5. How I created my product
More complicated than anticipated
I feel my facilitator did help me
Needed ENAMEL pot
Measuring everything exactly
Dangers with lye, vinegar towel, and goggles
Bringing the lye and oil to the same temperature was the hardest part
Add together in the pot
Constantly stirring and keeping at 100 degrees for 3 hours. (found a
solution)
Adding scented oils
Saponification after being stirred
Pour into greased Tupperware as a mold
Let sit for 18 hours under a blanket (gradually cool to finish
saponification)
Let sit for 8-12 hours uncovered
Cut soap into bars
Let sit for another 30 days due to the lye still being active
6.
7.
8. Optional steps:
Molding your soap
Shave soap
Melt down
Superfat
Pour into desired mold
Adding scent oils
11. Problems Encountered
Few problems
Price and quantity of soap
Time it took to stir and keep the temp at 100 degrees (stick
blender)
Lye would sometimes get on us
Facilitator and I had conflicting schedules
Oils had different melting points, I would melt them separately
in the future.
Getting the lye from 180 degrees to 100 degrees and melting
the oils and getting them to exactly 100 degrees was very
challenging, discovered the use of ice baths.
12. Stick blender!
Through research we found it much more efficient to mix the oil and
lye using a stick blender rather than a wooden stirrer. This made
controlling the temp easier and saponification occur much faster.
13. In the future…
I would not like to make homemade soap as a
career because it was very difficult to sell the
products and make any type of profit due to
the cost of the materials, I would much rather
go into the medical field. I did learn that large
scale productions of these type of products
are more economical, yet still may not be as
beneficial to our health.
