How to Develop Cold Process Soap Recipes
You can create cold process soaps that contain just about any essential oil, fat, fragrance or dry food ingredient. Cold process soaps do share a few common ingredients: They all contain lye, a caustic substance, liquid (usually water or milk) and at least one kind of fat. Beyond that, you can add nearly any natural material to create a soap recipe that suits your specifications.
Instructions
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Determine what properties you'd like your soap to have. The recipe you develop will depend on what you want from your finished soap product. If you want a conditioning soap that smells like mint chocolate, for example, you need to choose the right kind of fat and determine the amount of peppermint oil and cocoa powder you'll require.
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Choose your fats. On her website, "Miller's Homemade Soap Pages," Kathy Miller breaks soap-making oils and fats into several categories and lists the predominate properties of each. She suggests using these guidelines to customize your soap recipe.
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Calculate the amount of lye you need. Different fatty acids require different amounts of lye to saponify, or become cold process soap. Miller recommends consulting a saponification chart and using an extremely accurate scale to weigh out fats and lye.
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Add essential oils. Once you have figured out what fats to include in your recipe and how much lye you should use, experiment with adding essential oils. The amount of essential oil you will use in your recipe varies. Miller advises adding anywhere between 1 1/2 to 4 oz. to each 8 lb. batch, depending on the oil's strength.
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Incorporate other ingredients. You can add just about any food-grade ingredient to soap, including dried oats, cocoa powder, honey and lavender.
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Tips & Warnings
Experiment with additional ingredients and research existing soap recipes for inspiration.
Practice extreme caution when working with lye, as it will burn skin. Maintain a well-ventilated work area and do not inhale hot lye fumes.
