Artistic Showcase

Again, you can see how un-uniform my cuts are. Someday I want either a mold that makes uniformly sized bars, or a cutter that comes with a spacer so I can get the right bar measurement. Until then, we’ll have to just call this our “rustic” look.

714g lye + 1900g filtered water creates an exothermic reaction and enables the lye to become able to chemically react with the oils. I also added 100g NaCl (non-iodized sea salt) to the water, which will make for harder, longer-lasting bars of soap.

My soaping pot. It holds, I think, 16 quarts, and is stainless steel. Never use aluminum for soap making! It reacts with the lye, causing volcanic action, and will ruin your countertop, stovetop, floor, dress, and shoes. Also note the rubber spatula. Silicone is also good. Avoid wooden spoons: the wood weakens and can splinter, leaving dangerous splinters in your soap.

Measure your oils by the smallest unit possible, and measure by weight, not volume. I prefer metric measurements for the sake of precision. When measuring oils, if your recipe calls for a part of a gram (such as 731.88 grams), round UP. Round DOWN for measuring lye. When using more than one oil in a soap batch, measure each oil into separate containers, then combine them in your soaping pot. That way if you pour in too much by accident, you can pour the excess right back into the container from whence it came.

Pour your lye onto the back of your stirring spatula or spoon. This will reduce potentially dangerous splashing, as well as the amount of air bubbles you introduce into your mix. Air bubbles are usually harmless, but they can attract lye pockets, which are not harmless.

The pouring is the same as in the previous picture, but note the cloudiness that is starting to happen within the oils. That’s from the chemical reaction between the oils and the lye, which is already beginning.

Stirring may take as little as five or ten minutes, or as much as a couple of hours, depending on what type of oils you’ve used. Soybean oil, which is a substantial portion of this recipe, takes a very long time to saponify (turn into soap); coconut oil takes much less time, and it makes up 30% of this recipe; and castor oil, which is the smallest portion of this recipe at only 15%, takes only a little longer than coconut. I believe I wound up stirring for roughly 15 minutes. However, even if I used an identical recipe next time, the stirring time could still be different, due to humidity, temperature of lye and oils, and factors that either I don’t measure, or that can’t be measured at all. Soap is still a mystery in many ways, despite consistency of materials and methods.

I was going to photograph the oil/lye mixture at various stages: thin trace, full trace, thick trace. I wasn’t going to photograph gelatinous and icky phase. But the phone rang, and I talked for two minutes. Normally I can walk away from stirring a purely olive oil soap, but apparently I can’t walk away from a soap that involves coconut oil.

I couldn’t pour and photograph at the same time, because pouring requires one hand to hold the pot and another to use the stirring spatula to sort of rake it all out and into the mold. But here it is, in the mold, before putting on the plastic wrap and the lid. As you can see, I made just a tiny bit too much and had to spoon the excess into two tiny plastic molds. I probably should have put it into three molds, to be honest.

The soap is in the lined mold, covered in plastic wrap, and lidded. There it will stay, until I’m convinced it’s ready to unmold. The two smaller ones are there to give me an idea of what the inside soap is looking like, but they’ll dry and be unmoldable much faster than the soap that’s in the wooden loaf mold. On the other hand, the loaf will achieve gel phase, thanks to being insulated with all its exothermic reactions happening inside the wood.

For some reason, this image wound up turned sideways. I didn’t photograph it that way, so it has no excuse. You’ll notice that this batch of soap is a creamy ivory color, and not a smooth or unvaried color. There are gradations, and they look a tiny bit translucent overall, with very small areas that appear more opaque. I’m not sure whether this is a function of the castor oil, which I’ve never used before; the coconut oil, which I’ve used but only in very small amounts; the fact that the soap achieved thick, gelatinous icky stage before being molded; or the fact that it’s been so hot and humid this week. Soap is still a mystery! You’ll also notice Her Majesty presiding over the cut bars. She isn’t impressed. It takes a lot to impress her, and soap just won’t do it.