Are you fancying the idea of making some handmade soap? If you are reading this blog, chances are high that you are. There are many methods of making handmade soaps. These are the cold process, the hot process, the re-batching and the melt and pour soap making. Let us quickly go through these methods one by one.
Melt and pour soap making
This is one of the easiest processes of soap making. In the melt and pour soap making process all you are required to do is to melt existing blocks of readymade soaps and add your preferred fragrance to it. The benefit of this type is that you get a soap of your chosen fragrance, but these soaps would not be 100% natural as they would still contain the chemicals and fats of the commercially made soaps.
Re-batching
This process is kind of similar to the earlier one. Here you grind the soap bars, and then add milk and water to the grinded materials. The mixture is then blended well and put back into molds to solidify as soaps which are softer and better for the skin.
Hot process
In this process, you are practically required to cook the ingredients of the soap. You have to mix the essential oils and the lye solution together. You can add fragments of olives and avocado to the mixture. Now is the time to pour the mixture on the pot slowly in a thin stream. As the mixture gets thicker upon getting cooked, slowly add more lye. Stir the whole thing with a stick blender till it forms a thick trace.
Cold process
This is the most commonly used process for making handmade soaps. This process involves a chemical process called saponification which converts the composition of the essential oils with the help of the lye to form the thick mixture of the soap. To begin with you would need to take the oils and melt them in the pot. You can use olive oil, coconut oil and palm oil for the purpose. Prepare the lye solution in a separate bowl by adding lye to water and let the whole solution cool down for some time.
Once the melted oil and the lye solution are at the same temperatures, mix them slowly to form the soap mixture. The soap mixture needs to be stirred thoroughly. Once the mixture forms a thick trace, add the natural ingredients like the essential oils, fragrances or herbs and stir the whole lot to form a pudding like thick mixture. This mixture needs to be poured into soap molds and allowed to be cured and hardened for about 48 hours.
Once the soap mixture has hardened cut them into bars and allow them to get cured and dried for at least 5 to 6 weeks as the water contents of the mixture would still be very high. Once it fully dried, the handmade soap is ready to be used.
Points to remember
As the process of making handmade soaps require you to handle many chemicals, you need to ensure that you are using proper gloves while working. Other items that you would need for making handmade soap include stainless steel pot, measuring bowls, rubber stirring utensils, thermometers, the oils and lye solutions, and molds for the soaps. You can opt for any of the processes mentioned above and make wonderful soaps of exotic fragrances for yourself and your friends.
