Easy Soapmaking For Lazy People Who Don't Like to Stir
AKA "Hot Process Oven Process"
Many soap recipes, in fact, most of them, tell you to cook the soap on your stove, which requires some stirring, more stirring, stirring again, and just when you think you're done, keep stirring bud! The whole point of stirring is to speed the chemical reactions, and make sure that it completes evenly. It also ensures that the heat is evenly transferred to all of the mixture, and if you aren't using a double boiler, ensures that you don't burn or scorch your soap!
Some people like the stirring, because it really feels like you're "making" something. I don't. I have things to do, and when I first made soap with olive oil, it took 45 minutes to bring the mixture to "trace", which is the point at which the chemical reaction begins. It splashed everywhere, and I was basically glued to the stove, mixing with a stick blender.
Not any more! Someone clever, and perhaps a little lazy, has discovered that soap can be just as easily cooked in the OVEN, as it can on the stove top! Plus, it requires pretty much zero stirring, only once every half hour or so to get things going. Here's how it works.
Hot Process Oven Process Soap Making
1. Set your oven to 175 F. Most recipes will cook just fine at this temp, and it will (mostly) prevent soap from boiling over. The first time I tried this, I set the stove at 225, but this is too high, and my soap did boil over. Nice mess, and it was not much fun to clean up!
2. Mix your oils, melt any solid oils, and stir in your lye mixture. This will work for liquid (Potassium Hydroxide) or bar soap (Sodium Hydroxide). Give it a minute of initial stir, just to get things going.
3. Put your non-aluminum, oven safe container into the oven with a lid on top, and leave it for 1/2 hr.
4. After the first half hour, a minute of blending with a stick blender will bring an immediate trace, check on the pot every 1/2 after that for about 3 hours. The last hour, I usually let it sit without too much stirring. It will get to a very thick, mostly translucent stage that seems like vaseline. This is pretty much the end, but you can test it by dissolving a bit in water to see if all the fatty acids are reacted away. The water will be pretty clear if the reaction is complete.
5. Moving quickly, spoon the mixture into your mold, and let it cool. Once cooled at bit, it can be unmolded, and cut into bars. It will be easier to unmold than cold process soap, and is ready to use immediately!
At some point in the future, I will be switching to a number of large slow cookers, which will accomplish about the same as an oven, but it will be easier to check on and stir.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Soap & Garden
I'm right now staring at what I hope is a thunderstorm, creeping up the horizon. I just finished planting a bunch of seeds in the garden, and a little rain would not be unwelcome!
GARDEN
We bought a grapevine! I don't know what the grapes taste like, I don't drink wine (or alcohol period), but it seems like something that would grow pretty well unattended. We also have two rhubarb plants that are gaining size pretty nicely. They have been there for two years now, and I think I might plant more of them in time. I really like rhubarb, and it grows really well, even out here on the prairies.
I tried an experiment with a 4 inch drainpipe, cutting holes in it, filling it with potting soil, and planting some strawberries in it. At first, they seemed to wither and die, but they quickly recovered, and almost all of them are still alive! It will still be important to water the tube regularly, but I don't think it will dry out as quickly as I imagined at first. This might turn out to be a viable way to plant small, shallow rooted plants in a "vertical" manner.
SOAP
Ye Olde Fashioned Liquid Soap...is now for sale on Ebay! By the time you read this, I will have bottled the first of the soap, printed the labels, and posted a nice photo. For the first month, I am selling at a huge discount! Most soap of this type would sell for $7.99 to $9.99 for a small 8-12 oz bottle, but I am going as low as $4.99 for the 250 ml, and $6.99 for the 500 ml bottle. This soap is perfect for handwashing, shampoo, or body wash, and contains only olive oil, coconut oil, and canola oil, which when combined with Potassium Hydroxide (KOH), water, and heat, makes soap! This is the way that soap has been made for 5,000 years, and it makes a superior, healthier soap.
Thanks for reading, and please think about trying my soap, I will ship anywhere in North America, plus I will totally combine shipping!
GARDEN
We bought a grapevine! I don't know what the grapes taste like, I don't drink wine (or alcohol period), but it seems like something that would grow pretty well unattended. We also have two rhubarb plants that are gaining size pretty nicely. They have been there for two years now, and I think I might plant more of them in time. I really like rhubarb, and it grows really well, even out here on the prairies.
I tried an experiment with a 4 inch drainpipe, cutting holes in it, filling it with potting soil, and planting some strawberries in it. At first, they seemed to wither and die, but they quickly recovered, and almost all of them are still alive! It will still be important to water the tube regularly, but I don't think it will dry out as quickly as I imagined at first. This might turn out to be a viable way to plant small, shallow rooted plants in a "vertical" manner.
SOAP
Ye Olde Fashioned Liquid Soap...is now for sale on Ebay! By the time you read this, I will have bottled the first of the soap, printed the labels, and posted a nice photo. For the first month, I am selling at a huge discount! Most soap of this type would sell for $7.99 to $9.99 for a small 8-12 oz bottle, but I am going as low as $4.99 for the 250 ml, and $6.99 for the 500 ml bottle. This soap is perfect for handwashing, shampoo, or body wash, and contains only olive oil, coconut oil, and canola oil, which when combined with Potassium Hydroxide (KOH), water, and heat, makes soap! This is the way that soap has been made for 5,000 years, and it makes a superior, healthier soap.
Thanks for reading, and please think about trying my soap, I will ship anywhere in North America, plus I will totally combine shipping!
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Soapmaking: In the Beginning
Not a very long time ago, in a local galaxy (or maybe a nebula), there lived a young man with his family. He had no Jedi powers, unless you consider an exceptionally dark farmer's tan to be a useful ability. He wanted nothing more than to live free on the land, producing things for his family, and things to sell.
Well, here we are in a new spring year, it's finally nice weather, and Disney is the new owner of the Star Wars franchise. What new things can we expect for the year? Well, I've finally gotten on the ball with gardening, a part time job is in the works, and we're starting a non-farm business.
We're making soap! Well, that's where we're starting, I have designs on making a number of useful household products, other than soap, or things that have soap as a base, like shaving soap and laundry soap. Here's the plan:
1. Experiment! Soapmaking is an excellent "cottage industry", unlike say, steel smelting, and building airplanes. It's basically cooking, but with the added element of danger from the lye used to turn oil into soap! So far, I've tried bar soap, and liquid soap, and they both turned out well. The bar soap is still in the little plastic molds, and needs another couple weeks to cure, but the liquid soap is nearly ready to go. My first few tries at bar soap were hilariously disastrous, and the pot boiled over TWICE in one day, hahaha. Turns out I used the wrong type of olive oil, which reacted waaaaaaaay too quickly. Easy fix, and the next few tries worked very well indeed!
2. Start simple: Let me be honest. I am not the first person to try selling soap from home. It may have been done before, and many people are making a small, but honest living selling soap, makeup, deodorant, lip balm, and fancy looking soaps that look good enough to eat. Most of these are women, and their products are exceptional in quality! All kinds and flavours of soap, scented with everything from lavender to coffee. They seem to sell what they make, or else they wouldn't make it.
I don't want to compete with these ladies of super-soap. I think the market might be pretty crowded for "fancy" soap, although I think there is room for someone to make custom printing on soap bars as a gift item. When is the last time you bought a bar of soap with dried herbs in it? Or a salt scrub? Or a bar scented with lavender? I have never purchased any of these things. I have purchased bars of soap to wash my hands with, and I really didn't care what it smelled like, except that it didn't smell "bad". I also buy a bottle of liquid dish soap about every two weeks, because we wash our dishes by hand. The average Joe (or Jane) may occasionally buy a fancy soap as a gift, but what they NEED is regular soap for every day use. Some of them might be interested in soap that is free from chemicals, and that's where Herbal Haven comes in! (Herbal Haven is the name of our company)
3. Ebay, Internet sales: There is a few sellers of liquid soap on Ebay, but most of them seem to be in the US, and I suspect that they find shipping to Canada to be irritating. I plan to target Canadian buyers with smaller sized bottles of liquid soap. My wife is working on a different line of products, womens makeup, perfumes, lip balm etc.
4. Getting bigger: If you've ever made soap by hand, you can appreciate that it requires a lot of patience, something I was not given an abundance of at birth. Fortunately, there are shortcuts, although it requires some money to buy these time saving devices, it will drastically cut down on the time spent endlessly stirring a batch of soap.
That's about it, I will have some pictures of what we've done so far, and when it comes time to sell, I will link to the Ebay page where you can buy all natural liquid soap!
Well, here we are in a new spring year, it's finally nice weather, and Disney is the new owner of the Star Wars franchise. What new things can we expect for the year? Well, I've finally gotten on the ball with gardening, a part time job is in the works, and we're starting a non-farm business.
We're making soap! Well, that's where we're starting, I have designs on making a number of useful household products, other than soap, or things that have soap as a base, like shaving soap and laundry soap. Here's the plan:
1. Experiment! Soapmaking is an excellent "cottage industry", unlike say, steel smelting, and building airplanes. It's basically cooking, but with the added element of danger from the lye used to turn oil into soap! So far, I've tried bar soap, and liquid soap, and they both turned out well. The bar soap is still in the little plastic molds, and needs another couple weeks to cure, but the liquid soap is nearly ready to go. My first few tries at bar soap were hilariously disastrous, and the pot boiled over TWICE in one day, hahaha. Turns out I used the wrong type of olive oil, which reacted waaaaaaaay too quickly. Easy fix, and the next few tries worked very well indeed!
2. Start simple: Let me be honest. I am not the first person to try selling soap from home. It may have been done before, and many people are making a small, but honest living selling soap, makeup, deodorant, lip balm, and fancy looking soaps that look good enough to eat. Most of these are women, and their products are exceptional in quality! All kinds and flavours of soap, scented with everything from lavender to coffee. They seem to sell what they make, or else they wouldn't make it.
I don't want to compete with these ladies of super-soap. I think the market might be pretty crowded for "fancy" soap, although I think there is room for someone to make custom printing on soap bars as a gift item. When is the last time you bought a bar of soap with dried herbs in it? Or a salt scrub? Or a bar scented with lavender? I have never purchased any of these things. I have purchased bars of soap to wash my hands with, and I really didn't care what it smelled like, except that it didn't smell "bad". I also buy a bottle of liquid dish soap about every two weeks, because we wash our dishes by hand. The average Joe (or Jane) may occasionally buy a fancy soap as a gift, but what they NEED is regular soap for every day use. Some of them might be interested in soap that is free from chemicals, and that's where Herbal Haven comes in! (Herbal Haven is the name of our company)
3. Ebay, Internet sales: There is a few sellers of liquid soap on Ebay, but most of them seem to be in the US, and I suspect that they find shipping to Canada to be irritating. I plan to target Canadian buyers with smaller sized bottles of liquid soap. My wife is working on a different line of products, womens makeup, perfumes, lip balm etc.
4. Getting bigger: If you've ever made soap by hand, you can appreciate that it requires a lot of patience, something I was not given an abundance of at birth. Fortunately, there are shortcuts, although it requires some money to buy these time saving devices, it will drastically cut down on the time spent endlessly stirring a batch of soap.
That's about it, I will have some pictures of what we've done so far, and when it comes time to sell, I will link to the Ebay page where you can buy all natural liquid soap!
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