain the oil. When you have clear, strained, herb infused oil, it's time to add the wax.

You can use beeswax, soy wax or paraffin. All work equally well. I prefer to use soya wax for this purpose. Beeswax is becoming a non sustainable resource. I save my beeswax for lip balm. After straining the oil, you will need to reheat it to melt the wax. I reheat the herb infused oils in the microwave, without the metal lid. A small jar of oil takes about 2-3 minutes to get hot enough in the microwave. You can also set the jars in a double boiler on the stove to heat. If the wax is just not melting, the oil is not hot enough. Do not leave oil heating unattended and do not over heat it. It should be just hot enough to melt the wax within a few minutes of stirring.

When the oil is hot enough, add the wax and stir until dissolved. I use 100g of wax added to 400g of oil for salve. You can adjust this for your own preferences. Less wax makes a softer, oilier salve. When the wax is fully melted in the oil, pour it into your clean permanent containers and put the lid on. Leave them sitting still for a few hours as the salve cools and hardens.

I have a slow cooker that I use only for infusing herbal oil. The oils leak out slightly and the slow cooker will get a coating of cooked oil with little use. I wouldn't use it for food. You can often pick up an old slow cooker at the thrift store. I have three, one for herbal oil infusion, one for making soap and one for food.

My Bug Bite Salve recipe: purslane that I grow myself, plantain, yarrow, calendula, sow thistle, cayenne from the grocery store. (You can use "spices" from the store, i.e. oregano, thyme...)

My Pain Salve: willow bark, wild lettuce, cayenne, peppermint, lavender, chamomile, spruce, cloves (I use NOW clove oil).

My Healing Salve recipe: calendula, cayenne, cedarwood, chamomile, clover, lavender, rose, feverfew, horsetail, lemongrass, peppermint, rosemary, sage, spruce, sow thistle, yarrow (You don't need all of these herbs. Use what you can get here.)

My Anti-Fungal Salve recipe: Usnea, Lavender, Spruce, Tea Tree, Peppermint

My Nail and Cuticle Salve Recipe: Horsetail, usnea, lavender.

Processisng Herbs for Salve and Soap

First gather the herbs you want to use. This is what grows here that I use: plantain, dandelion leaves, horsetail, sow thistle leaves, yarrow leaves, calendula, lavender, rose, spruce, lemongrass, rosemary, peppermint, clover (white and red flowers and leaves), cayenne (from the grocery store), goldenrod, fireweed, stinging nettle, thyme, oregano, ground ivy (also called creeping Charlie), usnea (also called "old mans beard" lichen, grows hanging from trees at the river, has elastic thread inside), chamomile (I use wild, also called pineapple weed. It grows all over my driveway.) You don't need to use all of these herbs. Try whatever mix you have handy and can forage. All of these have healing, anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial healing properties. I also use purslane and feverfew, which I grow myself. I consider the plantain important, but it's everywhere. The usnea is an important anti fungal herb, as well. You might, possibly, want to do an allergy test with some of these, just to make sure you aren't making a salve that you react to. If you are unsure of something growing, google it or take a close clear photo and ask online what it is.

I enjoy gathering, drying and working with herbs. I like handling them, smelling them, sitting outside in the sun picking them. To me, it's fun. It's relaxing and my house smells wonderful with all these herbs drying everywhere. I try to leave long stems on the leaves or cut whole small branches so I can gather at the ends and hang somewhere. I dry small pieces in a single layer on a paper towel, turning every few days. You can dry them quickly in your car on a sunny day and your car will smell marvelous. You can dry them in the oven on a very low setting. Some people dry them in the microwave, however, they need to be half dry before microwaving or it will spark and start a fire. I guess some strong herbs have too much iron and mineral content for the microwave. (Believe me, it can happen, I know...) I think it's best to just leave them out of the microwave altogether. I usually use tin ties to tie bunches to a clothes hanger and hang it up. (No, I didn't put tin ties in the microwave, lol.) Stick a small piece of paper on the hanger with the herbs to label then. Sometimes it's hard to tell what they are when they are dry. I have hung herbs from hooks on the wall, in the ceiling, from curtain rods, from wires strung under the porch roof, from lamps, shelves, just about everywhere I could hang them.

If you have herbs hanging, you will need to tighten the ties every day. As they dry, they shrink and fall out. If your floor is clean and you don't have cats and dogs that like to eat everything green, you can just tie them up again, but I think it's probably best to just tighten them daily at first. Also hang them high enough that your dogs and cats can't reach them. My cats LOVE horsetail. You can also tie them in paper bags, to keep out dust and insects and the bags will catch them as they shrink and fall out of the ties. If you can score large screens, you can make screen shelves on the deck with bricks and screens. That has worked well for me in the past but squirrels and mice can get them. You can also dry them on, and wrap them in, curtain sheers instead of screens and paper bags. They catch even the tiniest pieces. Good for drying seeds, as well.

I usually give herbs about two weeks to dry very, very well and that's important. Everything that goes into the salve has to be completely dry, no moisture at all! If there's one drop of moisture in it, it will grow mold and go bad quickly. When the herbs are very dry, I crumble and grind in my spice grinder, if they need it. Some, like usnea. are so fine that they don't need it. I then put them in labelled glass jars. Any clean and very dry glass jar will do. Pickle jars work well. They will keep dry like this for years, until you are ready to make the salve. You can spend your summer collecting and processing the herbs, then make the salve in the winter.

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