Stirring the Pot~An Epic Adventure of Handcrafted Soapmaking

When my kids were young, I was fortunate enough to be a stay-at-home mom. By cutting back and doing without we were able to survive on one salary. But as the kids got older and more expensive (babies don't need dance lessons or transportation to swim meets!) I found myself trying to add to the household income from home. I was already doing some freelance writing for the local newspaper, but still wanted to increase my income.

I have always enjoyed artsy/craftsy kinds of efforts, and living in northern Indiana Amish Country provided a nice little collection of gift shops that sold local crafts. Although I can sew, my efforts were average at best. I made things like Halloween costumes, and even Easter outfits, and they looked great...from a distance. Anyone who would have turned a seam inside out or looked at the backside of a button would have found angry-looking, tangled loops of thread that had been ripped with my teeth and square-knotted so they would not unravel. Or ink specs where I tried to mark the fabric in a way that would help me piece it together when it was time to sew. My family used to ask things such as, "Will this shirt have 3 sleeves?" and be only half-way kidding. Clearly I was not going to compete with my conservative bonneted neighbors as they quilted by candlelight.

Good Housekeeping to the Rescue

Even though I was a throw-back to the 50's housewife, it was now the 90's and I owned no pearls and could not begin to walk in heels. But I did buy Good Housekeeping magazine every month...usually there were coupons to clip that more than offset the price of the magazine. In one of these magazines I found an article about a woman who had been making soap in her kitchen, and had turned it into a viable side-business. Hey! No seams in soap...could this be something I could do? I copied down her recipe, then went to the health food store for the strange assortment of oils that were needed. I decided to go ahead and add some essential oil and herbs. The cheapest little bottles of essential oil I could find were lavender and peppermint, so that was the fragrance, along with a handful of tossed lavender buds for good measure. This first batch was poured into a wax-paper-lined BAIT box, with breakaway sides. After two days the soap was ready to cut. I loved the way it felt when the knife sliced through the loaf, and I loved the fresh, minty fragrance. Once the bars were cut, they were supposed to dry for several weeks, but I could not help but try one the next day in the shower. It was amazing! Silky lather, wonderful smell...I was completely hooked.

Making Cold-Process Soap

There are basically four ways to make hand-crafted soaps. Cold and hot process (mixing the oils and lye water at varying temperatures), Clear soaps (mixed from a recipe) and Melt and Pour (purchased blocks of clear soaps, to which people add dye and fragrance). Most of the beautifully creative clear soaps you see in stores (jelly beans for Easter, pumpkins for Halloween, etc.) are made through the melt and pour method. The type of soaps I make are cold-processed all-vegetable bars. I have given some workshops on soap-making, and once people see all that goes into the process they often don't mind paying the $6 to $10 many handcrafted bars sell for. This is the process I go through to make one 10-pound batch of soap:

(*Note--all stock pots must be stainless steel, and not aluminum. All measuring vessles must be heavy gauge plastic or glass. Stirring spoons must be heavy plastic, stainless steel or wood. Lye water corrodes aluminum).

• In stock pot, add 1 pound lye crystals to 3 pounds of distilled water. Stir until lye is dissolved, and take care to not splash solution on yourself. Fumes will rise from the water while stirring, so take care not to breathe those. The chemical reaction of lye and water will raise the liquid to over 200 degrees. Set aside in a safe spot to cool (watch children or pets around the pan...this is a fatally caustic solution if ingested).
• In a different stock pan, melt one 3-pound tub of soybean-based shortening (like Crisco, store brands are fine) together with 2 pounds of coconut oil (coconut oil is what provides the lather). To the melted oil, add 3 pounds of pomace olive oil (for moisturizing properties). Stir together, and set aside to cool.
• Line wooden mold with freezer paper (for easy release of soap). Have ready a lid for the soap mold, and 2-3 blankets to wrap the mold after pouring.
• When lye water and oils are both cooled to room temperature, pour lye water into the oils. Using a large spoon, begin stirring. Stir slowly and evenly in a figure-8 pattern, thoroughly mixing the two liquids together. This mixing process allows for "saponification", bonding the alkalai solution to the oils. Saponification is what makes bars of soap harden. The term "lye soap" often conjures up the harsh cakes made by people's grandmothers, but in truth all bars of soap contain lye. You may see it called many different things on labels (such as sodium hydroxide, potash, or soda water. Some labels avoid mentioning the lye at all by stating "saponified oils of..." alluding to the process using the lye).
• The stirring and mixing process can take as little as 10 minutes, or as much as an hour and 10 minutes, depending on factors such as the room's humidity level. You will know you are done stirring when the soap has reached a "runny pudding" consistency, and forms a "trace". The definition of a trace is when you bring the spoon up out of the mixture and let it drizzle above what remains in the pan. If the thread remains visable on top of the mixture before sinking back in, you have achieved a trace. (think cake batter!)
• If you are going to add fragrance, colorant, exfoliant, spices or other botanicals, the time to do so is at the trace. The rule of thumb is 4-5 ounces of essential and/or fragrance oil, approximately 1 teaspoon of ultramarine or oxide (for color), 3 Tablespoons of botanicals such as lavender buds or lemongrass leaves, 1 Tablespoon of kitchen spice or 1/3 cup of exfoliant such as oatmeal or cornmeal. Mix thoroughly and pour soap into prepared mold, using a rubber spatula for thoroughness.
• Place the lid over the mold, and wrap tightly in blankets. Over the next 24-48 hours, the temperature of the soap will increase to the point where warmth can be felt through all layers of the blanket. This is an important phase that helps solidify the bars for cutting.
• After 48 hours, the soap may be lifted from the mold, measured and cut with a sharp knife. After the bars are cut, they are ready to use but are best dried for 6-8 weeks. The longer the bars dry, the more moisture evaporates, giving them a longer shelf life.
• After the bars are completely dry, take a sharp knife and remove any "soda ash" or other physical blemishes, then wrap as you wish. Cold-process soaps are best wrapped in packaging that allows them to breathe, such as tissue, kraft boxes or paper bags. You can also simply put a decorative band around the soap. The bands are attractive, but do allow the fragrance to dissipate more than other methods of wrapping.

Tips for Buying Supplies

Soap-making supplies are readily available online, but do vary greatly in price. When I began making soap, I was able to use Red Devil Lye straight off the grocery store shelves. Now thanks to meth entrepreneurs, it has to be ordered online. I am able to get coconut oil at a local Amish bulk sales store, and I get olive oil from Gordon Food Service. For essential and fragrance oils, my favorite online store is Sweet Cakes Soap Supplies. Larger quanities of base oils can be purchased from Columbus Foods in Chicago (lightening fast shipping!). The nice thing the Columbus Foods website is the "Soapmaker's Choice" SAP calculator. This is the calculator you can use right on their website to measure how much lye and water will be needed if you want to try different types of oil (each different type of oil needs to react to a different amount of lye for saponification). (Links below)

Why Use Hand-crafted Soap?

Why go to all this trouble (or expense if you are buying from another crafter) to use hand-crafted soap when you can get a bar of Dial for under a buck? Many people don't have sensitive skin and don't mind the detergent effect of mass-manufactured soaps, and for them there is absolutely no reason to spend so much.

For other folks, I have a notebook full of testimonials stating why they made the switch. Sometimes people just prefer to "buy green" and support a local business. Some like the idea of fewer chemicals and stronger natural fragrance. And for some, their skin dictates this purchase. There is one local Amish family that buys all their soap from me (I make a special oatmeal-only, no fragrance batch for them) because it is the only thing that helps their young son's eczema. One man wrote me just last week to say that he has struggled with a scalp condition for years, and has had many different shampoos prescribed by his doctor to no avail. But for the past 3 months he has been using my bar soaps on his head instead of shampoo and his condition is completely cleared up. An elderly lady in my church will only use these soaps in Winter, as commercial soaps are too drying to her skin. The reasons are as varied as the people using the soap.

Have I gotten wealthy with this soap business? Uhm, absolutely not. In fact every year when I do my taxes I re-evaluate whether to keep doing this or not. But the bottom line is I enjoy it. There is something therapeutic about stirring a batch of soap late at night...just me, the soap and Dave Letterman. And something satisfying about using a hand-made product on my own skin. If nothing else, people love getting soap as a gift (as long as you provide a disclaimer that it's just a hobby, and no you don't think they need a bath!). So, next time instead of getting your child's teacher a "world's best teacher" tree ornament, think soap! You might just be the first.