Soap is made from fats and NaOH (also known as Sodium hydroxide, Caustic Soda, or lye). The fats can be liquid or solid oils (at room temperature), or more commonly, a combination of the two.

Some common solid oils are Beef Tallow, Lard, Palm, Coconut, Palm Kernel, or Shortening. Shortening is made from liquid oils turned into solids by hydrogenating them. Most soap makers avoid using tallow & lard, as they want to keep their soap from containing animal products. Many commercial soaps that you can buy in a large store are made using tallow (Recognize it on the ingredient list as Sodium Tallowate) because it is a cheap by-product of the meat industry. If you live or used to live on a farm, you probably used it for making soap as well.

Some common liquid oils for making soap are Olive, Soybean, Sunflower, Canola, and Castor Bean Oil.

Each oil gives the soap you make from it its own characteristics, and although I have only listed a few oils, you can see that you can choose many different combinations.

Each oil is made up for the most part as tri-glycerides. This sounds fancy, but the shape of this type of molecule is easy to imagine. Think of the letter E as a tri-glyceride. The horizontal dashes of the E represent the 3 (tri) glyceride molecules (actually pretty long chains), and the vertical dash is the 'backbone' glycerol molecule.

When you mix the tri-glyceride with lye, the 3 glyceride molecules break off the backbone and become soap molecules, and the backbone becomes glycerine. The glycerine molecule is quite a bit smaller than each of the chains, and by weight would make up about 10-15% of the soap made from fats and lye.

So, the differences between fats and oils are due to the glyceride chains. They can be longer or shorter and have different kinds of bonds in them, but the backbone is the same.

Coconut oil makes a hard soap with quick large bubbles, Palm oil makes a hard bar with slower and smaller lather, and Castor Bean oil makes a softer bar with very thick, creamy lather.

So, why make your own soap? Well, the plain fact is that if you make soap at home, it is so much better than the stuff you can buy in the grocery store. In fact, most of that stuff is not real soap, but detergents (made from petrochemicals).

If you want to check out an article I wrote about the damage detergents do to the skin & hair, please read
The Dry Skin Dilemma

Make soap at home and you control what goes in, the scent, the colour, everything! Say you want to treat yourself with an exotic butter, just add it. If you want an unscented bar, you can have it. If you want to make soap for your friends and family as gifts, they will love it!

There is at least one more reason to make your own soap at home...It is fun!

Melt & pour soap is a great way for a beginner to make soap at home. Since the soap part is already made, you avoid handling lye. Melt & pour soap is perfect for really busy people, or those who have small children and/or pets that they can't keep out of the kitchen!

What you'll need:
1. Melt & pour soap
2. Essential oils or blends for scent
3. some carrier oil (Optional - Sweet Almond, Apricot Kernel etc)
4. herbs or food colouring for colour & texture (oatmeal, ground almonds, cinnamon powder etc.)
5. Saucepan
6. Molds - chocolate molds, milk cartons, really any small flexible container. You can line anything with plastic as well.
7. Various utensils (cutting board, knife, spoon etc)

The basic instructions are as follows:
1. Cut up the melt & pour soap in small chunks. The smaller they are, the faster they will melt.

2. Put the soap in the saucepan (put the lid on) set on your stove burner at low heat (gas range is not recommended - use your microwave instead - short bursts & check frequently)

3. Once the soap has melted, add your scent and carrier oils and anything else, and stir well to make sure everything has mixed. Try to not introduce any bubbles, but if your soap is hot enough (and liquid enough) they will rise to the top before you pour into the molds).

4. Let the soap sit with the heat off and the lid on for a few minutes, then pour into molds. If you have added things that tend to settle to the bottom, and you want it to be more evenly distributed, then wait until the soap thickens as it cools, stir carefully and only then pour the soap into the molds.

5. Leave the molds until the soap has set completely. There is nothing more frustrating when the soap is still liquid in the center when you try to pop it out of the mold! Try not to be impatient. The best thing to do is to go do something else for a couple of hours (such as go shopping!) and then when you get back it will be all done.

6. Remove from the mold and enjoy. If your soap needs to be persuaded to leave the mold, you may put the whole thing into the freezer for a few minutes and see if that helps. You can also try oiling the mold to see if that helps.

Making liquid soap is not difficult. The one major difference between making solid soap and liquid soap is that you don't use lye (Sodium Hydroxide), you have to use Potassium hydroxide (Potash).

Potash used to be obtained by taking ashes from burning hardwoods and slowly running water through it. This solution was then collected and to test for strength, and egg was dropped in. If it floated, the solution was too strong, if it sank, it was too weak. If it remained suspended somewhere in the middle, it was deemed to be just right. Thank goodness for electronic scales! Now at least we can accurately weigh everything to make sure we won't strip our skin right off when we use the soap we make.

What you need to make liquid soap:

Equipment:
1. Large stock pot - this must not be aluminum, nor have plastic on it anywhere - it will be going into the oven. Make it big enough that your soap will fill it only about 1/3 of the way up.
2. Electric oven
3. Stick Blender
4. Scale
5. pH test strips
6. Heat resistant (glass or Sterilite plastic) container with a lid to mix the KOH (Potassium hydroxide)
7. Various utensils (Spoons, spatula etc.)

Safety:
1. Goggles
2. Well-fitting gloves (dishwashing gloves are great)
3. Long-sleeved shirt and long pants (No bare skin!) make sure these are not new either!

Ingredients:
1. Fats & Oils
2. KOH (Potassium hydroxide)Caution Caustic
3. Vinegar to neutralize KOH spills
3. Essential oils for scent
4. Borax or Citric acid for neutralization. Borax will thicken your liquid soap and is easy to get in your laundry aisle at the grocery store.
5. Food colouring (optional)

Some general soap making rules when you are working with lye or potash:
1. No pets or children allowed!
2. Use the washroom before you start
3. Turn off your phone & computer - No distractions!

Now all you need is a good recipe! Search online for your own recipes, or check out Catherine Failor's book Making Natural Liquid Soaps out of the library, or better yet, buy it from Amazon (see below). She covers all the basics for making all kinds of liquid soaps, and adds some fragrance ideas as well.

So, now you've got your recipe, hopefully you've got the house to yourself for a nice long afternoon, so lets get started!

1. Put on your goggles and gloves and your soap making clothes.

2. Prepare your container for mixing the KOH (Potassium hydroxide) by weighing out the water you need. Fill your sink with a few inches of cold water and set your container securely in it. You don't want so much water that your container does not sit on the bottom.

3. Weigh your KOH and add it carefully to your water container without splashing, and stir well right after the addition (Never add water to KOH, always add KOH to water!). Place the lid loosely on your container, to minimize the caustic fumes. Leave in the sink to cool while you weigh out your fats & oils and heat them up.

4. Weigh out your fats & oils and melt them together at low to medium heat, checking frequently. You want them to be melted, not ready for deep-frying!

5. Take the oils off the heat source and carefully pour in your KOH solution.

6. Blend the mixture with your stick blender until it is creamy and beginning to thicken. Take care not to splash! The less air you incorporate at this stage, the better.

7.If you blend long enough, you will end up with a very thick and very sticky taffy-like soap. Don't leave your blender in too long!

8. Turn on your oven to your lowest setting (200F or 95C), and once it has pre-heated, set your stock pot in the oven with the lid on. Leave it in there for at least 3 hours, but feel free to take it out now and then to have a look. You won't be able to stir it until it turns into gel, and even then it will be difficult.

9. After 3 hours, your soap should have gelled (that means it turned transparent). If not, check to see if your oven is on! Decide whether to make the entire batch into liquid soap straight away, or if you want to keep the soap paste for later. You can bag the paste and keep it in the freezer for a long time.

10. Measure the amount of water you need to dilute the soap paste and bring it to a boil before adding it to the stockpot. Keep in mind that you will be adding a lot of water, so make sure your pot is large enough! Stir the paste and the water as best you can, and try to scrape the sides & bottom of the pot as well.

11. Put the pot (with the lid on) back in the oven and leave it in there with the heat turned off overnight. By the next morning, most of the paste will have dissolved or at least softened enough to make the rest of the job easier.

12. Using your stick blender again (clean it first), blend until no more clumps remain. Bring the stock pot almost to a boil and then turn off the heat. Leave it with the lid on until you cannot see any undissolved paste. Congratulations! You have got your first batch of liquid soap!

Some details:

To Neutralize: Boil some water and dissolve the Citric Acid in it, then add it to your soap. Check the pH with your pH strips to make sure it is within 9-10. Still too high? Add a little more. NOTE: Don't bother with Citric Acid if you are going to thicken your soap with Borax

To Thicken: Boil some water and dissolve a tablespoon of Borax in it, then add it to your soap. Still too thin? Let it cool before deciding!

To Colour: Add food colouring or water soluble dyes. This is optional, and I prefer not to add any colour.

To Scent: Add your essential oils while the soap is still nice & warm, but not hot so that it will be easier to throroughly stir in the scent.

I just learned some very disturbing information about Canola Oil. No, actually I was reminded why I have never used it. My husband's farmer relatives told us many moons ago that they would never use canola, or feed it to their animals after their experiences while farming it.

I have written an article about it on out blog:
Canola Oil is a poison

Get educated, and maybe save your life, or that of a loved one.