speach for senior project

1. Sara Nulph
Senior project speech
Ms. Tillery
Introduction:
I. Many people take for granted the soap they use to wash their hands and shower with
each day, but what really goes on in the process is quite interesting.
II. My name is Sara Nulph and I made homemade soap for my project.
III. I chose this topic because I read somewhere that some soaps purchased from the store
can contain many chemicals that can be harmful to your skin, so I wanted to know
exactly what was going into the soap I was using.
Body:
I. Homemade soap is a process that few individuals seem to become involved in since
big businesses began to introduce soap into convenient stores across America. I
thought that the process was going to be simpler than it ended up being because the
research I did online and in books made it sound like it would be easy and because
my facilitator is a family friend so I thought it would not be very difficult. The
process is fairly long. I used my facilitator’s recipe because she has used it several
times and she knows the process well.
II. I began with purchasing an enamel pot because if it is a type of metal the chemicals in
the soap will corrode or melt through anything but enamel. My first step was to
measure all the oils and put them in my pot. I then measured out my water and lye
and very carefully mixed them together. Lye is a very dangerous base that can reach
temperatures above 180 degrees when in contact with water and can burn skin, eyes,
and lungs. For these reasons, we wore gloves, masks, and goggles for protection.
III. We then put the oils over a flame and waited for the oils to heat to 100 degrees and
the lye to drop to 100 degrees. After both the soap and the lye came to the proper
temperature we mixed them together and used a disposable wooden stirrer to stir
it.Getting the two to get to 100 degrees at the same time was challenging.
IV. This is the point where any scented oils should be added. I mixed and matched every
time. During this part of the process we had a towel with vinegar on it just in case we
got any of the lye on our skin we could neutralize it with the acidic vinegar.
V. The soap begins to trace, which means to turn into a milky color and creamy texture;
this is the beginning of the saponification process. We had to keep the mixture at 100
degrees until it is thick enough to place in our Tupperware.
VI. This took about 2 hours and I thought that there had to be a better more efficient way,
so I looked online for a while and found that someone had used a stick blender and
they said that it cut their time in half. So the second time we made soap we tried it

2. with the stick blender and it worked really well. My facilitator was shocked and
pleased to have found a new trick.
VII. We then greased the sides of out Tupperware with Crisco and poured the soap into it.
The soap needed to be covered and wrapped in blankets and sit for 18 hours so it did
not cool too quickly because it is still saponifying. The soap then gets uncovered and
sits for another 8-12 hours.
VIII. After this we dumped the partially soft soap onto wax paper and cut it before it gets a
chance to harden completely. During this process I was still wearing gloves for the
fact that the lye is still active and can burn skin.
IX. The soap must sit for 30 days before the lye is completely cured and you are able to
touch it.
X. I wanted to sell and gift my soap because the cost was fairly high, so I took tissue
paper and wrapped the soap in it and tied it off with some grass-like string to make it
look presentable.
XI. I went door to door to try to sell soap in some neighborhoods and it was not selling
very well because I had to price it too high for people to want to purchase it. I also
went to a shop that sells homemade products and they said that it would be difficult to
make a profit or even my money back by selling it because of the price we would
have to charge.
XII. I also wanted to mold some of my soap. This is a whole other process. You must
shave the soap into a pot and re-melt the soap and add another fat into it. This is
called superfatting the soap and will make it enough of a liquid that it is able to take
the form of a mold. Then I let the soap sit and cool until it was semi-soft and took it
out of the mold to let it harden completely.
Conclusion:
I. I enjoyed learning about making soap. I learned so much about the process and what
all goes into it.
II. My favorite part was that you could add your own scents to and make it the way you
want it to be.
III. It definitely took longer to make it then to just go to the store and buy it. Also, it was
much more expensive which was the main reason I chose to sell it.
IV. I learned that I would have to make soap at a much larger scale to make a profit in the
industry because the costs of making it in such a small scale was not cost effective.
V. Over all I would not want to make a career out of making soaps.