Making soap the thrifty way

I started researching and making my own all natural soap this past year mostly because of my dog. She had a bizarre skin ailment which I first mistook for ringworm. The vet diagnosed it as a chemical sensitivity reaction. I deduced that her reaction originated with a commercial product that I had washed her in, and I soon discovered that even commercial products touted as gentle and hypoallergenic were no good for her. Although there is a hazardous chemical component in the initial combination of ingredients which produces soap, the finished product has proven to be safe for my dog, my family, and several friends. Allegedly Castile soap is the mildest form of natural soap. True Castile soap is made from 100% olive oil. Here is a basic recipe for 1000 grams of Castile bar soap:

First Things First:

1: Safety equipment and safety measures are paramount, since lye(NaOH) is an unavoidable component of true soap, and lye does really painful and nasty things to flesh!(Wasn't there some poor woman that made the news recently because her awful husband assaulted her with NaOH?)

   Always have and wear safety glasses and protective gloves(I use rubber kitchen gloves).

2: Always use pure sodium hydroxide. I buy mine from our local Lowe's.

3: Always add measured sodium hydroxide to water, never the other way around. Something very unpleasant can happen if one does it the other way around.

4: A small hand held one blade mixer is nice, but you can get by without it.

5: Proper measurements are critical, so use a scale and a measuring cup. I have a cheap Dymo digital that measures in gram increments which works fine. Make sure to deduct the weight of the container used to hold the measured oil and lye from the total weight if your scale doesn't have a tare feature. I don't trust my cheap little scale completely so I always do this anyway, and measure everything at least twice to ensure accuracy.

I make my soap in a large plastic bucket. The lye & oil combo doesn't eat through plastic buckets that once stored pool chemicals and we have plenty of them. Of course, the bucket is well washed prior to using it for soap.  *Don't trust metal(other than stainless steel) for this process*( I make sure to use a very large bucket compared to the amount of soap I am making to minimize the risk of any splashing out & causing damage while I am stirring)

Measure 1000 grams of olive oil(I buy virgin olive oil from the grocery) and pour it into your bucket.

Measure 300ml of distilled water(I measure and pour my water into one of several large mason jars I have handy) and pour it into some form of heat resistant glass receptacle(or one can even use a large Pyrex measuring cup)

Don your protective equipment Before fooling with the NaOH!

*I measure and add my NaOH to my H2O outside, because this mixture produces fumes which one DOES NOT want to inhale.*

Have a small plastic container ready & weighed too. (this is for holding the NaOH as you weigh it)
Incidentally, I use a cheap plastic disposable fork, knife, or spoon for stiring my NaOH/H2O together.

Carefully measure 127 grams of NaOH and add it to your 300ml of H2O without breathing any of the gas you will see released. Stir and let this sit until the it is clear.

*I also keep a bucket full of borax or vinegar and water solution in which I put all articles that have been used to handle lye as I am finished with them* I have never put it to the test, but the theory is that this solution will neutralize any active NaOH hanging around on these utensils.

Have some sort of stainless steel or heavy plastic utensil on  hand for stirring if you don't have a hand mixer.

Pour your now clear lye and water mixture into your olive oil.

If stirring by hand: Stir until well blended, then put that bucket up somewhere where nothing can get into it, and stir it every few hours until well mixed again. Don't worry about babysitting it-olive oil takes a while to do that thing soap experts call 'trace'. It may take a whole day or two and there is no sense killing yourself by stirring it that whole time, and don't miss any sleep over it either. Just check on it and keep it mixed.  Continue this process until, when you lift the utensil out of the mix and dribble some on top, that dribble stays without sinking immediately in to the mix. If you've let it get a bit thicker, no worries. As long as you can scoop, chisel or pry it out of the bucket, you're good to go.

If Mixing with that delightful little hand mixer:  Mix on low for a few minutes until well blended. Now, walk off for a few minutes, smoke a cigarette, check the mail, etc. This gives whatever bubbles a chance to die down & not fool you. Keep mixing in 2 or 3 minute bursts with little rests between until you see the mixture lighten in color and thicken to the point at which, when you lift the mixer out and dribble some of the soap back onto the soap in the bucket, the dribbles sit on top of the soap in the bucket-kind of like a thick cake batter or pudding would look. The dribble shouldn't immediately sink into the rest of it.

When the mixture has thickened to that puddingish state, it has reached trace. Now, here is where the finishing process can diverge. I'm  a terribly impatient rascal, so I use hot process-which is finishing  saponification through the application of heat. Cold process involves pouring that trace soap into molds, waiting until it's firm enough to remove, and then waiting another maybe 6 weeks for the soap to finish saponification.

Please note: Consider all soap dangerously caustic until it has been completely processed, and use your safety equipment at all times!

Finishing the soap through my favorite: Hot Process

Now here is where I get lazy because I'm tired of writing this out and refer you to You Tube videos. (incidentally, I have never had any issues with cooling off my lye mixture, or mason jars cracking from the heat, and I use a large saucepan inside of a really large sauce pan for my double boiler)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg6tEa9hGFE
and there are plenty more!

I will say that, if the measurements are correctly followed, and you have cooked your soap fully through the gel stage into that clingy going opaque pull away from the edge of the pan thickish thing, you most likely have some safe soap and won't need any fancy phenol P to test it. Splooge it into the mold of your choice, (a glass cake pan, cereal boxes, tea boxes-must anything can do) let it firm up and cool, cut a piece and give it a lick. If it 'bites' your tongue, you didn't cook it long enough, or didn't measure exactly. If you suspect that you didn't get it through all the stages, just shove it on an airy shelf somewhere for a couple of weeks, and then lick it again. If it still bites, that may be the soap for the garage floor, and it was most definitely a measurement error. I have become so confident in my soap making, that I test mine for lather quality at the end of cooking with my bare hands, and have never been chafed, irritated or ' bitten'.

This is honey and soy milk Castile that I made yesterday with the same basic recipe. I use a wooden mold built from scraps from our new vanity packaging, lined with twice recycled paper I get out of my herb shipments. One of theses days I may make a fancy cutter instead of using ye old kitchen knife.