Step 2 – Natural Soap Making Equipment & Safety

The Beginner’s Guide For Soap Making Equipment

This is the second step of the Soap making for beginners!  Much of what you need to make soap you could have already in your kitchen.  You might have an old pan that you don’t get much use out of or some whisks, spare spoons, and plastic jugs.

Before you begin ordering soap making equipment items from specialty shops, have a look around your home and local thrift/charity shops. When you have gathered all, you can take a look at investing in some additional products.

You do not have to spend a lot of money to start making Soap, but you need to have the essential soap making equipment to be sure your Soap turns out well and that you and your loved ones are kept safe. Making Soap, however natural, no matter how natural, is chemistry and you need to take it seriously.

Molds

A very important part of soap making equipment is the soap molds which are sold in all styles and dimensions and in a variety of materials. Silicones are easy to pop the Soap out of and do not require any prepping. Plastic soap molds are somewhat tricky to get Soap out if you are not using additional hardening ingredients. The conventional soap mold is a wooden box stuffed with parchment paper, and this could be the ideal solution for beginners since a lot of people will have a box around the home.

Box-style molds will produce a cake of Soap that you can cut into individual bars. Wood helps insulate the Soap so that your end product will not have as much of a problem with remaining warm on the inside and cooling on the outside. If you made Soap that seems opaque towards the exterior and has a darker spot in the center, then insulation is the issue.

In a pinch it possible to use a cardboard box lined with wax/freezer and tape paper. It is also possible to use food containers which are heat resistant if you want to save money. Another professional soap maker is plastic (PP) storage containers to mold her soap in.

Scales

Do not even think about trying to make handmade soap without a digital kitchen scale. This critical soap making equipment piece is inexpensive and easy to find in most stores anywhere in the world, and we know for sure that you can purchase them in North America. Soap making recipes are exclusively in weight because attempting to scale in size (teaspoon/cups) is far too imprecise. They are fine for making muffins or cakes but not for Soap.

Scales work by estimating how much something weighs, and if you use one, then your Soap should be consistent each time. Nevertheless, you can measure the contents of your smidgen, tad, pinch, dash, and a drop measuring spoons just to ensure.

Temperature

Being able to estimate the temperature of your oils and lye-water accurately is very significant. When you blend them together, they should be at a similar temperature, give or take a degree, so without a proper measurement tool, you might miss a batch. It is possible to use standard glass thermometers if you’ve any, but many soap makers are breaking them regularly.

Instead, you can use a digital temperature and comparatively inexpensive digital kitchen thermometer. You can dip its stainless steel tip into both your oils and lye-water, and it’s also effortless to clean. If you intend on utilizing glass thermometers, ensure to get a pair so you can hold one absorbed in your melting oils and other your bottle of lye-water.

Immersion Blender

The old fashioned way to create natural soap involved standing over a pot and stirring for quite a long time. If you wish to try making Soap this way give it a try, but be ready to be stirring, and stirring, and mixing.

Another way is to have a stick blender, also known as an immersion blender. It helps your lye-water and oil to chemically bond in less than a few minutes. If you are thinking about buying an immersion blender, we would recommend buying one that has slits or holes in the head to allow air out. The reason being that the holes minimize the amount of air that is taken down to your soap. You do not want soap with a lot of air bubbles in it, so you’ve to give it a tap once it is immersed in the fluids.

Utensils

Here are the different utensils that you will need during making Soap:

• Stainless Steel spoon: for stirring liquid oils
• Large Stainless Steel spoon: for stirring lye water
• Stainless Steel whisk: recommended for mixing in essential oils, botanicals, and minerals
• Stainless Steel Strainer/Sieve/Colander: to pour your lye water through and into your oils. It helps to make sure there are no lumps of un-dissolved lye forming their way into your Soap
• Silicone Spatula: for getting as much soap from your pan as possible

Gloves & Goggles

Making Soap is an enjoyable and creative process, but if you are making it from scratch, then you’ll be handling Sodium Hydroxide. This substance is quite dangerous if not treated with respect.

Unless you’re likely to be using ‘Melt-and-Pour-Soap’ where the chemical procedures have been completed for you, then you can’t neglect the use of lye in soap production. Soap is a result of a chemical process between an acid (oils) and an alkali (lye) but is in itself its own compound.

That means that when you are finished making your Soap, there’ll be no lye left in your bars. However, when using lye, you have to be sure that you’re wearing protective gear. Whenever you make natural soap plan to wear a long sleeved shirt, pants, sensible sneakers, an apron, goggles, and a pair of latex or rubber gloves.

Protecting Eyes And Face

If you wear glasses, you still need to wear goggles. If you do not wear glasses, then the most comfortable goggles to use are any safety goggles that you can buy in kitchen shops or hardware stores. These glasses work to prevent vapors so that you don’t tear up. They work fabulously in shielding your eyes in soap production.

Another safety thing you might need to think about getting is a face mask. Lye water can produce some notable strong vapors, and you don’t want to be breathing those in. Make sure that lye water is blended and cools at a well-ventilated area. If for some chance you get lye water thrown on your skin you’ll have to wash that area thoroughly.

Containers

You will require many different bottles, of which the absolute essential are listed below. Make sure that your containers are heat-proof and that any metal bowls or pans are stainless steel since other elements will react with the lye and Soap.

Any jars that come into touch with Sodium Hydroxide must be retained for soap production purposes only.

• Deep stainless steel pan for heating your oils — Container for estimating your Sodium Hydroxide granules into. Polypropylene(PP) or Pyrex, Glass
• Container for determining your water into and for blending the Sodium Hydroxide into. Needs to be lye resistant and warm. Polypropylene (PP) or Pyrex, Glass
• Container for measuring your liquid oils into
• Ceramic, glass, Pyrex, Stainless Steel, or plastic — Small pots for measuring small amounts of oils for super-fatting, and for added ingredients such as botanicals, essential oils,  and powdered ingredients

We encourage you to see your kitchen supply shop stores and places that sell second-hand equipment. One point that we want to emphasize is that it is easy to spend money when starting out making handmade soap. You do not require much to get started, so try to resist buying expensive soap making equipment and oils till you’ve created a few batches and have determined that soap making is for you. For your first batch, you won’t need more than we’ve outlined.

Stay tuned more to come.