Explore Topics

Probably you encountered soap making once in your life in your Chemistry undergraduate subject. The process is purely of Chemistry origin. In a simple laboratory experiment, the crude soap is composed of sodium or potassium salts of fatty acids that is made by reacting vegetable oils and/or animal fats with a strong basic solution (sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide, or generally called lye), and the whole process is called saponification. The reaction is a base hydrolysis of the fats and oils forming the anionic surfactant soap and glycerol.

You can try different soap making by varying the fats and oils ingredients. Saponification has two processes: hot process and cold process. One of the essential differences between hot process and cold process is the exploiting the fats and oils’ saponification value. Cold process involves analytical techniques to precisely and accurately measure the amount of lye to be used. The amount is dependent of the saponification value of the fats and oils being used. Not enough lye used can result to greasy soaps while excessive lye can cause skin irritation due to higher pH.

Equipped with the right knowledge, soap making is now made easier and exciting at home. For those who want to make a coffee soap for the first time, you will need the following items; 113 grams each for coconut oil and olive oil 227 grams of soy bean oil, 142 grams of coffee (instead of the typically used water) and 57 grams of lye (take precautions as sodium hydroxide is a caustic solution, it is better to wear protective eye glasses and gloves)

After you completed the required things, it’s time to make basic white soaps.

%u2022 Weigh both coffee and lye in a pitcher separately. %u2022 Add the lye to the coffee as gentle as possible to minimize splashing. Never add water (or coffee in the recipe) to lye, it’s dangerous. %u2022 Gentle stirring is needed to the solution, cooled to temperature of 100° to 110°F %u2022 Melt all the solid oils and heat the liquid oils then cool to 100° – 110°F. %u2022 When the temperature of both lye solution and melted/heated oils is nearly identical (less than 10°F in difference is alright), you can now combined them by pouring the lye solution into the melted/heated oils in a thin stream with constant stirring. %u2022 Maintain a constant swirling until the mixture thickens and ‘trailing’ is evident at the sides. Continue swirling for about less than an hour. Try adding essential or fragrance oils and coffee at light trace if you want. %u2022 Pour the liquid crude soap into a plastic mold, cover and wrap with towel. %u2022 Keep it in a warm room for approximately 2 days. %u2022 After setting aside, remove it from the plastic mold and there you have it, your coffee soap block. Use knife to cut the block into bars.

Soap making really consumes large amount of time. However, it’s worthy to try this to create that coffee soap for home use of hand cleansers.

Jen Hopkins has worked in the skin care industry for years. She maintains websites about make your own soap, and soap making instructions. If you want to contact her, you can use the contact form at one of her sites.

Find pragmatic tips about internet marketing – make sure to study this site. The times have come when concise info is truly only one click of your mouse, use this chance.