Natural Handmade Soap – Instructions For Organic Handmade Soap
Benefits Of Natural Handmade Soap
The main difference between commercial and homemade soaps is that in the former the excess fats are often consumed during the manufacturing process, the latter contains more super-fats, which gives it a rather greasy feel and makes it more skin-friendly and is therefore especially suited to sensitive and dry skin. Glycerin and lye are standard components used in making soaps. While manufactured soaps mostly rely on glycerin to give the skin a moisturizing treatment, handmade soaps can be made richer in oils by adding lesser lye. Vegetable and animal oils are used to make soaps soft on the skin, while the amount of lye added to the soap determines how firm the soap is.
Make Handmade Natural Soap
There are different ways of making soaps at home. The easiest method is the “melt and pour” method, in which an already prepared soap is melted and suitable fragrant oils are added to it. Simply use a pre-made block of unscented, uncolored soap and melt it by heating it indirectly, that is, by not putting it over a flame but into a microwave oven. Once the soap bar has melted and attained a consistent texture, add either palm oil, castor oil or any other fragrance or color that you may like and whisk the mixture thoroughly, so that the additives get mixed properly in the melted soap. Now pour this thick mixture into a mold and let it cool down and solidify on its own. The soap is ready to use as soon as it hardens. A more complicated process of making soaps at home is the “cold” process, in which you begin with all the raw ingredients yourself. Collect all the oils that you would like your soap to contain, such as palm oil, olive oil, cocoa butter, coconut oil, shea butter and hemp oil. These ebullients should be heated over a flame till the temperature of the mixture is over 100 degrees. Now mix the solution of lye (sodium or potassium hydroxide) and water to the fatty oils and keep stirring the decoction till it becomes viscous semi-solid substance which can no longer be separated back into its constituent element. This substance is called “trace” and it marks the point of “saponification”. You should take care that the water-lye mixture is kept sufficiently warm till the point that it is added to the boiling oil mixture in order to ensure that the trace is properly formed.