Blue Yonder Soaps

Liquid Soap Making is considered an advanced soap making technique.

When making liquid soap it is helpful to have already mastered the cold process method of making soap. The process for making liquid soap and cp soap are the same, until the soaps reach trace. At trace cp soap goes into the mold, where liquid soap continues on with a hot process. Liquid soap making just as in, cp soap making, requires patience. It can take up to 1 hour to reach trace, then 5-6 hours for the hot process, plus the time it takes for the soap paste to dissolve, which could take a few hours to a few days. Once diluted, scented, and colored, you will have a finished liquid soap.

For my first batch of liquid soap I used the double boiler method. Now I use the oven method. I think the oven method is cleaner, easier, no hot water to deal with. I mix my soap in my cooking pot, I use a stainless steel pot with heat resistant lid. The hardest part of making liquid soap is being patient and not jumping the gun and adding to much water when you dilute the paste.

I do not formulate my liquid soap recipes with excess lye as many teach. Because I am a notorious super-super fatter, I could not bring myself to make my liquid soap with excess lye, then have to neutralize it with the soap is finished, it didnt make sense to me. So instead I super fatted my very first batch 10% and got a clear soap (the reason for excess lye in the first place, is to get a clear soap). Becaue of that I have learned that one of the biggest things to getting a clear soap is to use oils with as little unsapibles as possible. Shea, tallow, coco butter, palm, avocado, & pomace olive, have high unsapibles. Where Safflower, Castor, Olive, and Coconut have the least.

According to Catherine Failor:
Cocoa Butter has 24% palmaitic acid, 35% stearic acid
Palm has 40% palmaitic acid, 5% stearic acid
Tallow has 28% palmaitic acid, 25% stearic acid

Castor Oil has 2% palmaitic acid, 1% stearic acid
Coconut has 7% palmaitic , 5 stearic
Olive has 7% palmaitic , 2 stearic
Safflower has 0 palmatic, 0 stearic

All liquid soap recipes would do well to have a measure of Coconut oil in its formulation, because according to Catherine Failor, "coconut oils predominant fatty acid, lauric acid causes soap to be soluble. When used in making liquid soap, it makes it easier to dilute your soap paste. Also becuase of being more soluble there is less potential for cloudiness in the finished soap". As most soap makers know, "one draw back of using coconut oil in soap is its drying effect, this drying effect can be over come by blending with soft oils, such as olive, canola, or safflower oil."

It is assumed you already know how to make either cold process soild soap or hot process solid soap. If you haven't mastered either of those techniques, you can go to our basic soap making page, to learn the basics. Cold Process Soap Making

• Do not make soap when children, pets, or spouses are present, and can get under foot. Accidents can happen very quickly.


• Never pour liquid into your dry lye; always pour your dry lye into your liquid. Remember: "Snow falls on the water".


• Always wear your safety gear. Goggles, rubber gloves, vapor mask, long sleeve shirt, long pants, socks & Shoes, when making soap.


• Have vinegar near by in case of splashes and spills. If you get lye water or raw soap on your skin, wipe off raw soap, apply vinegar, then flush area with water, remove any wet or contaminated clothing. If you get lye water or raw soap in your eyes, flush with water for 15 minutes, while removing any wet contaminated clothing, call your physician asap. Always wear your safety gear.


• Be sure to do a walk through of the area you plan to make your soap in, pick up anything that could get in your way, there should not be anything laying around that could cause you to trip or fumble, include your path way to a well ventilated area, possibly outside.

These are suggestions; Be sure to run them through a lye calculator, just to be sure the numbers are good. I have made liquid soap with each of these. Each recipe is made up of 24oz of oils.

Apricot Kernel, Castor, Coconut
11.60oz Distilled Water
4.73oz Lye (KOH)
15oz Apricot Kernel Oil
3oz Castor Oil
6oz Coconut Oil
SMR 5.0 * 4.3 * 6.5 * 7.2
BMR 5.1 * 4.7 * 5.4 * 5.1

Apricot Kernel, Castor, Coconut, Olive
11.58oz Distilled Water
4.72oz Lye (KOH)
9oz Apricot Kernel Oil
3oz Castor Oil
6oz Coconut Oil
6oz Olive Oil
SMR 5.3 * 4.4 * 6.6 * 7.2
BMR 5.1 * 4.7 * 5.4 * 5.1

Apricot, Castor, Coconut, Olive
11.19oz Distilled Water
4.56oz Lye (KOH)
8oz Apricot Kernel Oil
4oz Castor Oil
4oz Coconut Oil
8oz Olive Oil
SMR 5.2 * 3.8 * 7.3 * 7.8
BMR 5.1 * 4.7 * 5.4 * 5.1

Castor, Coconut, Olive, Safflower
11.55oz Distilled Water
4.71oz Lye (KOH)
5oz Castor Oil
6oz Coconut Oil
7oz Olive Oil
6oz Safflower Oil
SMR 5.3 * 4.3 * 6.7 * 6.5
BMR 5.1 * 4.7 * 5.4 * 5.1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SMR=Soap Maker Rating
BMR=Bench Mark Rating
Hardness * Fluffy-Lather * Stable-Lather * Moisturizing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
^^Higher the number more of that quality
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Calculate Needed Lye

http://blueyondersoaps.com/lye-calculator.html

http://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php

Experienced soapers will usually have most, if not all, of these already.

1. Rubber kitchen gloves
2. Goggles
3. Vapor mask
4. Old Clothes, long sleeve shirt, long pants, socks and shoes
5. Good Scale for weighing oils, water & lye
5. A stick blender
6. 4qt or larger stainless steel pot with oven proof lid (soap pot)
7. 1-2qt pot for heating distilled water
8. Old cookie sheet, to put under your 4qt/larger stainless steel pot
9. 1-2qt plastic pitcher with lid, for mixing lye & water
10. Measuring cup, for measuring water
11. Measuring spoons, stainless steel would be best
12. Heat proof plastic spoon, & or spatula
13. Funnel large enough to fit a gallon jug
14. Oven mitts or towels, for moving hot soap pot
15. Recipe, I recommend that you use a recipe with 24ozs of oils
16. KOH Potassium Hydroxide
17. Soap Oils
18. EO' or FO's
19. Color (food colors)
20. Vinegar (neutralizes lye)
21. Gallon distilled water (save empty jug for new soap)
22. Paper Towels
23. Working oven
24. Timer, oven or other
25. Note book, pen/pencil

Read at least 2 times before you begin

1. Gather your equipment & supplies.

2. Adjust your oven rack; so that there is enough head room to get your soap pot & lid in and out of the oven easily, you don?t want to hit anything taking it in and out.

3. Put old cookie sheet on the rack you are going use for your soap pot.

4. Put on your "safety gear", gloves, goggles, mask, long clothes, socks & shoes.

5. Measure distilled water, into a 1-2qt plastic pitcher, set in well ventilated area, or outside in a safe child/pet proof place.

6. Measure lye (KOH Potassium Hydroxide), take it to your well ventilated area, where you left the pitcher of water, carefully pour dry lye into plastic container of water, making sure any lye pieces stuck to the container get scraped into the water, mix gently with heat proof spoon/spatula. Turn your head away, do not breathe the fumes, even through your mask. These first fumes are strongest. Cover pitcher with lid, leave container of lye water in the well ventilated area.

7. Measure Soap Oils, into your soap pot.

8. Put the soap pot with oils on the stove and turn it on low to melt the oils.

9. Stir your pot of oils, and once all the oils are melted and you don?t see any chunks, or particles, turn off the burner, and move the pot to the kitchen sink.

10. Get out your stick blender and plug into a near by outlet.

11. Have paper towels, and vinegar handy, incase of spills.

12. Now very carefully go get your plastic pitcher with the lye water. Remember no animals, kids or spouses.

13. Remove lid or adjust opening, pour lye water very carefully into your melted oils, and mix with heat proof spoon or spatula. Mix carefully so that you do not splash any oil or lye out of pot. Still wearing safety gear, right?

14. Once the oils and lye are mixed by hand, get your stick blender, and begin blending your oils and lye water.

15. Now you can take off your vapor mask. Mix 5 minutes on and 10 minutes off with stick blender till your soap thickens to a thin pudding consistency, or until you can leave a tracing on the surface of the soap mix. It could take awhile, mine traced in about 30 minutes. You should be taking notes as you go; time started, when traced, what it looked liked at different times, any thing you want to remember. Don?t forget; use the timer.

16. Once your soap has traced, preheat your oven to 245 degrees.

17. Continue blending 5 on and 10 off till your oven is ready. When oven is preheated, scrap down the insides of the pot, as best as you can, then wipe the insides with clean paper towel. This will help prevent soap from browning on the insides of the pot. Brown soap particles will darken your finished soap. Put lid on pot, and place pot into oven on the cookie sheet, set timer for 20 minutes. Note start time, and record time increments, ex; 1st 20 minutes, 2nd 20 minutes.

18. When timer goes off, with oven mitts or towels in hand, take your pot out of the oven, place on top of stove, and remove lid. Be careful, the pot is going to be very hot.

19. What does your soap look like? Is it separating? Is it puffing up, either way stick blend till all oils are re mixed, and your soap takes on a thick trace consistency, should not take to long. Then scrap down the insides of pot, replace lid, and put back into oven, reset timer for another 20 minutes.

20. When timer goes off, repeat, get your oven mitts or towels, take your pot out, place on stove, remove lid, be careful, stir the soap (no stick blender, use heat proof spoon/spatula), scrape down the insides of pot, replace lid, put back into oven, set timer for another 20 minutes.

21. When timer goes off, continue to remove pot, stir soap, scrape down insides, cover, and put pot back into the oven, reset timer. Use the time increments below:

3x 20 minutes -- this is the time period your soap is most likely to boil over.
2x 30 minutes -- your soap could still boil over but is less likely.
4x 1 hour -- least likely to boil over, but you never know.

22. After cooking your soap for 6 hours your soap is now a thick sticky paste. It is time to begin diluting the paste. If you have used a recipe with 24ozs of oil, do this; measure 32ozs of distilled water, in a separate pot bring to a boil (don't let it keep boiling, it will evaporate too much of the water) then pour boiling water into soap. If you haven't already, turn oven off, stir soap, make sure to loosen any soap paste on bottom of pot, cover & return to the oven. Leave for 12 hours or over night. Note date & time in oven, how much water you added.

23. After 12 hours look at your soap, what do you see? Is the soap paste dissolved, or are there small pieces of soap paste left? If so jump to #26. Are there large chunks of soap paste left? Do this, set your oven temp to 245, measure 16ozs of distilled water, in a separate pot bring to a boil, pour boiling water into soap, stir soap, make sure to loosen any soap paste on bottom of pot, cover & return to oven, set timer for 1 hour. After an hour, turn oven off, remove pot, stir soap, cover pot & return to oven for another 12 hours or over night. Note progress, & how much water you added.

24. After 12 hours, what does your soap look like? Is it dissolved or are there small pieces of soap paste left? If so jump to #26. If you still have a lot of un-dissolved soap paste. Do this, set your oven temp to 245, measure 8ozs of distilled water, in a separate pot bring to a boil, pour boiling water into soap, stir soap, make sure to loosen any soap paste on bottom of pot, cover & return to oven, set timer for 1 hour. After an hour, turn oven off, remove pot, stir soap, cover pot & return to oven for 12 hours. Note progress, & how much water you added.

25. After 12 hours, Is your soap paste disolved enough to pour into a gallon jug? If so jump to #26. If not repeat above, set your oven temp to 245, measure 4ozs of distilled water, in a separate pot bring to a boil, pour boiling water into soap, stir soap, make sure to loosen any soap paste on bottom of pot, cover & return to oven, set timer for 1 hour. After an hour, turn oven off, remove pot, stir soap, cover pot & return to oven for another 3-4 hours, in 3-4 hours soap is still not disolved enough to pour into a gallon jug, wait 24 hours before adding any more water. Note progress, & how much water you added.

26. When soap past is disolved enough to pour into a gallon jug, add the essential oils, & any color. The soap should still be warm, if not, warm it up on the stove, on low. Once soap is warm, measure your essential oil. I would recommend that you start with 1/2 oz of Lavender or Mint, or 1/4 oz of Lemongrass or Palmarosa essential oil. You can add more later if you choose. Be sure to give the soap a few days before deciding to add more scent, hot process soap does not need as much as cold process. Note what & how much you used.

1fl oz=2 tbsp 1/2fl oz= 1tbsp 1/4fl oz=1/2tbsp

27. Do you want to color your soap? Now?s the time, slowly add food colors a few drops at a time, stirring as you go, until the color is where you like it. The color may not get as bright as you like, do not add so color much that your soap dyes your skin, go lightly. Note what & how much you used. 28. Now you can transfer you new soap to a new clean gallon plastic jug. I use the empty distilled water containers, they work great, and they are new and clean. No need to wash them; just make sure all the water is out. Using your funnel, pour your soap into the jug, if there are a few small chunks of soap paste left make sure they get into the jug too. On jug write with permanent marker, date, oils, super fat, amount of water used, scent, & color used, and how much.

Tip: Take a large plastic funnel, with a knife, cut off the narrow part of the funnel, making the opening closer to the size of the water jug opening. Keep this funnel for making liquid soap.

Water:
When it comes to diluting soap paste our goal is to add as little water as possible, making for a nice thick liquid. More water thinner soap. That is why we add dilution water in stages, and only if necessary. It takes a little more time, but the finished product will be worth it.

Sequestering:
If you find your liquid soap is not as clear as you would like it, give it some time, liquid soap often will settle and the particulates that cause cloudiness, will either rise as scum, or settle out. If you find a white scum floating on the top, you can skim it off.

Neutralizing:
Many liquid soap recipes use excess lye, thus making neutralizing necessary. If you have formulated your liquid soap recipe with a super fat neutralizing would become unnecessary.