DIY Gentle Soap Bar using Natural Oils and Butters:

Soaping is an art and a therapeutic experience. But it needs some care while making. Here are some of the precautions that you can take.

1) Lye burns are dangerous. It can cause severe damage. But without lye there is no natural soap. So wear protective equipment like eye googles/ glasses, gloves, full hands dress with shoes, head cap and a mask.

2) Do not touch lye with bare hands.

3) Always do soaping in well ventilated area. When lye reacts with water, it generates lot of heat and fumes. Good ventilated area reduces this effects.

4)Do not let kids or pets while making soaps since lye spills are dangerous.

5) Wash the leftover soap beakers and containers carefully with gloves after couple of weeks if you can keep them away safely.

6) Let the soap cure for 4-6 weeks minimum. Since this is a 60% olive oil soap, it takes longer curing time. More the curing time, hard and gentle the bar is.

7) Use a soaping calculator to calculate lye and water before making so that you know the exact percentage.

8) Do not swap or replace oils directly without checking in a soap calculator since every oil has a different sap value.

9) Always add lye to water and not other way.

10) Always add lye water to melted oils and not the other way.

 

About the Ingredients:

Soap is made by saponification of oils with lye. When lye molecules react with water, it forms saponified oils which result in a soap. Sodium hydroxide is used in solid soap and Potassium hydroxide is used in liquid soap generally.

Oils used here are coconut oil, castor oil, olive oil and Shea butter.

Coconut oil has good cleansing abilities while olive oil is moisturising and makes a gentle soap. Castor oil adds stable lather and adds moisturising properties. Shea butter also adds moisturising properties which makes it a gentle bar.

Sodium lactate is added to help in making the soap hard quickly. Since it is 60% olive oil soap, it takes at least two days to remove from soap mould nicely.

Kaolin clay and charcoal clay add some exfoliation properties.

Fragrance oil used is Lily fragrance oil which has a nice flowery smell.

SF is super fat. Since this soap has 30% coconut oil, super fat of 7% makes it gentle.

 

Ingredients Required:

Super Fat 7%

• Coconut oil 30% 45g
• Castor oil 5% 7.5g
• Olive oil 60% 90g
• Shea butter 5% 7.5g

 

Distilled water 41.57g

Sodium Hydroxide 20.79g

Sodium lactate 1/2 tsp

 

Kaolin clay 1/2 tsp

Charcoal powder 1/2 tsp

Lily F.O 4.5g

 

Equipment Required:

100ml glass and plastic beakers

Steel Stirring rods and Spatulas

Heating mantle or Double boiler

Soap mould

Weighing scale (that measures up to 0.01g)

Cups to measure ingredients

Gloves

Head cap

Eye goggles/ glasses

 

 

Procedure:

1) Measure oils and butters in a heat safe beaker. You can melt on a glass beaker and then pour in heat safe plastic jar.

2) Measure charcoal powder and kaolin clay and add little amount of measured oil and mix.

 

3) Wear gloves, eye googles and other things as mentioned in note before opening lye.

4) Measure distilled water and measure lye in separate containers.

5) Add Lye slowly in water by stirring. It generates heat and fumes, lye water will be initially in white color. As the lye gets dissolved and temperature drops, it turns to water color. Add 1/2 tsp sodium lactate.

 

 

6) Check the temperature of lye and oils. Wait till both are between 120-130 deg F.

7) Once it is around 120 deg F, add lye water slowly to melted oils.

 

8) Blend it using a stick blender in small bursts. If you blend for a longer time, it will trace thickly and will be difficult to pour in moulds. Add measured fragrance oil and stir.

9) Once you see it is blended completely, take equal parts in two beakers.

10) Add mixed charcoal in one beaker and mixed kaolin clay in another beaker.

11) Stir both of the them and pour in a soap mould.

12) You can add one after other or both at a time to create some texture.

 

Unmould it after 2-3 days and leave it to cure for 4-6 weeks minimum.

 

If you would like to share us your creations, do tag us on instagram @ases.chem

Disclaimer: This blog is for educational and informational purposes only.

 

#cosmeticchemicals #chemicalsuppliersIndia #aseschem #naturalsoap #DIYgentlesoap #oliveoilsoap #saponification #DIYsoaping #howtomakeasoap