06:06
@uhoh - Yep, that's the way to do it. There's a lot I can say... I used to make soap by the pounds, plural, in a large container. Long rectangular molds to make "logs" which were cut into bars once cured. Olive oil soap is called castille soap. Coconut oil is added for bubbles, because westerners like bubbly soap; without it, it would make a fine lather that would be better for your skin, as coconut oil once saponified is very harsh.
But some people don't feel clean if there aren't lots of big bubbles. Meh. That's an easy recipe, very basic, and without knowing the exact ratios, it could be good, or harsh.
To prevent harshness (stripping too much oil off your skin), you "superfat" your soap: you add less lye than needed to saponify all the oil, so that there is some oil left intact in the soap, leaving a light film of oil on the skin (it's barely noticeable except that your skin feels softer than after using non-superfatted soap.
When I was making soap, I was making it for medical people who had to wash their hands, like, 30-40 times/day (this was before hand sanitizers became the norm.) I used very skin-friendly oils (no coconut), superfatted with luxiourious stuff like macademia nut oil, hempseed oil, jajoba oil and butters (cocoa/shea/mango butter).
I formulated it to avoid totally stripping your skin but still cleaning it well. Lots of trial and error, but it cured my husband's hand dermatitis (which is why I started making soap in the first place; he's had this rough itchy patch on his hands for years and the only thing the dermatologists could do was to prescribe steroid cream.)
My soap was a real hit with everyone in the ER because it was so gentle. Otherwise we all had painfully cracked, irritated skin, especially in the winter.
I haven't thought about it in a while, but wow, I was so into it. I knew so much about the various properties and compositions of oil, how much oleic, linoleic, steric acid, etc. was in each, which had squalene, which were eaters, just a whole ton of skin/cosmetic chemistry.
Coconut oil is cheap and bubbly, so most soaps contain it as their primary ingredient (sodium cocoate on the lable.) Palm oil is next cheapest, not as harsh but still somewhat harsh and bubbles well. I didn't use either of those in my soaps.
My soaps were expensive to make and not commercially feasible, but there was enough of a market in the hospital I worked in (and others by word of mouth) that I sold everything I made that I didn't set aside for my family's use.
I made soap for maybe six or seven years (oh, I had milk goats, so I also made goat milk soap! but the goats were primarily for us, our milk source.) I stopped when the kids went off to college. I had enough to last a few years if stored properly.
Ha! I bet you didn't expect all that! The video brought back a lot of very fond memories. My kids loved my soap, and many of their friends' moms would order from me. I used that same immersion blender used in the video; the more you blend, the quicker and more uniformly the soap cures, but the stiffer it gets, so you have to stop at some point or you can't pout it into the mold.
I used clay for coloring, and only essential oils for fragrance. Gosh, I was so into it.
One year, I got the bright idea to use up the soap scraps from trimmings as inclusions in my black clay soap. The trimmings were colorful, and I compressed them into balls and called the soap "What Planet Are You From?" OMG, it spread across the soap forums, and people are still making it (e.g.
etsy.com/listing/901258690/…)
Then I also got into lotion making. And body butters. Sugar scrubs (those were really hand savers!). The only thing I never made was bath bombs.
Thanks for thinking of me! It was a very pleasant stroll down memory lane!
(Do you have any questions, lol!?
