How to Make Soap Ingredients

Homemade soaps can take up to six weeks to produce.

The two main ingredients in old-fashioned cold process soap are tallow (beef fat) and lye. The scientific side of the process, which involves combining the two at a certain proportion, is called saponification and takes about six weeks. While there are other methods and types of soap-making, cold process soap is the most traditional, and it's known to be long-lasting and high quality. The use of other ingredients can vary its fragrance, gentleness, moisture and lathering qualities, but the process starts with the rendering of tallow and lye.

Things You'll Need

• Suet
• Roasting pot
• Fine strainer
• Peeled potato
• Wood ash
• Water
• Bucket
• Drill
• Nail
• Gloves
• Safety glasses

Instructions

Rendering Tallow

1. Buy clean beef suet from a butcher, preferably ground. Place it in a roasting pan and set your oven for 200 degrees Fahrenheit. After about 45 minutes, the tallow will melt.

2. Run the melted tallow through a fine strainer and into a pot of water (twice as much water as you have tallow) with a peeled potato already in it. Boil the mixture (with the whole potato) for one hour.

3. Remove the potato, allow the mixture to cool and strain the water from it. Refrigerate it overnight. In the morning, scrape off the layers that aren't solid tallow and dispose of them. Then wrap the end product in plastic or scoop into bags, and return it to the refrigerator or freezer until you're ready to use it.

Making Lye at Home

1. About an inch from the bottom of the bucket, drill a small hole that can be stopped up completely with a nail. With the nail in place, scoop cold wood ash into the bucket. Be sure not to include bits of charcoal, and compact it well.

2. Boil enough water to fill half the bucket and pour it on the ashes. Once all the water has mixed with the ash, place a container under the hole and remove the nail. Over the next hours or days, lye water will flow into the receptacle.

3. When you have enough lye water, stop up the hole. Being very careful, as lye is caustic, boil the lye water. You'll want to wear your safety gear for these steps. Once it is boiling, pour the heated lye water over the ashes again and repeat the process, using what comes from the nail hole the second time as your strengthened end product.

References

• Teachsoap.com: Rendering Tallow
• Christian Home Keeper: How to Render Beef Tallow or Lard for Baking or Soap Making
• Country Living & Farm Lifestyles: Make lye at home for your soap making needs