Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Gather up your ingredients and equipment!
- Weigh everything from the Oils materials group into a stainless steel pot.
- Put on your safety gear for working with lye:Lye is caustic before it reacts with oils and requires some safety precautions, please read those from above! Put on your PPE (goggles, long gloves, mask) and remove anyone who could be injured by the lye (kids, pets, etc).
- Make your Lye Solution: First, weigh your water in a large enough bowl to stir your lye.Weigh your lye into the water. Slow down towards the end (gram-by-gram measurement) to make sure you don't exceed the weight of lye needed!Stir in a well-ventilated place, or outside. The fuming should finish within a minute or two, and the lye will dissolve.
- Melt your oils together, heating just enough to melt all of the solid oils.
- Simultaneously cool down your lye and oils to 110℉-120℉.Once your lye solution has cooled to 130℉, stir in the sodium lactate.
- Once the lye and oils have cooled to about 110℉-120℉, pour the lye solution into your melted oils and stir together. I like to stir the mixture with my immersion blender stick and burp out the air from the cavity before turning on the blender. Blend until there is a trail behind the blender, but not too thick.Blend in your rose essential oil at this point.
- Pour your soap mixture into your molds and wait 24 hours to un-mold.
- Thoroughly clean up your workspace.I like to wash everything by hand and then put it all in the dishwasher and run that too.I like to wash the counter after making soap to make sure I clean up any persistent lye crystals.
- Cure: After 24 hours (or 48 if they seem a little soft), pop your soaps out of their mold. If you made a loaf, this is the time to slice it up! Line up your soaps on a baking tray that you won't need for awhile, or some other surface that works for you. These need to have airflow for 4-6 weeks so that they can fully cure. During this time, the oils and lye are fully saponifying.