The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Food & crafts => Crafts => Topic started by: escapedtothecountry on October 11, 2013, 06:12:31 pm
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Thinking of having a go at making soap. Any tips, advice or must reads as to what I may need?
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;D loads of books on Amazon that I can recommend, Melinda Cross has written some especially good ones.
Tips? be brave and just give it a go. Start basic and build your self up. Make sure you have long sleeves and goggles on, see what you can find on ebay equipment wise (there are hundreds of small soap making businesses selling up currently and they are putting their equipment on there - its sad but EU regulations are putting a lot of strain onto us but it does mean new soap makers can find lots of supplies online fairly cheap)
Have a look at Fresholi website too, the forum is good for those just starting out - loads of tips and its very friendly!
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Brill.... Thanks.....may start with some of the melt and pou varieties... Which I suspect is cheating really.
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I don't see it as cheating - I see it as gaining confidence and building up to any other process you may choose. I wish I'd tried m&p first! I remember being terrified of a 'volcanic reaction' between slushy milk and lye (which didn't happen by the way!)
If you go onto ebay and put 'soap making lot/bundle' into the search you are likely to find a bundle of things including melt and pour base, colourants, fragrance oils, herbs etc etc oh and moulds! or you can use upcycled things like pringles tubes, jelly moulds etc to save pennies to start.
Whilst you are making for hobby/fun its great as you can try so many different things! the politics and stressors only come when you are making soap for small business (we have to have assessments/insurance/EU recognition etc in order to sell)
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Think I will have a go..... Do some Gardeners hand soap.... Will let you know how it turns out! Already have some of my own calendula petals drying which I believe keep their colour for use in soap.
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Yes, they do. Not many petals will, they tend to go black and yuk but calendula is wonderful - we had a soap called 'calendula girls' last year in our summer range
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Sound cool.
Bet you've had some red tape to deal with as you are a seller rather than doing it just for fun.
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Believe me, you don't want to get me started on that little saga ;D All worth it though.
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Used to work in head office of a large high street pharmacy..... You know the one. Had to go to Brussels to try to influence on some of the directives that's were impacting in a huge company so totally empathise with impacts of smaller organisations.
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I've done a few how-tos on our forum if you're interested, here's a couple of links that might be helpful or give you ideas. I think there's a full how to on cold process soap but you may have to hunt round for it. If I find it I will add it here.
http://theroundhouse.freeforums.org/frankincense-soap-t1069.html (http://theroundhouse.freeforums.org/frankincense-soap-t1069.html)
http://theroundhouse.freeforums.org/various-stages-of-liquid-soap-t1229.html (http://theroundhouse.freeforums.org/various-stages-of-liquid-soap-t1229.html)
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Thanks for that. Now I'm not intending...but say I wanted to do some soap for a friend who sells to the public...me hat hoops do I need to jump through to ensure that I tick all the right boxes?
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Can't help you there, I've never sold my soaps I just give them away so I can make more, lol. Sounds as if plumseverywhere could help you with advice there though.
Tell you what will be useful to you to make sure your soap is safe, a couple of links to good lye calculators. Feel free to use any of my recipes though, they are all tried and tested and I'm not precious about ownership of them.
https://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php (https://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php)
http://www.brambleberry.com/pages/Lye-Calculator.aspx (http://www.brambleberry.com/pages/Lye-Calculator.aspx)
You type in the weight of each oil you want to use and then it will tell you how much sodium hydroxide to use and how much water. If you select the superfat range between 4 and 8 your soap will be safe. Superfat just means left over fats because there isn't enough caustic soda to saponify all of the fat, therefore there is no caustic soda left after the six week curing period ... hope that made sense.
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For selling, even via third party, you will need a cosmetic safety assessment. I use Scott Grainger (google cosmetic safety assessments and his name will be up top!) In order to have the necessary insurance to sell products you would need the safety assessment too.
Be wary of online recipes, double check with the soap calc as Julie says. When I first contacted Scott I told him that one of my recipes was in a book so "must be safe, right?" and he said "no!!! just because its on a book, online whatever by NO means ensures its safe at all..."
For selling, I have - 1) cosmetic safety assessments (its cost in total about £600 but thats soap, lip balms, bath bombs, baby soap...etc ) 2) insurance (about £71 per year) 3) membership of the soap guild 4) registered on the EU portal CPNP 5) Regular contact with my local trading standards (eg. soaps that look like cakes can be seized by ts...you need scales that are recognized by ts and in some cases callibrated by them)
I know it sounds like a huge faff but tbh it didn't take long to get it all set up and its a lovely feeling knowing my products are 100% safe and legal. I do get the hump when i hear of people trying to sell at car boots etc and who are flouting all the laws that are there to protect the public ::) However the Guild are bringing out more ways to shop such crooks and pave the way for those of us with a conscience :excited:
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Just saw your link was for Frankincense soap, Julie! that's my new love :love: just made a goats milk version - we call it Frankincense, gold and Maaaaa
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:roflanim: Love the name. Frankincense resin seems to keep it's fragrance better then myrrh in soap but myrrh smells better if you burn it, I drop a tiny grain of it on the Rayburn hotplate and it fills the house.
Have you experts got any tips for helping soap keep it's fragrance as it cures? Some EOs are better than others but fragrance oils seem to be a waste of time for me.
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Does any of you experts have an idea how to slice olive oil soap? You know the one - used to be quite popular some time back; comes in large blocks (1 kg I think) - and I've been trying to slice it/break it or whatever way to get it into usable size bits for years now! Tried all my large kitchen knives, but the best I achieve is some uncontrolled breakage. ::)
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Thanks plums! Agree. We made a fee jars of pickles but just for fun took a food hygiene and safety course that inching many local authorities recognise! Too many people don't do the right thing. Will look into all what you have pointed out.
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Ina, olive oil soap does go very hard as it ages but it keeps really well. I think a rustic looking chunk of soap has it's own charm anyway, just take a swing at it with the meat cleaver and stand well back ;)
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Ina, olive oil soap does go very hard as it ages but it keeps really well. I think a rustic looking chunk of soap has it's own charm anyway, just take a swing at it with the meat cleaver and stand well back ;)
A hot cheese wire might do it though if you're determined to have it neater.
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Ordered some of the melt and pour stuff that comes in a bucket or so it seems. Best method of getting it out? Ice cream Scoop?
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Slicing hard soap = a guitar string or cheese wire. I use a slicing block now with a guillotine.
Plop the melt and pour into a polythene bag for ease of use - then you can cut off the bits you need to. You'll want to find out how much the mould takes and then measure out equal in m&p and that's easier if you can cut into chunks.
Retaining EO fragrance - I found that using a certain type of essential oil that is widely available on the high st left me with soaps that lost their scent very quickly (about 5-6 weeks) so I now buy quite pricey ones, I've not had any problems since. I tend to use 2% (unless the EO cannot be used at that strength) also blending beeswax into your mix will hold EO for longer. Citrus EO's are notorious for fading but you can mnix them with others to hold longer.
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I just leapt in with the sodium hydroxide but then I am a lab technician and do much scarier things at work. ;D
Have been using (and liking) my very first bar of soap but it seems to become rather soft if it doesn't get a chance to dry out between uses.
I used a book called Self Sufficiency Soap Making by Sarah Ade which I really like but I did actually change the recipe completely since all of hers use palm oil and I didn't want to use it. It is probably going to make me a bit nervous about experimenting with different oils since it takes a long time to make and uses a lot of ingredients.
Can't wait to make my next block though. It is going to be soon since my husband complained of the hippy oil (patchouli) I used in the first batch. ;D
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Thanks for your tips re cutting! I think I'll have to borrow a meat cleaver... ;)
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Do you have a soap ladder Min? I sell them on my website as I explain to my customers (as you know) that no preservatives can mean a softer bar of soap - the ladder allows the air to circulate and keep the bar harder.
I'm with you on the palm oil 100% :)
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I have a slatted wooden soap dish but the soap ladder looks even better. :thumbsup:
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I dry my soaps on old grill pan racks which I stand in oven trays to contain any bits. It gets the air all round the bars so they dry evenly.
Palm oil, totally agree, it's awful stuff, it makes the bars go yellow as they age.
I use a 45% olive oil, 35% lard and 25% coconut oil as a basic mix but have found that adding cocoa butter or beeswax - or both - makes a much harder bar. Virgin olive oil will give you a lovely fresh scent and pale greenish colour for a no additive soap.
Have a read of Kathy Miller's website, you can't get a better education in soap making In my opinion. Here's a link to the page which gives the properties of different oils - very handy stuff to know when designing a soap recipe.
http://www.millersoap.com/soapdesign.html#Properties (http://www.millersoap.com/soapdesign.html#Properties)
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forgot to say;
Also, avoid rape seed oil, it is notorious for making the soap develop yellow spots of rancid oil where it has gone off.
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One cost £4.50 and one I made.....
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A nice simple recipe is just to make a pure olive oil soap (Castile) which is just lye and O/ oil. It makes a very hard bar, lovely silky feel to the bar and a slippery, low suds creamy lather which is very moisturising. Kathy Millers recipe for Castile soap is a good one. I have a couple of 3 year old pieces made to her recipe which still smell lovely, I'm kind of keeping them, curious to see how long they will stay nice for tbh ;)