How to Make Homemade Soap With Easy Soap-Making Methods
How to make homemade soap – Liquid Soaps
Many soap-makers start out by making bars of solid soaps, because it is a fairly simple and straightforward process. Making liquid soap can be a bit trickier, and takes some practice, but it is just as much fun, and your final product is just as useful.
Knowing how to make solid soaps first is certainly a plus, especially considering that one of the more popular methods of making liquid soap involves making it from bars of solid soap, and the other is very similar to the hot-process method of making bars.
When making liquid soap, different ingredients are required than those you would use for solids. The type of lye typically used to produce bars of solid soap is sodium hydroxide, or NaOH. Potassium hydroxide, or KOH, is usually used to make liquid bars, because the soap produced with KOH is inherently softer than that produced with NaOH. Also, the varieties of fat used to make liquid soap are different.
There are two varieties of fats: saturated, and unsaturated. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature, and make a much harder bar; unsaturated are very soft solids, or liquids, at room temperature, and make a softer ones. As you might have guessed, unsaturated fats are the ones typically used in the process of making liquid soap.
There are two processes for making good liquid soap. One process is quite similar to the cold-process method for making solid bars; however, instead of curing your soap after removing it from the molds, it should be cut up into small pieces, or grated. The pieces can then be melted with water in a double-boiler; the ratio should be one cup of soap to three cups of water. Heat on medium, and stir regularly until soap is melted. (If there are chunks that won’t melt, simply remove them from the mixture.) If the melted soap is too viscous, add more water until the mixture achieves the desired consistency.
The other way to make liquid soap is to make it via the hot-process method. Mix the oils and lye as you would for cold-process soap; it may take a very long time to trace, so be patient. When it does trace, it may be a little thinner than regular cold-process soap. Cook it in a crock-pot, or over a double-boiler, for 3 to 4 hours, stirring every half hour. It will go through many stages; at its final stage, it will be translucent and creamy. To check and see if the soap has cooked long enough, mix one ounce of the soap with two ounces of boiling water. If the mixture is milky, or very cloudy, once the soap has dissolved, it needs to cook longer. (If cooking the soap longer doesn’t make it clearer, one of the ingredients may have been measured incorrectly.) If it is clear, or only slightly cloudy, then the soap should be ready.
As with normal bars, essential oils can be added to liquid soap to give it a pleasant scent, and if it is being stored in a clear bottle, you may want to add some colorants as well.
Liquid soap can be prone to spoilage, so glycerin or another oil containing vitamin A, C or E should be added to help preserve it. Store your liquid soap in a cool, dark place, inside a Pump or flip-top bottle, to further guard against spoilage. Use the soap within 6 to 8 months, and dispose of it if it becomes cloudy, or smells rancid.
Source by Michelle Gaboya
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