Soap Making
 

Hey folks, not a lot I can contribute to this section usually , as I'm a suburban warrior building my preps and skills as time allows.
But I'm sitting here making a batch of soap, and figured I'd just see what's been posted on the topic here at GIM over the years , and there ain't much.
Been a soaper for a good while now. It ain't hard , takes a small understanding of the chemistry behind saponification, and a whole lot of trial and error.
Anyhow , I've made bunches of batches , and made almost every mistake possible, so if anyone is looking to try it for themselves and has questions , or has run into snags , I'll do my best to help out.
The crap that bigpharma foists on us as soap is anything but. That's why you see this stuff called 'body wash', cleansing bar' , 'family bar' etc etc. Almost nothing you can buy commercially is actually soap at all. They are all some variant of a detergent. And many if not most , contain stuff like Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (originally introduced as an engine de-greaser I believe), which are a seriously suspected carcinogen, as well as a host of other unpronouncable chemicals and poisons.
Soaping is not that hard , saves money , is fun , and can allow you to use various carrier oils and EO's as a way to taylor the soap to your specific skin requirements, and your preferences. As`well as at least knowing what you are slathering all over the largest organ in your body.
It's a fun hobby , and should tshtf , something that could come in handy.
Besides my own experience , I'm a member of several online soaper groups and have a fair collection of books etc and stuff that I could recommend.
Once you shower in your own soap , made the old fashioned way, you'll never go back!! ( though sometimes I buy Bronners stuff cause I lose time).

Re: Soap Making
 

Thats pretty cool Momo, I was actually wondering what I was going to do with all of the leftovers from transesterification when I get around to mixing up some bio diesel. I'll keep your skills in-mind, and bug the crap out of ya when I ruin a batch and part of my kitchen :rolleyes_m: Or I'll PM you beforehand :D

Re: Soap Making
 

Isn't napalm made with soap and gasoline?

:dontknow: sorry...this is the survival prep section.

Re: Soap Making
 

Naptha and palm oil, hence na-palm. Thickened gasoline itself is most of the goal and anything that does the trick is useful.

I'm interested in soap making but not quite there yet. My wife's mother was into it, so I'm told. Definately a useful skill.

Re: Soap Making
 

Might as well survive clean as dirty KG?
Did you have a point?

Re: Soap Making
 

REV, it is a good thing to know in my opinion, even if TS never HTF.
Know what you put onto , and hence into your body.
As an aside , I'm partial to making soap wth a high Avocado oil content as I believe the oil has many beneficial properties.
You're in an areawhere growing same is possible.
I have seen the price of avocado oil triple or more in the last 5 years.
I know you've got most of you're land spoken for ,but it'sjust another thing to consider.

Re: Soap Making
 

momopanda,

I want to give it a shot. Been thinking about it long enough. Time to get off the pot and do it.

Let�s say S has HTF and you were giving lessons. How do I get started?

Re: Soap Making
 

Seriously. I think napalm is a mixture of soap and gasoline. Really. Your word "saponification" triggered the reference.

:dontknow:

Re: Soap Making
 

Lest we forget Fight Club. Nitric acid and glycerine, anyone? :rolleyes_m:

Re: Soap Making
 

I now make my own laundry detergent. I make it in a powdered form.

I use my food processor's grater to grate the soap. Fast and easy. Plus I don't have to use soap to clean the grater, it's already there.:sarc:

1. 1 bar Fels Naptha soap, grated (comes out to about 2 cups)
   You can find this in the grocery store laundry aisle. S.O. grates it on our cheese grater.
2. 1 c Borax
   Comes from the grocery store laundry aisle and some hardware stores.
3. 1 c Washing Soda
4. 1/4 c OxyClean (not necessary, but we add it)

Mix it all together into a bumpy, granular mix. Don�t worry about stuff getting correctly dispersed, even if it doesn�t quite look like it does.
Use 1T for a light load
Use 2T for a large or dirty load (It�s true! Only 2 Tablespoons per load!)

Re: Soap Making
 

Here are some liquid recipes. These are cheaper to make per load. Liquid cost per load is somewhere around 3 cents per load, while the powder version is somewhere around 5.5 cents per load.

NOTE: All of these formulas can be used in "High Efficiency" washers as the formulas are low sudsing.


Recipe #1


3 Pints Water 1/3 Bar Fels Naptha Soap, Grated 1/2 Cup Washing Soda 1/2 Cup Borax 2 Gallon Bucket 1 Quart Hot Water Cold Water
Mix Fels Naptha soap in a saucepan with 3 pints of water, and heat on low until dissolved. Stir in Washing Soda and Borax. Stir until thickened, and remove from heat. Add 1 Quart Hot Water to 2 Gallon Bucket. Add soap mixture, and mix well. Fill bucket with hot water, and mix well. Set aside for 24 hours, or until mixture thickens. Use 1/2 cup of mixture per load.

<HR align=left width="50%">Recipe #2


1 Cup Grated Fels Naptha Soap 1/2 Cup Washing Soda 1/2 Cup Borax 2 Tablespoons Glycerin 2 Gallons Hot Water (NOTE: This recipe originally called for 2 Cups Water)
Mix all three ingredients together. Add glycerin and water. Use 1/2 - 3/4 cup per load. Best when used with cold or warm water.

<HR align=left width="50%">Recipe #3


Water 1 Bar Fels Naptha Soap, Grated 5 Gallon Bucket 1 Cup Washing Soda 4 1/2 Gallons Hot Water
Place grated soap in a small saucepan and cover with water. Heat on low until dissolved. Fill bucket with hot water, and add soap. Stir to combine. Add 1 cup washing soda and mix well. As it cools it will thicken. May be used immediately. Use 1-2 cups per load.

<HR align=left>Powdered Laundry Detergent



1 Cup Grated Fels Naptha Soap 1/2 Cup Washing Soda 1/2 Cup Borax

Re: Soap Making
 

Hi shovelhead. Making soap via saponification (as opposed to a melt and pour thing) involves mixing an acid (a plant or animal fat) with a base- lye.

Depending on whether you want to make bar soap or liquid soap, the lye will either be sodium hydroxide(bar) or Potassium Hydroxide(liquid). So these are the first things you need to decide on. Imo , coconut oil is a must , at least for 20% or more of your oil, as it provides lathering better than any of the soft oils (I use avocado and olive oil a lot). You need to look into the qualities you desire of your soap (soaps very high in coconut can be very drying for instance, and olive oil is very gentle but does not lather well) ), and all the oils have particular properties. As far as the lye, it has become much harder to buy since 2001 believe it or not , since I guess there's other uses for the stuff that those nasty terrorists may fancy. Anyway , I have a dealer on ebay , and he actually makes me sign a waiver each and every time I purchase , and will only sell in small quantities (this because of shipping restrictions on the stuff he says), but he's just covering his own behind so it's no biggie.

Outside of the main ingredients , the oils and the lye, you'll need distilled water and some supplies that you probably have already, such as a food scale, a double boiler, a whisk (or much better a stick blender- this can save countless time and energy when saponifying to trace before cooking), some measuring cups and containers. If you are making bar soap obviously you'll need a mold of some sort. I only make liquid stuff myself now. Then you'll need any essential oils that you want to use to enhance the soap (I like sandalwood , lemongrass, pine , wife likes lavender and patchouli). Use essential oils , and not the crappy but much cheaper fragrance oils that they make in test tubes. EO's have properties beyond fragrance and there are some good websites that detail it if you google around. This is where it's good to experiment. Then there's colorants , which I do not use myself cause I don't really care what color the soap is, but some soapers use various extracts and clays etc. Natural preservatives that can be added to prolong shelf life, and prevent rancidity, such as vitamin E , citirc acid , bergamot etc.

The actual hot process method goes something along the lines of - mixing (melting in the case of 76 degree coconut oil for instance) the carrier oils at about 140 degrees in a pot , then mixing the KOH and distilled water in the appropriate amounts (there are free online 'lye calculators' that will allow you to determine exactly how much you need based on your oils), this solution will immediately heat up to about 150 degrees** use goggles and rubber gloves and do not directly inhale the fumes , lye is nothing to fool around with**then the lye solution is added to the heated oils and saponification takes place, this can take anywhere from a 10 minutes or so with a stick blender , to an hour of hard work with a whisk. The solution will trace (get thick enough that some of it dribbled back into the pot will hold shape on top of the goop before blending back in), go beyond this til you acheive a sort of taffy consitency, and then it's time to cook it in the double boiler , usually about 3 hours over gently boiling water, checking every half hour or so to make sure that it hasn't come out of solution which it shouldn't if you measured properly and mixed well enough. After it finishes cooking (you can see it become translucent and can check by mixing some paste with a few ounces of water and making sure it's pretty clear) it's time to dilute and sequester. Usually somewhere around 2x as much water as paste by weight but it depends on how strong of a soap you want.
Anyway , this is the basic concept , if you have particular questions just ask. If you want to make liquid soaps as I do , there is a book by a woman named Failor I believe that is very helpful.

PS - KG - sorry to have been snippy in my reply to you , don't know what I was thinking there.

Re: Soap Making
 

yeah, stick that witch's brew into a mason jar and wrap it in a rag soaked in concentrated sulphuric acid and you got an interesting incendiary to be use for lawful entertainment purposes only.

Re: Soap Making
 

Won't the sulphuric acid ignight the rag? I read in a special forces handbook that 1/3 gasoline 1/3 kerosene 1/3 sulphuric acid in a bottle, plus a rag soaked in sugar water, will make a nice no-lighter-required molotov. Just throw!

If D.H.S. wasn't reading before, they are now :rolleyes_m:

Momo, theres a small soap factory down the block from the shop I work at, do you think I could buy any lye from them? I guess it really depends on who I talk to there. Are they allowed to sell it?

Re: Soap Making
 

Give them a call and ask Baphomet. Hopefully they're a real soap making factory and not just a boutique version of bigfood/pharma's detergent racket- in which case they'd probably have no use for the stuff when they can use cheap detergechems instead. They may sell to you , but would probably ask for a waiver or some such , or they could hook you up with a supplier they use. My guess is that lye may become completely unavailable to the average J6P in the coming years. For our own protection you see. Used to be that some soapers just bought the Red Devil stuff (never used it) that was commercially available off the shelves in hardware stores and such. But surprise surprise, they yanked it altogether a few years back as far as I've heard. Have to hook up with REV maybe and learn how to make my own with wood ash water sometime I guess.
Hey , if they are real soapers and nice folks , maybe they'll help you out with some advice and stuff. They could be a great source of information.

Re: Soap Making
 

[quote]I dont know, I just read this crap in some government publication about IEDs. I have no personal experience in what the law calls "DDs"

hey, give them a break, they have to kill time at work too. lol why not spend time reading something fun like GIM?

Re: Soap Making
 

Cant you also make the lye yourself from woodash ?
http://farmgal.tripod.com/lyesoapconcoctions.html


Im interested in trying to make some soap. Could be a handy bartering item someday.

Re: Soap Making
 

I agree. How bout a picture tutorial? Would be good for a gold star I guess. I miss the help sections of overgrow.

Re: Soap Making
 

Would you mind posting an instruction set for a nice huge batch of soap? I am interested in this.

Re: Soap Making
 

Thank you all for the information. I have started collecting supplies and will get started cooking soon.

Re: Soap Making
 

I wish I knew how to do all that digital photing and uploading stuff, but unfortunately I'm pretty caveman when it comes to that stuff. I found one though , in which she follows a similar method to my own:

http://essencesupply.com/liquid/liquidsoap.html

There's 3 pages I think. She also recommends the Failor woman's book if you want to make liquid soap. I concur. There is a dearth of info about hot process liquid soapmaking and hers is considered the definitive source. Worth the money. There are many fine books about soaping in general, and some that touch on HP , but not as thorough as hers.
Bar making is good fun too though and I'm thinking about starting again.

Shovelhead, couple things I forgot to mention is to make sure the inside pot of the double boiler , the one used for the saponfying/cooking stage , is stainless steel , not aluminum. And a high temp thermometer , like a candy thermometer, is helpful , but not necessary. And that the vessel used to make the lye solution is glass ( I use a regular old lemonade pitcher). Though I have seen others use plastic or metal , I wouldn't.

Bee, I'd suggest starting small. Little batches will allow you to get a feel for it at first, and though it is a time consuming endeavor overall when looking at it from a small batch perspective , it will allow you to make any mistakes on a smaller basis , and to try different ingredients and get a feel for what you like or don't like . For instance - You can make a 100% castile , olive oil soap , that will be as gentle as rainwater , but won't lather worth spit- or make a 100% coconut oil soap that'll actually lather up well in salt water!, believe it or not!) But it may really bother and dry your skin if you're sensitive that way. ( yes both will clean you equally well imo , it is a matter of perception that bubbles equals better- ps-I had an old soaper buddy used to say 'sell the lather , not the clean'- iow bubbles don't necessarily mean more clean , but folks believe it)Or for instance, I love avocado and jojoba oils , but they have large percentages of unsaponifiables , and will never yield a truly translucent soap that many liquid soapers desire , though I don't care that much in that regard. Best to experiment small , find what you like. Keep in mind too that these soaps will not have 20 year shelve lives like the chemical detergent garbage, no matter what natural preservatives you add. I've never seen a study , but have held some of my soaps for over a year with no noticeable rancidity or oxidation. ( this using vitamin E or other natural extenders).

You can start pretty small if your interior double boiler pot is not like a 10 gallon job, cause it would be hard to whip to trace with no depth in the pot I'd think.

The lye calculator I use now is this one:

http://www.summerbeemeadow.com/

click on the lye calculator if link doesn't directly go there (ps - they are nice people and good suppliers too)

Pretty simple and self explanatory , but ask if there are questions. Any chemists may be able to note that the KOH content provided by the calculations seems high , but this I'm told is because the KOH crystals are never 100% pure and generally have a certain percentage(10?) of water molecules etc , so it adjusts for same. I don't generally superfat my soaps , but I think there may be an option on the calculator should you desire to.

Entire books and websites are devoted to essential oils. Look around , see what seems to sound intersting , if anything , and be sure to find a reliable, reputable dealer.

Anyway , keep us posted. It's a practical skill , a good way to say no to the poison peddlers that control the food and personal care industries, and besides - It's good clean fun.
(okay , that was real weak pun :-)

Re: Soap Making
 

http://www.survivalblog.com/2007/08/...ed_home_2.html

:bath:

Re: Soap Making
 

gasoline + styrofoam + pyro foam:D the poor mans napalm.:wink:

Re: Soap Making
 

momo the mrs. makes us our soap, man I love it. She puts little chunks of oatmeal in it, love the way it feels and cleanses. the stuff actually lasts for a while unlike the store bought stuff.