Soap Making

Here’s a beautiful bentonite clay soap recipe that uses my favorite soap making technique – cold process. This clay is fairly easy to incorporate, as long as you use the right amount and prepare well (to prevent clumping). Formed from volcanic ash, bentonite clay is naturally occurring and full of trace minerals like iron, copper,…

Knowing when to wrap homemade soap can make the difference between a great experience for the receiver/user and a bad one. Get it right and your bar of soap will be hard, smell great, and last a long time in the shower. Get it wrong and your soap might be soft or sweaty looking, and…

This handmade kaolin clay soap recipe is luxury on the cheap. Trust me, you want this in your shower. It’s a simple recipe that results in a long-lasting bar of soap that feels nice and silky on the skin. Benefits of Using a Kaolin Clay Soap Recipe Other Effects of Adding This Clay to Your…

This article covers how to make breast milk soap using two different breast milk soap recipes. Each of them result in a great bar of soap that I think you’re going to EL-OH-VEE-EEE. Breast Milk Soap Benefits It’s been awhile since my kids were young enough that I would have breast milk, but a friend…

Props to you for wanting to know the absolute best soap recipe without palm oil. Palm is controversial due to it’s demand leading way to so much deforestation, which leads to a huge ripple effect on ecosystems and animals (some endangered) in some of the world’s most bio-diverse forests. On the flipside, palm oil can…

Knowing what causes dreaded orange spots (DOS) is your first step in the battle of preventing them. You’ll never have full control over every batch or bar of soap you make. In fact, part of the fun of soap making is seeing what you’re going to get and what the soap decides to become. Yet…

Knowing when to stamp soap can make a big difference in how your design or logo ends up looking on your bar, and therefore how your overall finished piece looks. If you’re stamping soaps, chances are you’re aiming for an attractive bar of soap, likely to sell. So stamping at the right time is pretty…

Oxides & ultramarines are commonly used in not just soaps, but cosmetics of all sorts, paints, plastics, and even colored concrete. These rich, versatile coloring agents are known as pigments. They’re matte with no shimmer to them. They can lend to some beautiful colors in your finished soap that can be subtle or vibrant, depending…

Given that cold process soap is a lot easier to make, it makes sense for any soaper to wonder why anyone would bother with hot process in the first place. Is hot process soap better for skin, or are there other factors that sway some hot processes to go through the extra trouble? As usual,…

Not to be dramatic, but homemade soap cracking on you can be a little bit heartbreaking. It’s so satisfying to pour your soap batter and see your soap get firmer each time you look at it, knowing that in the next day or three you’ll get to cut into your lovely loaf and admire the…

One of the great things about soapmaking is that it opens up unexpected avenues for creative expression. Using madder to naturally color soap pink is an example of one such avenue – visual artistry. We as humans are highly dependent on our sense of sight. By altering the look of soap, you’re impacting the user…

Bumps on soap are not cute. If you aim for your soaps to impress, bumps have no place in your world. They’re unlikely to affect the actual quality of soap and are more of a cosmetics issue than anything else, so if looks don’t matter to you, don’t even worry about them. If you want…

If you’re interested in learning how to make soleseife soap, stop, go back to square one, and make a basic soap recipe first. I believe you’ll enjoy your learning experience a lot more if you have some basic soap making skills and experience under your belt before attempting this slightly more advanced technique. If you…

Learning how to color soap with natural ingredients is a process that requires hands-on experimentation, and that means you’re about to have a lot of soap making fun. You’re also about to do a lot of research. I personally prioritize coloring products I make with either nothing at all or natural ingredients. Naturally this sets…

Waiting for soap to cure. Ugh. It’s like waiting for paint to dry but even more painfully slow. I’m sure every single soapmaker out there has wondered how to get soap to cure quicker at least once, if not a million times. First, Let’s Make Sure We’re Speaking the Same Soap Curing Language Based on…

Masterbatching in soap making is a way of saving time. You invest a little more time upfront to make a big batch of mixed ingredients – say, lye and water for your lye solution, or the different types of liquid fat you include in your recipe. This allows you to measure fewer things during your…

I’ve found that riding momentum is a good way to get shit done. This philosophy might stem from my natural laziness, but laziness aside, you can’t deny that it’s effective. The soap making heat transfer method is a great way to ride momentum. Let me explain. Lye + water = hot lye solution. The solid…

Sometimes things don’t turn out as you planned in soaping dreamland. There are more examples out there than I can count, but one we’re focusing on today is the oily cold process soap. It’s when you find a thin layer of some oily substance on the surface of your cold process soap, and you think…

Clay is such a wonderful addition to a soap formula. I use it almost every bar I make. But do you know how to add clay to handmade soap the right way? Being haphazard about it could result in batter that’s difficult enough to work with that you give up and succumb to having an…

Being able to make soap yourself is amazing in so many ways, but one not so special and magical thing is that it sweats sometimes. If you have trouble with your handmade soap sweating in high humidity, know that you’re not alone. True soap contains glycerin, not as an ingredient that you add to it,…

What are the castor oil soap benefits? How does castor oil affect lather? Should you use it in soapmaking? I would suggest you at least experiment with using it it because just a little bit will notably boost lather, and sudsy lather is something people really enjoy and look for in a soap. I’m going…

With cold process being a lot easier and more hands-off to make, why would anyone bother with hot process soap at all? There are a few different reasons, and one of them is that it might be better for your skin. Like anything else, this is up for debate. I’m sure you’ll find an endless…

Of all the materials a soapmaker works with, lye is the most dangerous. A highly caustic chemical that seems to serve as the catalyst to some really strong reactions, it must be treated with care. Each and every time you make lye solution, you’re causing an exothermic reaction between the lye and water, which is…

Let’s get right to the point here. The best way I’ve found to prevent soda ash on handmade soap is to use a water discount when making cold process soap. This one little adjustment solved it for me. I personally used 1.5 parts water for every 1 part lye I use in my recipe (1.5:1)….

Soapmaking is full of unexpected issues that seem teeny tiny in the grand scheme of things, but you worry about it anyway because you want a good batch of soap, dammit. Cloudy lye solution is one of those issues. There could be a number of different reasons for your lye water turning cloudy, and most…

Turning fats and lye into soap is an art and a science. No one knows this better than those who have experience with soapmaking and thus understand all the ways in which the process can fail. Hitting a false trace is one of the ways to fail, and it happens to many. What Is False…

Once the soapmaking bug hits, it takes you in. You end up walking through the aisle of the grocery store where the oils are kept, even if you just popped in to buy bananas down at the other end of the store. Your online shopping wishlist is full of soaping goodies – dividers, pigments, butters,…

This is a super-detailed step-by-step guide covering the cold process method of soap making. It’s perfect for beginners to refer to until they’ve got several batches under their belt, and good for intermediate soap makers to read as there may be little bits of info in here that serve as good reminders are tips to…

Hot process soap making is an easy way to make short work of making soap. Understanding the difference between hot and cold process soaps can be a little confusing at first, but how do you make soap with hot process?  The short version: to make soap with hot process, use lye and oil to make…

Organic handcrafted soaps made with non-toxic ingredients are a boon to people suffering from skin conditions and those whose skin reacts to artificial colors, fragrances, or preservatives. These soaps are available for purchase, but wouldn’t it be satisfying to create them yourself and put your personal stamp on them? Make homemade soap suitable for sensitive…

Investing time in making your own soap is a lot of fun and can be a lucrative undertaking as well. It’s something that both adults and children can do safely at home. The best way to make good quality and attractive soap is to use a proper soap making kit.  The best soap making kits…

Handmade soap is a fantastic choice for those looking for a natural, skin-friendly, cost-effective way to clean their skin. When you choose to make your soap, it puts you in control of what you add – or don’t add – to it. In addition to the bare minimum of lye solution and fats required to…

Homemade soap is one of the most rewarding projects to create. Why? Because it can be put to use (that means a lot to me). I love soap that looks old-fashion and rustic, but some prefer a nice shiny bar. There are some critical steps to ensure a glossy finish when creating soap from scratch,…

We use soap every day, whether to wash ourselves, our clothes, or our dishes. In the supermarket, it is easy to come by and cheap. But lately, there have been more and more people buying natural soaps or making their own soap. Why should you make your own soap? You should make your own soap…

So you’re getting into soap making and are ready to purchase your first (or next) silicone mold. Great choice! If you’ve already selected silicone as your material, we applaud you for an excellent choice in simplicity (not messing around with nuts and bolts or glue to hold it in place), durability, and abundant, versatile variety. …

Whether you made it yourself or are the proud owner of someone else’s artisan handmade bar of soap, it’s a work of art worthy of storing wisely. How you keep your handcrafted soap influences how long it lasts and how well it maintains its color and scent. So what are the best ways to store…

Many people are switching to natural self-care products because of the potential negative impact of some ingredients in commercial soap. Making natural soap gives you control over what you put on your skin. But how do you make it? To make soap at home using natural ingredients, choose organic, responsibly sourced raw material from plants,…

Soap-making is a nearly 5,000-year-old art that originated in Mesopotamia with the Babylonians, in a vat of animal fat, water, and wood ashes. From its origins as a product used for washing textile fibers, soap took a meandering course through millennia before arriving at its modern status as a human hygiene essential.  Homemade soap is…