How to Get Ingredients for Making Homemade Lye Soap

Soap is produced by combining fats or oils with sodium hydroxide, also called lye. The soap maker adds fragrances, essential oils and other ingredients to the lye substance according to the specific kind of soap he wants to make. To set up for soap making you will need equipment and ingredients.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Large heat-proof mixing bowl, glass or stainless steel
• Pyrex measuring cups
• Candy thermometer
• Long rubber or latex gloves and protective eye wear
• Stirring utensils such as spoons and spatulas, made of silicone or wood
• Soap molds
• Desired fats and oils
• Sodium hydroxide
• Distilled water
• Vinegar
• Kitchen timer
• Desired additives such as scents, essential oils, flowers or colors

1. Choose your work area. The location should be well ventilated and provide space to set out the equipment and ingredients. A kitchen is suitable, as are some laundry rooms. Some soap makers like to work outdoors to minimize the fumes and the mess.

2. Cover the work surface with several layers of newspaper or old towels. Lye is extremely reactive and will readily destroy anything it contacts that is not glass, ceramic or stainless steel. When the work surface is covered, set out your soap-making equipment.

3. Select your fats and oils. Oils suitable for soap making include avocado, castor, palm, cottonseed and olive. Other fats are lard, vegetable shortening, cocoa butter and shea butter. Look for oils and fats that are pure, without cheaper oils to stretch them.

4. Decide on nutrients to add to your soap. Soap makers use things like aloe vera, jojoba and ground meals such as oatmeal and flax seed meal to make soap that promotes healthy skin.

5. Pick out some additives to give your soap a special touch. Essential oils and ground herbs give the soap scent, and different scents impart unique characteristics useful in aroma therapy. For example, lavender promotes relaxation. Get pure essential oils, not oils containing artificial scents.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember that vinegar neutralizes sodium hydroxide, or lye. If lye, either in its dry form or in solution, gets on your skin, clothing or a surface where it does not belong, flush the area with vinegar immediately.
• Sodium hydroxide, or lye, is extremely caustic both in its dry form and in solution. It will burn and corrode work surfaces and your skin. Do not use lye without wearing protective eye wear, rubber or latex gloves, shoes and long sleeves.