soap making is easy!
  • frydogbrewsfrydogbrews
    Posts: 44,679
    i like to buy fancy soaps because i have psoriasis on my hands and soaps with various oils help considerably.

    finally decided to make my own and was blown away by how easy it was. here is what i did.

    i bought all my stuff from amazon. one of the nice things i picked up for 13 bucks was a silicon loaf pan to pour the soap into to harden.

    this recipe fills a loaf pan that is about 12 inches long, 3 inches high, and 3 inches wide or so.

    please be accurate in your measurements.

    take 4 oz of lye pellets and slowly pour while stirring, into 10 oz. distilled water. never pour the water on the lye, terrible things would happen. as you stir, this solution will get very hot, might throw off some steam and smells a little funky. that's all normal. where gloves and stuff, this is a caustic solution. stir with anything that isn't aluminum because aluminum, water, and lye = hydrogen gas.

    stir that for a minute or so until its all dissolved, and set aside to cool down to 100 degrees or so while you prepare your oils.

    different oils do different things in a soap. some make soap hard, some make it lathery, etc....learn all about that somewhere else (this is a homebrewing forum damnit!)

    take 8 oz coconut oil, 8 oz olive oil, 6 oz canola oil, 8 oz palm oil. then i mixed all this together and heated is slowly until the coconut and palm oils turned into liquids.

    once the oil is below 100 degrees and the lye mixture is around 100 degrees, slowly pour the lye mix into the oils. stirring the whole time. once its all in, break out the immersion blender and blur that shit up. once it gets the consistency of unset pudding, add any herbs you may want. we added a cup of powderized rosemary we made with a spice grinder.

    then pour the whole thick mess into your loaf pan, over with some kind of lid (we used cardboard and binder lips, insulate with some towels around the top and sides, and let sit for 24 hours.

    after that time frame, slice it up.

    its good to go, but apparently letting it dry after slicing for a few weeks makes it work better.
  • frydogbrewsfrydogbrews
    Posts: 44,679
    here is a pic of our freshly sliced rosemary soap.

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    720 x 960 - 71K
  • frydogbrewsfrydogbrews
    Posts: 44,679
    and it smells strongly of rosemary, i love it.
  • scoobscoob
    Posts: 16,617
    I need to do this, I have been wanting to for ages, I have a crap ton of lye I use for making pretzels, can I use that? I just have to use the right weight?
    Jesus didn't wear pants
  • frydogbrewsfrydogbrews
    Posts: 44,679
    i think you can use that lye, as long as its regular old lye, should be fine.
  • frydogbrewsfrydogbrews
    Posts: 44,679
    going to make another batch today, but instead of the rosemary, going to grind an ounce of centennial pellets into a fine powder.

    real hop soap!!! i have bought several other soaps labeled as hop soap that sucked ass. didn't smell like hops at all. should be fairly deodorant soapy because of the antibacterial qualities of hops.
  • scoobscoob
    Posts: 16,617
    Yup, food grade 100% lye
    Jesus didn't wear pants
  • scoobscoob
    Posts: 16,617
    Ooooh, hop soap! I like that idea!
    Jesus didn't wear pants
  • ThymThym
    Posts: 122,708
    the commercial stuff was probably made with the dried leftovers from a commercial breweries hop back or something. i'm sure fresh hops would be very aromatic.
    The only thing between me and a train wreck is blind luck..... - Kenny
  • ceanntceannt
    Posts: 53,828
    That is really cool
    Never attribute to malice, that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.
  • JayrizzleJayrizzle
    Posts: 90,691
    I rarely am the one to do this (in fact this might be the first time ever) but: put on safety glasses when playing with lye and lye water solutions. That stuff can make you blind in a hurry.

    Also make sure that there is no lye in the soap before giving it to your grandmother. If you lick a bar and get a sharp "zap" (it really feels like licking a 9V battery) it should be aged longer. The time required will depend on the temp at which you mixed things (colder=longer) the amount of water you used, the kinds of oils, the temp you're aging it at, and how well you mixed things.
    image
  • C_BC_B
    Posts: 89,069
    Dr_Jerryrigger said:

    I rarely am the one to do this (in fact this might be the first time ever) but: put on safety glasses when playing with lye and lye water solutions. That stuff can make you blind in a hurry.

    Also make sure that there is no lye in the soap before giving it to your grandmother. If you lick a bar and get a sharp "zap" (it really feels like licking a 9V battery) it should be aged longer. The time required will depend on the temp at which you mixed things (colder=longer) the amount of water you used, the kinds of oils, the temp you're aging it at, and how well you mixed things.


    See? Fatherhood is kicking in whether you like or not.
    "On it. I hate software." ~Cpt Snarklepants
  • ThymThym
    Posts: 122,708
    C_dubbs said:

    Dr_Jerryrigger said:

    I rarely am the one to do this (in fact this might be the first time ever) but: put on safety glasses when playing with lye and lye water solutions. That stuff can make you blind in a hurry.

    Also make sure that there is no lye in the soap before giving it to your grandmother. If you lick a bar and get a sharp "zap" (it really feels like licking a 9V battery) it should be aged longer. The time required will depend on the temp at which you mixed things (colder=longer) the amount of water you used, the kinds of oils, the temp you're aging it at, and how well you mixed things.


    See? Fatherhood is kicking in whether you like or not.


    HA HA HA HA HA!!!
    The only thing between me and a train wreck is blind luck..... - Kenny
  • ceanntceannt
    Posts: 53,828
    Dr_Jerryrigger said:

    I rarely am the one to do this (in fact this might be the first time ever) but: put on safety glasses when playing with lye and lye water solutions. That stuff can make you blind in a hurry.

    Also make sure that there is no lye in the soap before giving it to your grandmother. If you lick a bar and get a sharp "zap" (it really feels like licking a 9V battery) it should be aged longer. The time required will depend on the temp at which you mixed things (colder=longer) the amount of water you used, the kinds of oils, the temp you're aging it at, and how well you mixed things.



    But the stuff my grandmother used to make would durn near melt your face off ..... there were wood ashes and lard involved ...
    Never attribute to malice, that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.
  • FuzzyFuzzy
    Posts: 49,786
    C_dubbs said:

    Dr_Jerryrigger said:

    I rarely am the one to do this (in fact this might be the first time ever) but: put on safety glasses when playing with lye and lye water solutions. That stuff can make you blind in a hurry.

    Also make sure that there is no lye in the soap before giving it to your grandmother. If you lick a bar and get a sharp "zap" (it really feels like licking a 9V battery) it should be aged longer. The time required will depend on the temp at which you mixed things (colder=longer) the amount of water you used, the kinds of oils, the temp you're aging it at, and how well you mixed things.


    See? Fatherhood is kicking in whether you like or not.


    zing!
    The pinnacle of lame and awesome in one singular moment. -Lake
  • FuzzyFuzzy
    Posts: 49,786
    i need to save up enough bacon fat to make a batch of soap. mmmm, bacon soap.
    The pinnacle of lame and awesome in one singular moment. -Lake
  • BenvarineBenvarine
    Posts: 1,606
    I thought the best soap was made from human bio waste. Or at least that's what I learned from fight club.
  • BenvarineBenvarine
    Posts: 1,606
    Sorry, broke the first rule.
  • frydogbrewsfrydogbrews
    Posts: 44,679
    Benvarine said:

    Sorry, broke the first rule.



    sh!t.


    sh!t. sh!t. sh!t.



    look what you've done!
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