Making your own soap - A thread about making soap. No niggers allowed.

[Sprig of Acacia]

I make my own soap and thought a thread concerning the topic might be beneficial to others. I’ll be putting a very basic soap recipe and a list of basic equipment below. I will try to answer any questions others may have and welcome any advice.

Soap-brand soap ingredients

750g beef tallow (almost any oil or fat works)
165g of water
110g of lye
20-25g of fragrance/essential oil (if you want)

Equipment

Kitchen scale
Liquid measuring cup
Large bowl (I prefer stainless steel)
Midsized pot
8” loaf pan (or communist equivalent)
Stick blender or whisk
Wax paper
Wire rack

Procedures

In a well ventilated area, add the lye to the water in your mixing cup. It’s going to get hot, but not hot enough to worry about. This gives off fumes that you don’t want to breathe in, but doing it in front of an open window with a fan going will be fine. Stir it around until the lye has dissolved completely.

Line your loaf pan with wax paper. Cut it into shape if you need to, but make sure that you have excess paper coming out the top for you to pull on later.

If you’re using a fat that is solid at room temperature, add it to a pot and warm it over low heat until the fat is melted. You can also do this in a microwave, but I prefer a pot. If you’re using an oil, you don’t need to do this.

Add your liquid fat/oil to your mixing bowl. Then, carefully add your lye solution to the bowl. Begin mixing the contents of the bowl. A whisk works but a stick blender is God’s gift to the saponification process. Once the mixture is thick enough that drippings off the whisk/blender will sit on the surface for a moment, you can add your fragrance/essential oil and mix it just a little more. Carefully pour your soap mix into your prepared loaf pan and give it a few good taps to get as much of the air out as you can. I recommend putting another piece of wax paper on top and wrapping the whole thing in a couple kitchen towels, but this is optional. Give it 12-24 hours and remove from the pan. Cut into roughly 1” bars and place on a wire rack to cure. The curing time varies a lot, but 1 week will be safe to use and another 2-3 weeks if possible.

This is an extremely basic recipe that will produce a useable bar of soap and nothing more than that. There are literally thousands of base fats and oils to choose from, all with their own pros and cons. I’m assuming that anyone attempting this can combine ingredients without getting lye on themselves. Wear gloves/googles/respirator if you need to. If you do get lye on yourself, pour vinegar on it. Water will work but it will actually make the burn worse if it has reached the point that it’s eating into your skin.

PS - Don’t use shea or cocoa butter as a base. It’s a scam for niggers and women.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Where I live it is common to use leftover fry oil and other "spent" oil for soap. Usually people will save up the old oil in soda bottles to dispose of it in the trash but some will use it to make soap like that.

Of course, using spent oil like that means you need to add a extra step of cleaning the oil. Usually by warming it up so it is less viscous and then running it though a sieve and then a coffee filter to remove all impurities or leftover bits of food and such. But it works and makes soap all the same.

 

[888Flux]

110g of lye

Lye is just KOH, or potassium hydroxide. You can actually produce your own lye water from wood ash

 

[Sprig of Acacia]

Of course, using spent oil like that means you need to add an extra step of cleaning the oil. Usually by warming it up so it is less viscous and then running it though a sieve and then a coffee filter to remove all impurities or leftover bits of food and such. But it works and makes soap all the same.

I haven’t tried this, but I have been told that frying a cornstarch/water slurry will trap most particulate matter. To the point that it will remove the fish smell from oil. Could also be a good way to clean oil.

Lye is just KOH, or potassium hydroxide. You can actually produce your own lye water from wood ash
https://youtube.com/watch?v=qGKm-0GUZTI

I don’t have a consistent source of hardwood ash, but I am aware of the process. I just use sodium hydroxide, personally. I go by weight of ingredients so lye water is too inconsistent for me.

 

[Optavia Sales Rep]

Lye is just KOH, or potassium hydroxide. You can actually produce your own lye water from wood ash
https://youtube.com/watch?v=qGKm-0GUZTI

There are two types of lye: potassium hydroxide (potash lye) and sodium hydroxide (soda lye). IIRCC both can be used to make bars, but you need to use potassium if you're making liquid soaps.

Some fragrances will react when mixed with your soap base and form small hard chunks. This is called "Ricing", and can usually be fixed by just continuing to mix with a stick blender to better incorporate the fragrance.

Heads up that most vanilla fragrances will oxidize as the bar cures, making the final product much darker.

 

[Pelican Bones]

I've got 15 qts of used motor oil. Can I use synthetic, or does it need to be conventional?

 

[Freshly Baked Socks]

used motor oil

Motor oil is petroleum-based, composed of hydrocarbons, and will not saponify. The soap-making process, called saponification, involves reacting a fat or oil with a strong base. The reaction can only occur with triglycerides, which are found in animal fats and plant-based oils.

Also: possibly carcinogenic.

 

[147573952589676412927]

I've been making my own soap using this same method for a while, it's really crazy how much more healthy my skin has been since using it, I use it as shampoo as well and it works great. I don't know what they hell they put in even the most basic store-bought stuff but it drys the hell out of my skin and strips all the oils off it, this stuff cleans without leaving my skin feeling like shit and drying out. Can't recommend it enough. It's also cheap (damn near free), beef tallow is my preferred but olive oil is nice too for a different experience.

 

[Sprig of Acacia]

I've been making my own soap using this same method for a while, it's really crazy how much more healthy my skin has been since using it, I use it as shampoo as well and it works great. I don't know what they hell they put in even the most basic store-bought stuff but it drys the hell out of my skin and strips all the oils off it, this stuff cleans without leaving my skin feeling like shit and drying out. Can't recommend it enough. It's also cheap (damn near free), beef tallow is my preferred but olive oil is nice too for a different experience.

There is no going back to store bought bars once you get into it. I typically use a 70/30 mix of tallow and coconut oil but I wanted to keep the recipe as easy as possible. Olive oil isn’t durable enough for me. However, I’ve been experimenting with additives and stearic acid produces a very rich lather and will make your bars last longer. Highly recommend for an olive oil base. It really speeds up the saponification process and you better be ready or you’ll have a bowl of soap too thick to pour into a mold.

 

[Legalize Asbestos]

There is no going back to store bought bars once you get into it. I typically use a 70/30 mix of tallow and coconut oil but I wanted to keep the recipe as easy as possible. Olive oil isn’t durable enough for me. However, I’ve been experimenting with additives and stearic acid produces a very rich lather and will make your bars last longer. Highly recommend for an olive oil base. It really speeds up the saponification process and you better be ready or you’ll have a bowl of soap too thick to pour into a mold.

Soap-making always struck me as one of those high-cost, low-reward activities. Like, a year's worth of bathroom bar soap is maybe thirty bucks per soul. Compare that $30 to paying for homebrew ingredients + time to shake and bake? I like DIY as much as the next paranoid-schizophrenic, but what does artesian soap give me that factory soap (palm oil) cannot?

 

[Sprig of Acacia]

Soap-making always struck me as one of those high-cost, low-reward activities. Like, a year's worth of bathroom bar soap is maybe thirty bucks per soul. Compare that $30 to paying for homebrew ingredients + time to shake and bake? I like DIY as much as the next paranoid-schizophrenic, but what does artesian soap give me that factory soap (palm oil) cannot?

Making soap is dirt cheap, brother. Seriously, the money is in additives and shit like shea butter. Plain, functional soap? You can make a years worth of it with kitchen equipment most families are going to have already and it costs $30 total compared to per head. Hell, just give it to your friends and family, that’s what I do. Also, women will pay clown money for “Artesian” soap so that’s definitely an option if you want some extra cash. Get some dyes and goofy-silicone molds and do it with your kids if you have them.