How to Make Homemade Soap

Yesterday we made another batch of castile soap. Castile soap is unique as it is mostly olive oil. True castile is all olive oil, but my castile has a little coconut or palm oil to help it lather and harden. Castile leaves you very clean and moisturized and is a great multipurpose soap. I have made many, many batches of baby wipes in the last 13 years, never finding a recipe as wonderful as the one I made using my own castile. It has moisturizing, protecting and even healing properties(tea tree EO) in it.

For this batch I used this recipe;

• 74 oz Olive Oil(I use pomice olive oil from Cash and Carry, $6)
• 14 oz Coconut Oil (from Azure Standard, $6)
• 24 oz Cold Water (free from the faucet!)
• 12 oz Lye Crystals (plumbing department in True Value, $4)

Grand total $16

31 - 4oz bars of soap

Tools needed;

• large stainless pot
• 3qrt or larger thick, high grade plastic bowl(Goodwill, do not re-use this for food prep)
• a pot to hold ice water that your 3qrt bowl down into
• 2 thermometers (2 is best, 1 will work)
• very accurate scale
• electric hand mixer(Kelsie, you can mix by hand, but it will take you forEVER, I know you will still do it!)
• two wooden spoons(again, do not re-use for food prep)
• rubber gloves(goggles for children)
• soap mold of your choice. Either a box, plastic mold or the like. Add all the weight of ingredient in your recipe, divide by 4oz and that is how many bars your recipe will make. The mold must be that size.
• wax paper to line the wood or cardboard soap mold

Step 1. Prepare your molds. Wax paper your box or grease well your plastic molds. Have hand mixer ready to go.

Step 2. Weigh out the olive oil and coconut oil. Pour into the stainless pot and heat to 100 degrees until the coconut oil is melted. Do not take it over 100.

Step 3. Measure by weight the cold water(do not measure by volume, it MUST be weighed) and pour into thick plastic bowl. Measure by weight the lye crystals into a dry bowl. Using a wooden spoon, slowing stir the lye crystals into the cold water....sloooowly. The water will heat up from the chemical reaction of the lye. Caution, water will get VERY hot.

Step 4. Now the fun part. Your mission....to match both the temperature of the oils and the temperature of the water/lye separately to 95 degrees. You will probably need to set the bowl of water in a larger bowl of ice water to bring the temp down quicker. Your oils have probably cooled a bit, check their temp and bring them up a smidge and hold them at 95 degrees.

Step 5. Now that your temps are matched perfectly at 95(I shoot for 95. Anywhere in between 92-98 are fine, they just MUST be matched) place the mixer in the oils and turn on low. Slowly pour in the water/lye, mixing well until it is all blended. It will go from a clear liquid to opaque. Watch the magic. Blend and blend WITH OUT MAKING BUBBLES stirring in air is not good.

Step 6. After the first minute of blending you may add essential oil. .5 oz per pound of soap. We added 2 oz of lavender EO to this batch. Again ,weigh the EO, don't measure it by volume.

Step 7. Your liquid will now slowly start to "saponify" (turns to soap). You are going to mix the goop until it "traces"(leaves a trace of itself). After you have a good trace move to step 8. That said castile can take a while to trace, this batch takes about 15-25 minutes. Blend well for 10 minutes then you can take a minute off, blend for minute...and repeat.

Here is what my soap looked like right as it reached trace, kind of like pudding. It took us 25 minutes before it traced well. Castile is forgiving, some soaps trace and set incredibly fast, castile does not.

***A warning here, newly saponified soap looks and smells dreamy. My toddlers are attracted to this as it looks soooo very yummy. Uncured soap is highly caustic and deadly so if you have young ones, plan to make it at naptime and then hide it high up on a shelf.

Step 8. Pour into your molds and smooth out. Set the mold in a draft-free room, up high and warmer than 68, cooler than 80. If it is cooler than 68, you can wrap the mold in a blanket to slow the cooling process. Whichever room you cure your soap in, it will smell heavenly.

Step 9. Now, tie your hands behind your back if you have to. It is SO hard to keep from meddling with your first batch as the first 24 hours take forEVER to pass. Just don't meddle! ;) If you poured bars in a box or wooden frame(like the one below that my hubby made) you may cut into bars using a metal square and a knife at the 24 hr period. First score the tops, then cut deep. After another 24 hours has gone by, carefully lift the bars out. Place them on end, on wax paper, up high, on a shelf in a storage room(wow, that is a LOT of prepositional phrases again!)

If you are doing a plastic mold, wait 48 hours before trying to remove. If they do not want to come out, wait another 24 hours. At that point press the bars out and cut them. Dry as above.

Cure bars untouched for 6 weeks to allow the ph to drop within a safe zone. If you use it too soon it will burn your skin. I am not sure how long this soap keeps yet, we have a batch from 7 months ago and it just gets harder and better with age.

The Library is filled with lots of great recipes for soap, give it a try!