Some Soap Making Materials

It is possible to make soap at home using utensils already found in your kitchen. To get a fairly good idea of the sort of equipment you’ll be needing, keep in mind that soap is the product of blending fats (or oils) and lye (or some other caustic alkali) solution. Thus your basic list of apparatus should be something like this:

1. Containers for your ingredients which are mainly lye, fats, and water
2. Cast iron or stainless steel boiling pot for rendering the fats or oils
3. Mixing bowl, bucket, jar or pot
4. Wooden spoons or sticks for stirring
5. Molding trays
6. Clean cloths or rags

Don’t make tin and aluminum utensils part of your soap making materials they easily corrode when they get into contact with lye.

Other items, which may seem incidental at first, but which may prove to be crucial at some point include such items as eye protection gear, mitt or potholders, thermometer, measuring spoons or cups, and litmus paper for testing the lye content or pH of your soap.

Should your hobby evolve into an enterprise, or if you originally had bulk production in mind, you would probably have to invest in additional equipment, such as a blender or amalgamator for mixing your lye and fat, and possibly machinery for cutting soap bars and packaging.

The method of production you’ll be employing will most likely be the most common one, cold process. But in case you choose to go the hot process way, you may want to use a microwave oven to quicken your output. These two start-from-scratch techniques of soap making are nearly identical, except that one requires cooking your mixture and adding enhancers at a latter phase of the process.

Soap Making Ingredients

Now for the ingredients that should form part of your soap making materials. Here it would be helpful to draw an analogy with cooking. Lye, fats (or oil), and water are your basic ingredients, but you’ll need more than these to spice up your concoction. You want to create something that’s not only useful, but also enjoyable. Making soap without color, scent and superfatting oils is like serving chicken boiled in plain water!

As in the culinary arts, we speak of recipes in soap making. Your list of ingredients should have the following:

1) Basic components:
• Water, preferably natural or purified
• Lye, either made from white ash or soda
• Fats and/or oils

2) Added when 90% of the saponification process is complete:
• Usual additives: superfatting oil, scents or essential oils and coloring element.
• Extra enhancers: vitamin E, glycerin, exfoliants, aloe vera, etc.

Animal fats usually used as bases are: beef tallow and pork lard. Your choices for vegetable oil as base are innumerable, and vary in the ways they affect soap lather and hardness, as well as the skin. Some are milder than others, and some are better moisturizers. They are often mixed with fats and other oils.

Partial lists of the various ingredients that may form part of your soap making materials are provided below.

Base oils:
• Olive oil (fine, silky bubbles; smooth on the skin)
• Coconut oil (large fluffy bubbles; a bit harsh on the skin)
• Palm oil
• Palm kernal oil
• Ground (pea)nut oil
• Shea butter
• Cocoa butter
• Jojoba oil (skin conditioner)

Superfatting oils:
• All the oils just mentioned
• Avocado oil (soothing on the skin)
• Cocoa butter (makes the soap hard; is aromatic; does not lather)
• Neem (with antiseptic effect)
• Emu oil (moisturizing; said to heal dermatitis and psoriasis)
• Castor oil (scent retaining; rich lather)

Essential oils:
• Anise
• Basil
• Bergamot
• Cajeput
• Carrot Seed
• Catnip
• Chamomile
• And More

Additives: Aloe vera gel
• Bentonite or kaolin clay (good for oily skin)
• Glycerin
• Honey (adds fragrance and lather)
• Salt (adds hardness to soap, mixed into lye water)
• Stearic acid (hardens soap)
• Silk
• Sugar
• Ground oat meal (exfoliant)
• Herbs
• Vitamin E (healing)

Coloring:
• Soap pigments such as oxides and ultramarines
• Micas
• Colorants
• Other Natural soap colorants

Sources of Soap Making Materials

How or where do you get your soap making materials? Finding them is mostly a matter of applying common sense and being resourceful. Some utensils are already to be found in the kitchen, as mentioned earlier, and you may improvise or reuse old items lying around the house (e.g. stick for stirring the lye-fat mixture). For your supply of fat, you can try approaching the grocery butcher, who may want to dispose of surpluses from his store of meats.

Most of the other items may be obtained from various retailers and dealers. Chemicals and similar stuff, such as lye, glycerin, colorants, and litmus paper are available from your local drugstore, while essential oils and additives are also sold in specialty, discount and grocery stores. Blenders, microwave ovens and mechanical cutters may be purchased from appliance stores and industrial suppliers.

Not to forget, of course, the Internet as a convenient source of your soap making materials. There are numerous Web sites from which you can order materials for your home-based undertaking. Some of the items you need may be just a few clicks away.