Getting Started With Soap Making for Beginners
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Getting started with soap making for beginners at home can be a bit intimidating and overwhelming. There are so many THINGS that people will try to tell you that you absolutely neeeeeeeeeeeeed or you won’t succeed. I’m here to give you the bare minimum basics. Like… you’re just making cold process soap to give as gifts and for personal use, don’t need anything crazy pretty or fancy type deal. I see sooo many posts and things on social media saying soapmaking is so esspenssiveee lucy to start doing… and I don’t really agree with that. It can be… but let’s be smart about it.
First things first. Making your very own soap does not involve using a melt and pour soap base. Yeah, they make some pretty fancy ones, but that’s cheating! I said what I said. There is no such thing as making soap without lye and if you see that… they’re using melt and pour. If you’re going to use melt and pour, you may as well be buying your soap at the store or from someone else. True HANDMADE soap involves using oils and the chemical reaction between those and sodium hydroxide to make soap.
Most store-bought soap isn’t actually soap either. They get creative in their advertisements and shaping them into bars, but read the packages… most of them don’t say soap. They’re detergents. I’m not saying there’s not soap on the shelves, but most of those “soaps” have so many unnecessary things that are literal poison to our skin, that we can make our own natural soap with natural ingredients we know much simpler. Your skin IS the largest organ on your body after all. Take care of it.
Tools for Soap Making for Beginners You Absolutely Need
Stick Blender / Immersion Blender
This makes soap making leaps and bounds easier and quicker. Yeah… you could use a whisk and whip it together that way into emulsion, but I promise you probably don’t want to do that. Using a stick blender makes getting your oil and lye mixture to trace so much easier, so I’d recommend snagging one. Watch thrift stores and online sales. My brand of stick blender has stood the test of time here and I love it. I actually make and sell goat milk soap on top of keeping up with stock for my family and I’ve been using the same one for 5 years. It really is good quality and I’m pleased with it… and the best part is it goes on sale pretty frequently.
I do recommend having a devoted stick blender for soap if at all possible. Simply because you’re working with essential oils and things that could potentially leave a “taste” behind and then get into your food. Not the end of the world I suppose.. but not ideal. I actually used one for both for a while when I was learning soap and dabbling and we didn’t die :D
Thermometer
I have a fancy laser-y infrared thermometer gun thingamabob. It’s super nice when making soap because it’s just shoot and see. You can use a food thermometer or whatever you want, but it is nice to have so you know the temperatures of your lye and your oils before mixing together, as good soaping practice is to have them within 10 degrees F of one another. A standard candy thermometer works fine, but when you can, upgrade to infrared. I use it for more than just soap making!
Soap Safe Containers / Lye Safe Container
To make your lye solution and then make your soap, you need containers that are considered “lye safe” meaning you can safely mix and store a liquid lye solution in them. There are tons of specific soap making pitchers and bowls online that you could get caught up in if you have money to burn. But honestly? Lye is fine in stainless steel OR what I use? Empty yogurt, cottage cheese, and sour cream containers. Any food container or plastic container with the recycling logo #5 on it is lye safe. The lye will not react or melt the plastic. Use your recycling! I use these small containers for my lye solution, and BONUS, if I mix it up the night before, after it cools a bit I can pop the lid on the top to prevent evaporation until I am ready to use it. Technically, glass is lye safe, but with how quickly the lye heats to well over 200 degrees F, I wouldn’t risk it because that could cause thermal shock and bust the glass. Not cool.
For mixing soap batter, you’ll need a bit larger container, but again any food storage container with that recycle logo #5 works well. I used some random glad food storage big containers for a while because they were tall and skinnier and kind of perfect for blending. But you can use an old water pitcher, slow cooker insert, glass bowl, or stainless steel pot. Find something you have on hand and use it. Because you’re quite literally making soap… it’ll wash out. I do prefer a dedicated soaping container for the same reasons as the stick blender.
Spatula
Spatulersss. You need one or two heat resistant spatulas just to scrape the soap batter off your stick blender and out of the mixing container into the molds. A spatula makes things easier to scrape out. I guess this one isn’t a make or break need… but it is quite nice to have on hand. A spatula is also nice for smoothing and texturing the soap tops, if you’d like. Honestly, texturing the tops is a bit relaxing for me. It’s quite satisfying. Use the handle or a corner and create whatever texture you’d like!
Scale
Soap making is much easier with an accurate scale as you’re going to weigh out your ingredients. This allows us to be exact on the lye added to the oils so we can guarantee a superfat amount and that the soap won’t be too cleansing… or caustic. I do believe the lack of accuracy in early soap making may be where the no soap on cast iron thing came from, since soap with lye left over after saponification would be rather rough on pans… not to mention your skin.
Molds
There are SO MANY molds out there. But hear me out. You can use those flatter food storage containers, pop it out once it’s set in a couple of days, and slice it with a knife. It certainly doesn’t have to be something expensive and crazy! I have the cheaper wood molds with silicone liners that I’ve used for years and they have served me quite well. These hold about 2 1/2 pounds of soap in each loaf. You can also use individual silicone molds with neat designs. Seriously. Go nuts. I would stick with silicone if you can, as the plastic molds are a little tough to get to release sometimes. But again, anything can be a soap mold if you’re creative enough.
Ingredients Needed for Soap Making
Distilled Water
Distilled water is preferred for making the lye solution. Using hard water or anything with high mineral or that can cause issues with your soap. I have used filtered water from my water filter in a pinch and it was fine. But just grab a gallon of distilled water next time you’re at the store!
Oils
Use your favorite oils for your skin! I love using lard or tallow rendered from trim in our soaps. Some of my favorite oils to mix with those are olive oil, castor oil, coconut oil, and cocoa butter. It just depends what I’m feeling hat day when I make it. Quite a bit of the time I make and all lard soap that is so heavenly and sudsy. It’s lovely! You can also infuse the oils with herbs or flowers prior to making soap!
Lye
As long as you have 100% pure sodium hydroxide, it’ll work. Just make sure it’s pure. You can find lye in the plumbing section near the drano, or buy the brand I use here. I’ve learned many folks are overwhelmed by trying to find sodium hydroxide, which I get. Many of the places online that sell soapmaking supplies give you a major upcharge in shipping because they’re shipping… explosives. Others don’t. Just depends who they are and maybe what state they’re in? I’m not sure. I’m grateful to have a local hardware that sells it if I’m running low and can’t get it in bulk.
PPE & Lye Safety
Lye safety is pretty simple, and as long as you’re not completely stupid, you’ll be fine.
Proper PPE for lye safety includes:
- goggles / eye protection
- gloves
- thick long sleeves
- vinegar on hand for spills
- good ventilation
Lye, also known as sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide depending on what kind of soap you’re making, is the base that turns your oils into soap via the saponification process. It’s magical and I’m not going into the chemistry. Just know lye… diluted in water… tossed into oils… make soap. Lye is extremely basic and caustic and can cause burns. It is extremely important you wear eye protection because any splashes into your eyeballs could cost you your eye sight. Gloves and thick long sleeves protect your skin from any splashes, especially when mixing the soap batter. Really thin sleeves run the chance of soaking through with soap batter or lye solution and then cling to your skin.
When mixing lye, mix in a well ventilated area and it’s a really good idea to mix down inside a sink. If there’s any splashes or spills, they’re contained within the sink and you have running water to flush eyes or rinse skin and the spills away quickly and effectively. If you don’t have a sink, make sure you’re using a countertop that’s is in an open area, near a window, and you have vinegar nearby to neutralize a spill. Vinegar is an acid so mixed with a very basic substance, like lye, neutralizes each other. It is not recommended to treat burns or splashes with lye with vinegar, but it’s nice to use for spills and quick neutralization and cleaning.
Always add the lye to water, not the other way around. Adding a liquid to the lye could produce a volcano, which your eyeballs would not want. Repeat after me:
Lye to water, not water to lye or you’ll die.
Once the lye is added to the water, you want to mix it gently WITH YOUR PPE ON still and have your head turned away and not directly over top the solution while you mix. It does let off some fumes that will make you cough and can damage airways and/or lungs if you’re super dumb. Stir the lye until it’s completely dissolved. The solution will get VERY hot… like 200F hot. So, that’s why if you’re using things other than water to react your lye with, you have to freeze it first so it doesn’t scorch… like milk. Nothing like the smell of lye burnt milk first thing in the morning.
IF you have a lye solution that you mixed wrong or are not going to use, simply add vinegar to the solution to neutralize it and then dump down the drain.
Cold Process Vs Hot Process
I’m a cold process girlie. I do NOT enjoy hot process soap. But… here’s a couple things about each one to help you decide which you might be most comfortable with soap making for beginners:
Cold Process
- Easy to make
- Requires very little time to actually make the soap
- Easier to make swirls, layers, and designs
- Requires 4-6 week cure time
Hot Process
- Easy to make (but major anxiety inducing for me LOL)
- Requires more hands on time as you have to cook the soap
- Not easy to make multi color designs
- Can be used sooner, we’re talking as soon as it cools, but it still will benefit from a couple weeks soap cure
Any cold process soap recipe can be converted to a hot process soap recipe by increasing the water to lye ratio for more water and then cooking the soap in a slow cooker for around 1-2 hours after reaching trace. I just mix the soap batter directly in the slow cooker insert (a soap dedicated slow cooker) and then begin cooking. You’re basically cooking on low and stirring every 15 minutes until you force the soap through gel phase and end up with a mashed potato volcano. It’s not hard, per se, but I just don’t enjoy the process and soap looking like this makes my little cold process heart thump anxiously. You do need to be sure and cool the soap below the flash point of any essential oils or fragrance oils you’ll be adding when using hot process.
Most of my soap recipes on my website are cold process, with the one outlier being my castile soap which is hot process.
Using a Lye Calculator
It’s a really good idea to familiarize yourself with a lye calculator. My favorite is the one from soapcalc.net, but I know Brambleberry has one that is more beginner friendly and the sage. It’s good practice to run every single soap recipe through a lye calculator before making it, because human error does exist and it wouldn’t be cool to make a batch and the soap turn out to be lye heavy and unusable. We’re looking for a nicely balanced bar of soap. If you’re going to change up a recipe and use a different oil or fat, you can’t just substitute it in and keep the same lye amount. Different oils need different amounts of lye to turn it into soap. An example would be olive oil…. olive oil uses quite a bit of lye to turn it into soap and if you substituted it with an oil like jojoba, you could end up with a very lye heavy soap that would burn when you use it.
When using a calculator, you’ll need to know the size batch you want to make, whether in pounds or ounces, the superfat value you’re going for, and the lye to water ratio. Soap calculators also allow you to take a base recipe and resize it according to how much you want to make… so say your batch makes 1 pound of soap and you want to make 3.5 pounds. Slap your recipe in and then resize to yield 3.5 pounds and all the thinking and math is done for you.
Superfat simply means the extra oils left unchanged by the lye. If you calculated your soap recipe to use enough lye to use every molecule of fats and oils, that would be a 0% superfat because there are no oils or fat leftover after reacting with the lye. A zero superfat soap is pretty drying and actually a bit harsh, so it’s not recommended to do that for body or face soap. The ONLY time I calculate a soap with a 0% superfat is for dish soap and laundry soap bars. That makes them ultra cleansing and leaves no grease behind… which is why I’m not a fan of using body soap grated into laundry soap mixtures.
I prefer my skin soaps to have around a 5-7% superfat, depending on the oils and fats being used. If it’s a high coconut oil content soap, I will give it a bit higher superfat, but if it contains lots of olive oil, tallow, or lard, I will err toward 5%. It takes a bit of playing around to find a nice balance and also understanding the different values (that you’ll see on soap calc) to create a recipe that works and works well. I’m not just slapping things together and saying here ya gooooooo. There’s actual thought and science nerd stuff going on behind the scenes! You may think, well I need extra moisture so I’ll make my superfat 12%. It sounds good in theory, but what you’re creating is a soap that’s going to be very soft and gooey, especially when it’s wet and it won’t last very long. It’d be like scrubbing with a booger. 5-7% has been the sweet spot for my crafting!
Lye to water ratio is just that… the amount of lye to water added. The standard is around 1:2 lye to water. So for every ounce of lye you add, your recipe will call for 2 ounces of distilled water, milk, beer, or tea (whatever liquid you’re using). Since I make goat milk soap and use the milk in oil method, I use a 1:1 lye to water ratio for initially making my lye solution and then add another part of liquid, goat milk, directly to the oils. I have found that this method works best for me because the milk doesn’t get scorched, I don’t have to pre-freeze the milk, and my soap batter behaves well. The milk in oil method simply means I’m making a milk soap but I’m adding it to the oil instead of dissolving the lye into it. I cheat :D
Soap Additives
There are tons of additives for soap with different benefits. I’m just going to touch on a few basic ones. But the sky is the limit and with additives, you don’t have to be as exact as you are with weighing the oils and lye!
Kaolin Clay
Kaolin clay is one of those soap additives I miss if I forget to use it. Not only does it create a fabulous slip to your bars, but it makes your skin feel ahhhmazziinnggggg, AND it helps anchor essential oils. Essential oils are notorious for not retaining their schmelllz. I take 1 teaspoon of kaolin clay and mix it with each 1/2 ounce of essential oils, add a lid, and allow them to soak together at least overnight, if not for days. I have found that doing this leads to better anchoring and longevity of the essential oil scent in my soap. Do the same for fragrance oils if that’s your thing… I don’t use those anymore.
Colorants
I like to use different clays, powdered herbs, plants, and veggies, and more as natural colorants in my soaps. Yeah, they’re not crazy vibrant, but that’s not the point anymore anyway. I dabbled with micas and while they were fun, there was just a part of me that didn’t really care for using them. You also don’t need anything like this for homemade soap… it can be its natural color and be perfectly fine! I just like to get a bit artsy and have some color to my different soaps.. but that’s because I sell it and also like to gift it. Makes it feel a bit more special and is a creative outlet for me.
Essential Oils & Fragrance Oils
Be aware that each essential oil and fragrance oil has a usage rate. First, be sure they’re appropriate and approved for use in soaps. Some fragrance oils are meant for candles and not for skin… so double check that. Anywhere you buy them will have information on the applications the FO can be used for and also the usage rate. Same for essential oils. The usage rate is normally calculated by percentage of the weight of oils. The website or company you’re buying them from will provide that information to you.
Easy Soap Making for Beginners: Making Cold Process Soap
Step 1: Soap Calculator
Run your recipe through a soap calculator to verify the lye amount is correct for the oils you are adding, especially if it’s a new recipe.
Try one of my easy soap recipes!
Step 2: Making the Lye Solution
Don all lye safety PPE (goggles, gloves, long sleeves).
Using a lye safe container (as explained above) placed in a sink or a well ventilated area, measure out the appropriate amount of distilled water the recipe calls for. Measure out lye directly into the water if you have a steady hand, or use a separate glass bowl to weight out the lye. ALWAYS add lye to water, NOT the other way around.
Stir, turning your head away from the fumes, until the lye is completely dissolved. Allow to cool.
Step 3: Prep Oils & Fats
In a double boiler, melt the solid oils and fats and add them to the liquid oils in the pitcher, bowl, or whatever you’re mixing the soap in. Allow the oils and the lye solution to cool to around 90 degrees F (that’s my preference, your soaping temperature preference may be different).
Add goat milk if you’re making a goat milk soap and using the milk in oil method.
Step 4: Make Soap
Check the temperature of both the lye solution and the oils and verify they are within 10 degrees F of each other. If the oils have cooled too much, you can heat them over the double boiler until they’re closer in temperature to the lye.
Take your stick blender, place it into the oils, and tap it on the bottom of your soap making container to release any bubbles. Never forget to do this or you’ll introduce thousands of tiny microbubbles to your batter which will make a miserable loaf of soap.
Dump the liquid lye solution down the metal part of your stick blender, slowly, to prevent splashing.
Pulse the stick blender a few times and then blend until you reach a light trace. Light trace just means the soap batter is fully emulsified and has thickened enough to hold an outline on top of the surface when you drizzle some from your stick blender. Light is barely noticeable to thick trace being a pudding-like texture. I never mix mine to thick because it’s a pain to pour. I prefer light so I can add colorants and do swirls and all the things. Light can be tricky to recognize as a beginner soap maker, so looking for medium is easiest where there’s a visible line left on top of the batter for several seconds.
If you’re adding any additives, you can hand stir those in.
Pour the soap batter into your prepared molds.
Step 5: Cool
Allow the soap to stay in the mold anywhere from 24-72 hours… I’ve let some of mine stay 7 days. It just depends on the recipe. Check to see if it’s ready to remove by seeing if the bar, or loaf, releases from the mold easily. If it’s sticky and throwing a fit, let it sit another day or two.
Check your soaps a couple hours after pouring and if they’re developing a crack, it means they’re overheating and you can move them somewhere cool, like your basement or refrigerator, to prevent further cracking or even bubbling out of the mold. All coconut oil soaps are notorious for over heating in my house.
Step 6: Cut
Once the soap loaf is removed from the mold, slice it into bars and allow to cure for around 4 weeks. Then they’re ready to use!
Step 7: Storing
I store my soaps in a basket in our bathrooms. They’re in a cabinet, so they get airflow, and store fine. You don’t need anything fancy. Scents will fade overtime, but I’ve found once you start using the bar, they will smell again. I normally make enough soap for my family in December of each year that lasts us about 1 year, if not longer.
Be sure and check out some of my easy beginner soap making recipes!
100% Lard or Tallow Body Soap Bars
Through the past few years, you’ve convinced me that I’m not stupid, but for soap, I think I’ll need a video. Just saying.
haha I’ve shared a few on youtube but I plan on filming my Christmas soaps I make to help out!