How to Make Soap - Five Easy Tips

By Al Bullington

Learn how to make soap and you can produce a useful product plus impress your friends and neighbors. After making and selling about 35,000 bars, I noticed a few ideas that often get discussed in soapmaking circles. Here are five tips for making products that address frequently mentioned ideas.

Coconut Oil For Special Results

You can easily make natural soap without coconut oil. However making bars that really lathers well just about demands that coconut oil is in the recipe. Big bubbles are what you get with coconut oil in your recipe. Without it you tend to have tiny bubbles and thin lather.

You only want coconut oil as a fraction of the base oils though. Use too much and the product will clean so well that it actually dries your skin. About 25 percent of the oils as coconut works about right.

Just The Basics

Recipes often call for ingredients with names difficult to pronounce, things you've likely never heard of. Believe me, you can make really superior products with simple ingredients. Often soap makers start adding exotic materials in an attempt to fix problems because the basic recipe doesn't work. Stick with recipes that include coconut, palm and olive oils along with water and lye and you won't go wrong.

Skip The Lye?

You really can't make soap without lye. But you can skip the lye part by buying bases that can be melted and molded your way. So called melt and pour soaps have already been made to soap and are formulated such that they melt at relatively low temperatures.

Use these bases and you get to develop your scents, colors and shapes without dealing with lye. Be warned though; it's far easier to scent melt and pour soap than regular cold process bars. The heat of reaction when using lye to make soap eats up fragrance oil. That's why using melt and pour soap opens up lots of scent possibilities not open to lye soap makers.

Stick Blenders Forever

Have you ever stirred soap for what seems like hours waiting for it to start to harden or trace? Speed up reaction time and get finished much faster with careful use of a stick blender. By stirring the soap with one of these tools you can make the reaction hurry along and maybe even improve the texture of the finished soap. The blender, when carefully used, is a real secret to fast soap making. You must be very careful with the soap mixture. Uncured soap is very caustic and will burn you horribly!

Selling Soap Works Too

Natural soap sells. Especially if the product has unique features, you can sell soap rather easily. It must be professionally done, but that can be arranged with the right information and some practice. Getting customers takes some work, but there are places you can go and find people who want what you make. Once people try your products, they likely will order again.

Learning how to make soap takes just a little time and effort. There are quite a number of tricks that make soap making easier, faster and even cheaper. Learning the tricks is part of the fun of soap making. It's an interesting hobby that can turn into a home based business as well.

Al Bullington and his family have been making and selling soap for years. To learn more about how you too can start a soap making business, visit their site at The Soap Business Kit

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