The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Food & crafts => Crafts => Topic started by: FiB on January 30, 2012, 05:18:08 pm
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Hi all, never made soap before but fancy having a go - most recipes I have say grate some 'white soap' (which makes me wonder if I am actually making soap, or just adding some extra ingredients? Not that I actually want to do battle with lye and animal fat or equivelant...) - what is white soap? I have some simple soap - will that do?? Cheers, Fiona
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White soap I think is a basic soap made with fat and lye, nothing added to it yet. You would grate it, melt it, add your own personal "smelly" concoction, or other ingredients, colourants etc and re-mould in possibly a fancy mould. Lots of soaps sold as handmade at craft fairs are actually just that....
Speak to Plums - she makes them from scratch.
Btw, it is not difficult, just requires a bit of courage for your firts ever batch - I made mine on the garden table outside with space to "retreat" if necessary - it was fine.
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Love the home made goat soap, it makes my skin softer...I think!!
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Hi Fiona!
The process you describe sounds like rebatching so you are doing as Anke describes and re-melting an existing soap so that you can the choose your own moulds, colours, fragrance etc and bespoke it to your requirements. It is a nice way to enter into soap making and along the lines of 'melt and pour' where you buy a base, heat it - make it yours.
The lovely folk here on TAS will quite likely remember how I took weeks to build up the courage to use caustic soda(lye) to make my first bacth - the relief when it all just went really well was amazing LOL I had images of volcanics which quite simply don't happen so long as you follow the instructions and are very careful.
Warning though, any kind of soap making is addictive ;D
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Oooooo Plums - just had a look at your website - I will deffo be having some of that (when the post tax return expenditure freeze lifts a little!!! I am in piggy bank raiding and sofa mining mode today!!). So could I great the bar of 'simple' soap that i have found at the bottom of a drawer and add some of my own stuff ? (I was thinking a little bit of shea butter, a little rose and geranium oils). What is the differece between melt and pour stuff and a bar of plain soap like simple or knights castile (recommended in my Kitty Little book)? Thanks for your replys - this forum is amazing. In the week I'm on my own and this makes me feel like I'm not! Lots of love to you all out there, Fi
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To be honest I know very little about m&p apart from the fact that you can buy it in different types - such as goats milk base or 'clear' base etc and then literally melt and pour and use it next day. Unlike Cold Process (which is the traditional method using Lye) that need a curing period of about 4 weeks.
The bar of soap you have in your drawer will have been made in a factory and although its Simple soap you will find that the ingredients that have been used to make it are anything but simple. In fact I've gone to the Simple site and the ingredients are
Aqua, (ok so water to start the whole process of with the caustic soda)
Etidronic Acid, (an agent added to swimming pool chemicals to inhibit stains it is also added to bleach!)
Glycerin,(lovely and moisturising but why are they adding it? glycerin SHOULD be a natural by product of natural soap)
Sodium Chloride,(salt to 'help' bond the fatty acids and keep the soap firmer)
Sodium Cocoate, (this is just saponified coconut oil - coconut oil being a firm favourite with soap makers as it makes gorgeous bubbles/lather and can help with skin problems. )
Sodium Palm Kernelate,(saponified name for palm kernel oil. THe more palm oil we use, the less orang-utans will survive :( SImple have NOT stated that this is from a sustainable source. from this we have to deduce it is not)
Sodium Tallowate, (saponified Lard! beef fat)
Tetrasodium EDTA (artificial preservative . some concerns as to whether this agent has low to moderate risk of causing cancer)
Now - the Knights Castile - I'm not sure what KNights use as if they are a large manufacturer then some preservatives might have to creep in to keep the large customer base happy but..the average castile is
olive oil, lye, water.
The lye saponifies the ingredients so you get 'aqua, sodium olivate' and that's it I believe!
my own ingredients are -
Sodium Olivate (saponified olive oil)
Sodium Cocoate (saponified coconut oil)
goats milk
In a nutshell I think what Kitty Little is trying to say is that use a castille to get a perfectly natural product :)
by adding shea butter you are 'superfatting' as shea will not saponify and it will keep its beautifully moisturising properties. geranium is my best seller currently so you will be on a winner with any soap with that in I do believe lol!!
good luck!! have fun :)
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Wow , thanks! Knew there was a reason why the bar of simple has been lurking in my drawer for years! It can stay there (Im sure Ill find a use for it sometime). Its no good - I'm going to have to have a go proper when I can afford some ingredients!
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This is definitely on the list for the summer when I have two goats milking ;D
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Where do you buy your ingredients from?
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My mum has been making soap from scratch for a few years now and sells it at the local farmers markets and agri shows. She first started making it to use up spare goats milk. Now she's addicted. Me and the family are her guinea pigs. My favourite is one that has nettles in it :o. I'll ask her where she gets her ingredients from. I'm sure if you Googled soapmaking there will be a million sites, it seems to be getting more popular. Interestingly a by-product from making your own biodiesel is glycerin. :)
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if you want a small amount then ebay is a good place to look. Otherwise there are site such as Bathbomb.biz or Soaposh, fresholi, plush folly - all selling ingredients!
shop around for a good price :)
I use bathbomb.biz and soaposh as when I set up a couple of years ago, they were so helpful and full of advice that I've stuck with them.
Remember though if you plan to sell to the public you need a safety assessment and public indemnity insurance, you also need to make sure that each soap is labelled in accordance with current legislation!
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Wow with all the legislation and insurance involved i am surprised anyone bothers making anything handmade for the public!! :o What happens if you give it to family and friends?
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The legislation for cosmetics is very stringent - I guess it needs to be really :) You do still get cowboy outfits selling without proper labelling, making soap that looks like cakes (illegal) and quite possibly operating without insurance but on the whole most of us are reputable and withhold high standards ;D
As for giving to family and friends, the cosmetic assessors will tell you its best practise to make sure the recipe you use is safety assessed (you'd not want to hand your family a lye-rich bar of soap and risk permanent harm to their skin or eyes) but if you are using a basic melt and pour type soap then you are pretty fail safe with the base, just need to make sure you understand how much fragrance you put in and that any allergens are known about!
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I've got a couple of bags of pork fat in the freezer and have decided to have a go at making some tallow ;)
Some of the 'lard soap' I've tried has been very soft and melty (without the addition of water) I'm keen to avoid this (without having loads of goes at the chemical mixing bit :o Oh yes, I remember Lisa's panic :D) do you think the soap would have not have been cured properly, or is it likely to have been something in the mix or percentages that caused it ?
I'm thinking along the lines of 35% tallow, 35% coconut oil and 30% shea butter or almond oil - is this likely to be too soft ? Is there a better alternative to either the shea butter or almond oil ? I did think about olive oil, but have had some olive oil soaps in the past that have been really 'gloopy' and want to avoid that.
Help much appreciated ;)
Karen :wave:
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Hi Karen
If you google soap calc (or soap calculator) theres some quite useful tools that can tell you proportions that work. I use coconut oil, olive oil and goats milk. a 4 weeks cure gives it a nice hardness but even longer (6-8 wls) can be even better. I superfat with shea butter in Old Imari soap.
xx
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Originally soap was made using lye which comes from woodash on a straw base ran through with water for about 7 days to create potassium hydroxide. Sue later learnt the strength of this was not controllable so having a desire to retain the families` epidermis chose to use the more adjustable and controllable sodium hydroxide which is mail ordered in powder form.
Sheeps milk is then mixed with the sodium hyrdroxide while oil and beeswax and any fats of choice ie Pig Tallow from the Scottish Pig Keepers Association, local rapeseed, beef tallow or simply olive oil for a Castille soap) is dissolved separately.
Both processes are left to cool to around 50 degrees C then mixed and stirred until trace is reached, scented if required and put into moulds. These remain in the moulds for 24 hours, then wrapped in a towel and left to cure for a month prior to use.
Sheeps milk soap is reputed to be the most luxurious of all the natural soaps. All our products are tested on my husband Tom. "Scream if it`s gone wrong" lol