How to Make Lye Soap at Home!

Homemade Soap - How to Make Lye Soap at Home! WHY LYE? Lye soap is HIGHLY recommended for dry skin! Eases skin discomfort from Psoriasis, Eczema, Acne - YES ACNE! - and winter dry, itchy skin. Lye soap is used for poison ivy/oak, rash or hives, insect bites, and for hunters, hides human scent. Many commercial soaps do not list lye or sodium hydroxide as an ingredient. That's because the 'cleansing bar' you buy does not contain lye so is not soap - it's detergent! They may add lanolin or other softening agents including glycerin which is a by product of soap making. But without lye, it just isn't soap. When you make soap at home, glycerin is created as a by-product, making the soap wonderfully soothing for the skin. 

DON'T LET LYE SCARE YOU --  JUST BE SAFE --

ONCE YOU START USING LYE SOAP YOU WON'T WANT TO USE ANYTHING ELSE!

Remember, that when you make soap at home, you need to follow all the safety precautions. Pay close attention to the recipe, follow the steps in order, and conform to proportions as a change could result in product failure, dangerous chemical reaction, or burn.

If you decide making lye soap at home is not for you, there are stores that carry it and you can find it online as well.  I have ordered from this company before: MoSoap Brand - Old Fashioned Goodness!  

Lye in Homemade Soap - Safe Procedures

• Never use aluminum in the soap making process

• Do not touch lye - wear gloves and protect your eyes - wear safety glasses.

• Do not leave the lye solution unattended. Keep away from children and nosey pets

• Ventilate the area well. Open a door and window or activate an exhaust fan to avoid inhaling dangerous fumes. I do both.

• If you get lye on your skin, rinse immediately. Vinegar counteracts lye because it is an acid. If you don't have vinegar, you can use orange juice.

• If you spill lye solution on the counter-top, wash immediately with vinegar. It is best to cover counter-tops with plastic for safety and to avoid a big mess.

Always add the lye to the water. (Otherwise can create a dangerous reaction)

Homemade Soap - Here is the Stuff You Need

Equipment Needed to Make Soap

Use only stainless steel, enamel-ware, glass, Pyrex, or plastic in the soap making process. Never use aluminum

• Large enamel ware or stainless steel pot

• Large mixing bowl or container made of stainless steel, glass, enamel-ware, or Pyrex for lye solution

• Scale that weighs in ounces

• 2 Glass covered thermometers

• Several large, heavy duty plastic spoons

• Plastic containers for weighing water, fats, and lye

• Molds for soap - commercial molds or you can just use plastic food type containers

• Trash bags to cover counter

• Stick blender

• Stove

• Sink

• Apron, safety glasses, rags or paper towels

Source: photo by Dolores Monet

Ingredients for Soap

• Water

• Fats - white, hydrogenated vegetable oil, like Crisco - canola oil - caster oil - find at health food or ethnic stores - coconut oil - at health food or ethnic stores

• Lye ( found at plumbing supply stores or use Red Devil brand found in many supermarkets)

• Sugar

• Coloring agents (if desired) -  commercially available coloring agents, herbs
• Essential oils - do yourself a favor - don't use fragrance oils as the scent does not last

Herbs - parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme

(photo by Dolores Monet)

Homemade Soap Recipe

• 42 ounces Crisco

• 5 ounces canola oil

• 5 ounces caster oil

• 5 ounces coconut oil

• 17 ounces water

• 6 1/2 ounces lye

• 1 Tablespoon sugar

• 1 1/2 ounces or more of essential oil

• coloring agents

• herbs (optional)

Weigh the fats

Source: photo by Dolores Monet

Add lye to water - you may have to stir

Add lye to water (photo by Dolores Monet)

Add rest of the fats to the Crisco in pot (photo by Dolores Monet)

Add lye solution to fat when both have reached 110 degrees F

(photo by Dolores Monet)

Homemade Soap at Trace

Mix with hand blender (photo by Dolores Monet)

Trace means that when you drag a spoon through the mixture, it leaves a path like in pudding (photo by Dolores Monet)

How to Make Soap

• Dissolve sugar in a small amount of hot water (set aside and use when you weigh the water)

• Weigh 42 ounces Crisco (or similar product) into container. Weigh the container first and adjust the scale to zero.

• Place Crisco in large stainless steel or enamel-ware pot on low heat

• Weigh 17 ounces of water (including the sugar water). Weigh empty container first and adjust the scale to zero

• Weigh lye, weighing container first, and pour the lye slowly into the water. Ensure adequate ventilation by opening 2 windows. Cover your nose and mouth. Stand slightly away from the mixture as fumes will rise. Gently stir until crystals have dissolved

• Measure canola, caster, and coconut oils separately (again, wight the empty container first) Add to the fats in the pot

• Use a separate container for the lye, the water, and the fats

• Allow fats and lye solutions to come to the same temperature - about 110 degrees F. this can be tricky. The lye solution takes some time to cool. If one of the mixtures is still warm and the other is near 110 degrees, place the container of the warmer ingredients in a cool water bath in the sink until the mixture cools.

• When both mixtures have reached 110 F, slowly pour the lye solution int the fats

• Mix with stick blender until the mixture reaches the trace stage. That is when you drag a spoon through the mixture and it leaves a path. It's kind of like pudding.

• Add coloring agents and herbs

• Add essential oils

• Stir

• Pour the thickened mixture into a mold that has been greased with olive oil. You can use a large, rectangular Tupperware type container, a long wooden mold, or individual molds.

• Lay plastic wrap over the top

• Cover with a towel

• Set aside for 3 days

• Remove soap from the container. Slice into bars

• Store the bars of soap on a rack where they can get good air ventilation. Soap must be cured for 30 days before use. Do not use soap before it is cured.

If You Don't Want to Wait a Month for the Soap to Cure, Try This Quick Cure (3 - 5 Days) Method, Called Hot Process Soap Making Using the Same Recipe

• How to Make Soap - Make Quick Cure Hot Process Soap
  The best home made soap needs to cure for a month before you can use it. But, there is a method called Hot Process Soap Making that speeds up the cure time. Heating the soap cures it quickly, making it safe...

Coloring Agents

Do not use food color. Uncolored bars are white. Here is a list of some coloring agents

• turmeric - golden, more makes it orange

• French clay - green (an astringent)

• sage - dull green

• cocoa - brown to very dark brown

• coffee- brown (good for a super-cleaning bar) add as part of the lye solution

• powdered commercial or liquid pigments for soap making - the color of your choice, available at some craft stores or online

• ground calendula petals - yellow

• paprika - orange - don't use hot paprika

• cinnamon - reddish brown

• oxides - inorganic colors, make sure you buy cosmetic grade (they dry darker than when first added)

• Herbs - produce nice flecks, very pretty - sage, thyme, chamomile flowers, sea kelp granules, dried orange rind, mint leaves, herbal teas (steep 3 tea bags in water, cool, and use as part of the water/lye solution), oatmeal (an exfoliate that soothes dry skin, use about 1/2 cup)

How to Blend Essential Oils

• http://hubpages.com/hub/BlendingEssentialOilsinHomemadeSoapsforAromaticorTheraputicPurposes?done

Pour soap in mold - isn't it pretty?

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme soap with herbs, rosemary oil, ground sage and commercial coloring agent (photo by Dolores Monet)

You can stack the molds

Actually, this is covered with an old tablecloth (photo by Dolores Monet)

Soap - Homemade Soap

(photo by Dolores Monet)

The soap above that featured colored spots was made by cutting up glycerine soap into rod shapes and added to the soap mixture just before pouring into the mold.

How to combine lye and water

Aromatherapy - What Different Scents Can Do For You

• Aromatherapy Benefits - The Aromatherapy Benefits of Various Scents
  Aromatherapy brings many stress relief benefits, and various individual scents carry aromatherapy benefits of their own. Learn more about the aromatherapy benefits of some of the most popular scents, and how you can use them for stress relief.

A huge THANK YOU to Dolores Monet for the great HubPage!