Discover How to Make Your Own Soap
Making your own soap can be a very rewarding and fun experience.
It is a great hobby that both children and adults can participate in.
Anyone can get into this fascinating activity by simply finding information on the process, as well as several recipes for making soap which can be done easily as both are widely available online.
Some of this information, however, is not very detailed, making the soap making process a bit difficult.
People, especially those who are new to making soap, sometimes encounter problems with the soap making process.
Some make mistakes in getting the oil - lye - water ratio correctly, some also find difficulty in finding the right time to add the different ingredients, and some find it hard to get the soap solution to trace properly.
In an attempt to make things easier for you, here are a few tips on how to make your own soap.
General Tips to Make Your Own Soap 1.
Keep safety in mind first.
Never leave children unsupervised when making soap.
Also, it is important to wear protective eyewear and gloves especially when working with the lye.
2.
Read the cautionary reminders on the lye container prior to opening.
Avoid exposing your skin to the lye; keep lye out of reach of children.
3.
Try to avoid measuring the lye if possible.
Instead, try to adjust the other ingredients for the soap recipe to correspond to the amount of lye in the container.
4.
Using fragrances in soap making is optional.
Try using essential oils and dried herbs to add scents to your soap.
Saponification and Tracing Saponification refers to the chemical process that occurs once lye and fat are mixed to turn into soap.
This process may take days to complete.
This process is made up of different stages, the most important one of which is the trace.
The tracing stage is when the soap has started to thicken.
This may be checked by letting the soap run off on your mixing spoon and letting it fall back into the mixture.
If the falling soap does not blend back in with the rest of the mixture and instead stays on top, this means that the soap has reached trace.
You can also tell if the soap has started to trace by looking at its consistency.
The thickness of the soap should be like that of a pudding right after it was cooked and right before it is set up.
You should pay close attention though, since a false trace may occur especially if the fats used are solid in room temperature.
If the temperature of the soap mixture goes below the melting temperature of the fat you used, the mixture will start to turn solid.
When this happens, your soap may appear to thicken like it does during trace.
To prevent this from happening, make sure the temperature of your soap stays above the melting temperature of your fat.
Several variables affect the amount of time the soap gets to trace.
One such variable is the heaviness of the fat or oil you used in the mixture.
If you used light oil, your soap will take a longer time to trace.
Soap made using vegetable oils generally take longer to trace as compared to animal fats.
It is a great hobby that both children and adults can participate in.
Anyone can get into this fascinating activity by simply finding information on the process, as well as several recipes for making soap which can be done easily as both are widely available online.
Some of this information, however, is not very detailed, making the soap making process a bit difficult.
People, especially those who are new to making soap, sometimes encounter problems with the soap making process.
Some make mistakes in getting the oil - lye - water ratio correctly, some also find difficulty in finding the right time to add the different ingredients, and some find it hard to get the soap solution to trace properly.
In an attempt to make things easier for you, here are a few tips on how to make your own soap.
General Tips to Make Your Own Soap 1.
Keep safety in mind first.
Never leave children unsupervised when making soap.
Also, it is important to wear protective eyewear and gloves especially when working with the lye.
2.
Read the cautionary reminders on the lye container prior to opening.
Avoid exposing your skin to the lye; keep lye out of reach of children.
3.
Try to avoid measuring the lye if possible.
Instead, try to adjust the other ingredients for the soap recipe to correspond to the amount of lye in the container.
4.
Using fragrances in soap making is optional.
Try using essential oils and dried herbs to add scents to your soap.
Saponification and Tracing Saponification refers to the chemical process that occurs once lye and fat are mixed to turn into soap.
This process may take days to complete.
This process is made up of different stages, the most important one of which is the trace.
The tracing stage is when the soap has started to thicken.
This may be checked by letting the soap run off on your mixing spoon and letting it fall back into the mixture.
If the falling soap does not blend back in with the rest of the mixture and instead stays on top, this means that the soap has reached trace.
You can also tell if the soap has started to trace by looking at its consistency.
The thickness of the soap should be like that of a pudding right after it was cooked and right before it is set up.
You should pay close attention though, since a false trace may occur especially if the fats used are solid in room temperature.
If the temperature of the soap mixture goes below the melting temperature of the fat you used, the mixture will start to turn solid.
When this happens, your soap may appear to thicken like it does during trace.
To prevent this from happening, make sure the temperature of your soap stays above the melting temperature of your fat.
Several variables affect the amount of time the soap gets to trace.
One such variable is the heaviness of the fat or oil you used in the mixture.
If you used light oil, your soap will take a longer time to trace.
Soap made using vegetable oils generally take longer to trace as compared to animal fats.
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