Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World (23 page)

If you’re using a milk carton as a mold, pinch the top back together after you’ve poured in the soap and secure it closed with a clip or tape. If you are using another kind of mold, lay a piece of cardboard or something similar over the top to keep foreign matter out while the soap sets up. Many soaping books say that soap has to be wrapped in blankets or otherwise insulated at this point. We haven’t found this to be necessary. Just put the mold somewhere it won’t be disturbed and leave it alone for at least 24 hours. If you touch it during this period, you might find it quite warm. This is normal.

After 24 to 48 hours, the soap should be solid. (If it doesn’t turn solid within 2 days, something is wrong.) Different types of soap harden faster than others. Fast-drying soaps should be removed from the mold and cut into bars as soon as they are hard to the touch—usually in the first few days after pouring. Pure olive oil soap will tend to stay sticky to the touch longer than any other type of soap. If you touch the soap and a fingerprint remains on the surface, let it dry a day or two more before unmolding. You may not be able to unmold for a week or so. When it’s ready, peel the milk carton away carefully, because the soap will still be soft enough to damage. If you used a lined mold, carefully lift the soap out of the mold using the long ends of the plastic wrap.

Using a very sharp knife or a cutting wire, slice the soap into bars. The bars can be sized any way you like. At this point, the olive oil soap will have a soft, smooth consistency, similar to American cheese. It will continue to harden as it dries.

TESTING YOUR SOAP

New soap can’t be used immediately because its pH levels are too high—it will dry the skin. If you’re curious about the pH of your soap, you can chart its progress as it cures and verify the pH of the final product by using our Cabbage Patch pH Indicator as described on page
163
. Wet a portion of one of the bars and put a few drops of cabbage juice on it. Do the same with a similar type of soap that you know is finished. The color reaction should be similar. See Project 44 for more details.

Lay the bars somewhere to dry where they’ll get plenty of air but not be in the way, like on a shelf. Cover them with a light piece of cloth to keep the dust off. If they’re soft and tacky to the touch, hold off on covering them for a couple of days. This drying process is called curing. The soap is still chemically active inside and too harsh to use immediately. It will become milder over time. Let all homemade soap cure 4 weeks before using. Also, the longer you let soap dry, the harder it will become, which will make it last longer in the bath.

As the soap dries, you might notice changes in color or texture. That’s normal. After you slice it, you can often see the outer edges drying first, becoming lighter and harder than the center portions. Sometimes a thin white coating will appear on the surface of the bars, a coating thin enough to remove with a fingernail. That’s called “ash” and is a harmless cosmetic flaw. If you molded the soap a little late and had to spread it into the mold with a spoon, it will likely crack on the surface. This is also a cosmetic flaw. Just slice off the unattractive bits. A vegetable peeler is a good tool for trimming flaws. Signs of genuine soap failure include refusal to set up or pockets of liquids or solids in the soap. Throw away any batches like this and try again.

STEP 5: CLEANING UP

Wear gloves while cleaning your equipment. Raw soap isn’t nearly as caustic as pure lye, but it’s still harsh, and you might run into stray lye crystals. Using a rubber spatula or a paper towel, scrape as much of the raw soap out of your blender as you can and put it in the garbage, not down the sink. Then wash all of your utensils and containers in soap and hot water. If you happen to spill your lye crystals, sweep them up thoroughly with a hand broom and dustpan. The crystals activate when exposed to water, so be careful as you wipe up any remaining residue.

ADDITIONS AND VARIATIONS

As you’ve seen, soap making is a hot, caustic process. Anything you add to the soap is subjected to these brutal conditions: Dried flower petals are stripped of their color, and essential oils lose much of their fragrance, which is why you have to use a whole teaspoon of essential oil in this recipe. Because we are cheap, we tend to leave our bath soap unscented, both because of the quantity of essential oil necessary for scenting, and the fact that essential oil scents fade over time anyway. If you want to make fancy soap with lasting perfumes, colors, and/or colorful bits of dried flowers, you’ll need to use a secondary process called
rebatching
or
hand milling,
where finished soap is melted down, additions stirred in, and the soap remolded. Look up these terms in soap manuals. However, exfoliating ingredients are sturdy enough to stand the heat. If you wish, you can stir in 1 or 2 ounces of finely ground oatmeal to your soap when it reaches trace.

Almost Castile Soap

PREPARATION:
20 min

WAITING:
4 weeks

This particular combination of olive, coconut, and palm oils is a classic formula for a good all-purpose bath bar that cleans well, moisturizes, sets up hard, and makes lots of lather. It’s mild, but it’s not quite as gentle as our Genuine Castile Soap.

Coconut oil and palm oil can be found in ethnic markets and health food stores. (Palm oil is sold as vegan shortening in health food stores.) Both oils are often less expensive when purchased through soap-making supply companies.

YOU’LL NEED

• 7 ounces olive oil (Not extra-virgin; lower grades work better for soap.)
  
• 5 ounces coconut oil
  
• 4 ounces palm oil
  
• 2.3 ounces sodium hydroxide
  
• 6 ounces distilled, filtered, or bottled drinking water
  
• 1 teaspoon essential oil for scent (optional)
  

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

Measure and weigh all three oils on a zeroed scale. Then heat the oils together to melt the palm and coconut oil into the olive oil. The safest way to do this is over a water bath, but you can use a saucepan if you keep the temperature low and are careful not to scorch the oil. Overcooked oil will make your soap smell like the bottom of a deep fryer. Take the blended oils off the heat.

Proceed to measure and mix the sodium hydroxide with water, as described in steps 1 and 2 of the Genuine Castile Soap recipe. Then follow Genuine Castile Soap steps 3 through 5.

Peppermint-Rosemary Shampoo Bar

PREPARATION:
20 min

WAITING:
4 weeks

The common denominator in all shampoo bar recipes is castor oil, a rich, viscous oil that lends excellent moisturizing and lathering qualities to soap. Castor oil can be found at health food stores or ordered online. This simple recipe makes a bar that will clean your hair without stripping its natural oils, eliminating the need for conditioner. We’ve added a generous quantity of rosemary and peppermint essential oil, scents guaranteed to wake up sleepyheads, but of course you could scent this soap any way you want, or not at all.

YOU’LL NEED

• 6 ounces olive oil (Not extra-virgin; lower grades work better for soap.)
  
• 5 ounces coconut oil
  
• 5 ounces castor oil
  
• 2.2 ounces sodium hydroxide
  
• 6 ounces distilled, filtered, or bottled drinking water
  
• 1 teaspoon rosemary essential oil
  
• ½teaspoon peppermint essential oil
  

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

Weigh the oils on a zeroed scale and heat them together over a water bath until the coconut oil melts. You could heat them in a saucepan, but be careful not to scorch the oils. After the coconut oil melts, measure and mix the sodium hydroxide and water as described in steps 1 and 2 of the Genuine Castile Soap recipe, then combine the sodium hydroxide and oils in the blender as described in step 3.

This recipe reaches “trace” rapidly. Do the initial 10-second mix in the blender, then take a close look for any signs of thickening. Your soap could reach trace that quickly! If not, it will probably come together in a couple of minutes. Make sure your essential oils are premeasured and ready to add.

Then follow steps 4 and 5 of the Genuine Castile Soap recipe.

Coconut Laundry Soap

PREPARATION:
20 min

WAITING:
4 weeks

Soap used for laundry is formulated differently than body soap. It should not contain any excess oils that will build up on fabric. All-lard soap is a traditional favorite for laundry. This is a vegetarian alternative. Coconut oil makes a hard bar of soap with good cleaning and lathering properties, but it is drying to the skin when used alone, without other oils to buffer it. This recipe is made with 100 percent coconut oil and a stout percentage of lye. The resulting soap is hard to the point of being crumbly and too drying for the skin, but just the ticket for cleaning.

Coconut oil is sold in health food stores, ethnic markets, and some supermarkets as a cooking oil, often in high-grade, virgin form. It’s a bit of a waste to use such a nice oil for soap. You can buy lower-grade coconut oil in bulk less expensively from soap-making and herbal supply companies. See Project 25 to learn how to use soap in the laundry.

YOU’LL NEED

• 16 ounces coconut oil
  
• 2.8 ounces sodium hydroxide
  
• 6 ounces distilled, filtered, or bottled drinking water
  

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

Follow the instructions for Genuine Castile Soap, with the following exceptions: Scoop the coconut oil on a scale to measure it, then melt it into liquid form. The safest way to do this is over a water bath, but you can melt it in a saucepan if you keep the temperature low and are careful not to scorch it.

Coconut oil reaches trace quickly. In the blender, it takes about 1 ½minutes of total mixing time. It also hardens fast in the mold. Unmold the soap and cut it into bars within 24 hours of pouring. Otherwise, it will be difficult to cut. If you have trouble cutting it neatly, that won’t matter much—laundry soap is ultimately grated anyway.