Soap Suds Part II

Let's make some soap!!

First thing ya wanna do is set a jug of vinegar next to the sink.  If there are any little lye accidents, vinegar is gonna neutralize it.

Oh, and make sure you have a fresh roll of paper towels close at hand.  This is one time when it is okay to kill a tree.  You can wash dishtowels and put surfactants into the groundwater when you are making cheese or something less hazardous.

Now gather together your molds.  If you are using something like my Mackerel Mold, which is made of wood, you are gonna need to line it.  I use cling and tape it to the sides.

Then you need to gather together the ingredients.  Best to weigh and measure everything ahead and have it sitting there waiting on you, as you will not have time or a free hand to do it as you go.  When you measure out the lye, use a paper plate, and when you have finished with it, put the plate directly into the trash.

SOAP

48 oz frozen goat milk
12 oz sodium hydroxide (lye)
5 lbs lard
1/2 lb other fat (olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil etc)
2 oz glycerin
2T borax
1/3 c honey

Now let's figure out what we are goin' to doctor it up with...

I usually use vitamin E and Aloe in my soaps, but have also used cocoa butter, almond oil and a super moisturizer with a name that starts with T that i can't remember now and never could pronounce anyway.  I also toss in either essential oils or fragrance oils or both.  And most of the time i put in some kind of dried herb or a little something extra.  Some times i run the herbs or extras through the food processor for a fine grind, sometimes not.  Suit yourself.

For example...

For one of my favorite soaps, i put in mint and rosemary E.O.'s, and then a generous helping of dried mint and rosemary.  It makes me tingly!

Another one we like has cedarwood and lemongrass E.O.'s and cornmeal, for a light exfoliating effect with a lovely scent.  This one is like a girly Lava...gets the gardening dirt out but doesn't kill your skin.  And it smells dee-vine.

Sometimes we do a batch with ground up almonds, and we always do one with oatmeal. 

Calendula buds made another nice soap, and was quite pretty.

Of course lavender EO and lavender buds is always a crowd pleaser.

Each year, we do at least one batch with a fancy fragrance oil and nothing else.  One year we did Creme Brulee, but decided not to do that again, even though it smelled delicious.  The side effect was that it made us hungry every time we washed our hands.  Got enough trouble without the soap contributing.  Amber is a very nice scent; and tragically, Autumn Lodge was discontinued.  Snag it if you ever see it.  Last year we used Tuscan Garden.  You are getting the picture here. 

Of course, we are not finished with soap for the year unless we have done some patchouli.  The patchouli is kinda a joke, because both The Baas and i love this scent, and each year we buy a big bottle of it, thinking that we will have plenty for soap making, and lotion as well.  Every year we start out dumping just a small amount in the soap.  We smell it and look at each other, pour in a bit more, stir and smell, then a bit more.  Each year we wind up using the whole bottle.  Who knows why we don't just put the whole thing in all at once.  Would save SO much time.

Something to remember about EO's and FO's:  EO's don't have as strong a scent, but the scent lasts longer, FO's initially have a stronger scent, but it looses potency faster. 

Use whatcha like, and be bold and experiment.  It is all going down the drain anyway, right?

Here we go.  Let's get to it.

Put all of your fats in the stock pot, and set it over low heat.  The goal is 90* F.  Stay with it and keep it moving.

This is what it will look like after stirring for about 10 minutes when you have turned the heat on under the pan of bar cookies you left on the back of the stove instead of under the stock pot of fats.  The fats will not be the right temperature, but your house will smell like burned chocolate.

THIS is what it looks like when you correct that flub and get the fats up to 90*.

At the same time, get your liquids going by putting the frozen goat milk in the stainless bowl.  After milking, i freeze mine in 24 oz blocks, so it is already measured.  Just pull a couple of blocks out of the freezer about 10 minutes before you need them.

A little at a time, add the sodium hydroxide, and stir constantly.

As the lye dissolves, add a bit more, and keep stirring until the milk is melted.

A chemical reaction is taking place at this time, and the liquids will heat up.  Keep a check on the temperature.  The goal is 90* F.  If you get all the milk melted and the lye dissolved, and your temperature is not on target, set the stainless bowl in a pan of hot water or ice water until ya get it where it needs to be.  You have a small amount of play in the temp, but the fats and liquids need to be within about 5 degrees of each other, in the 85 -95* range.

Once this is all melted, stir the honey into the liquids.  It will probably turn a nice golden color, but don't freak if it doesn't.

Now the fun part, and the part where you are really glad you called in an accomplice (Thank You, Baas!)

VERY SLOWLY incorporate the fats into the liquids with the boat motor.  Be VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY CAREFUL!!! (note all the very's...this is for emphasis, as it is supremely important to be very, very, very, very careful.)  This is an extremely caustic mess, and an accident would be very, very, very, very unpleasant. 

It will also give off acrid fumes, so make sure you are in a well ventilated area.  We don't usually have to worry too much about ventilation because there are eight kids running around, and that tends to create quite a breeze.

The stuff will sort of curdle at first, but just keep it moving because as it thickens it smooths out.

When you get all the fats and liquids combined and it is looking like a big bowl of pudding, add the glycerin and borax, and keep stirring.

Pretty soon it is going to start to thicken up.

This is the part that i had the hardest time understanding when i read up on how to make soap.  I didn't understand the concept of "trace" until Guess Who ;o) actually demonstrated it.  Which would be why i am posting all these pictures...so that you don't have to live in fear of the unknown and scratch your head in confusion a lot like i did.

You keep stirring the soap until it reaches "trace."  This is when you stop the stirring and spoon some of the batter across the top.  When it maintains it's form on top of the soap rather than melding and sinking into the rest, you are there.  See the crisscross sitting on top?  That is trace.

 

When you have reached trace, the fun begins.  This is when you add your smell-goods and pretty-'em-ups.  Add your essential oils or fragrance oils a little at a time (unless it is patchouli, in which case you are just gonna dump the whole bottle,) stir it real well, and give it a smell, add/stir/smell until you are happy.  Then add your botanicals or extras.

Now you are ready to fill the molds.

Once you get it in the molds, ya need to tap the molds on the counter a few times to settle the soap into the nooks and crannies, and remove air bubbles--kinda like ya would do when you are baking a cake.

Now set all of your molds on the big trays, and put them in an out of the way place for 24 hours.

Come back tomorrow and we will see what we got!