Making Soap

I like to tell people that making soap from scratch is where it all started for me. But in reality that isn’t where living green started, but we are just going to save that for another article. Today we are going to start with making soap from scratch.

My passion is making soap from scratch. What does this involve? Well soon I will be able to direct you to my site Soap of Course, but for right now I am just going to give you a short version.

Soap is actual a chemical reaction between an acid and a base. That would be the science geek in my by the way.

You find your oils. These can range from the grocery store variety of olive, soybean and canola to the type you have to get at your health food store such as coconut and palm oils. These are the basic oils, but then you can add such things as cocoa butter and bees wax.  You can get really into soap making and get things such as grapeseed, apricot, sweet almond oil and butters such as mango and shea.

But no matter what oils that you use you have to have the right combination. These oils and butters are measured out by weight and put into a formula.

Now here comes the part that makes people shake their heads and say no way are they going to make let alone use handmade soap. You have to mix all these wonderful oils with sodium hydroxide. That is what causes the chemical reaction and turns these oils into soap. You have probably heard of this referred to as lye. I know, the stories abound about Grandma’s old lye soap.

Well sweetie, soap making has come along way. Working the oils into this formula and measuring out specific amounts of oils and lyes gives you the best soap you have ever used. It is rich and nourishing to your skin.

One of the greatest benefits is that it is all natural. It has no chemicals, no preservatives and no fancy words you can not pronounce. Ok so sometimes I wonder how to pronounce some of the words like Monoi de Tahiti oil but I think that is more a personal thing.

Most soaps you buy on the market are not even real soaps, they are detergents. Do you really want to wash with those?

I am really excited to be launching Soap of Course in the coming months. I want to share with you the great benefits of using handmade soap, the properties of the oils, aromatherapy and herbs. I will be sure to let you know right here when to check it out!