If you’re like most people, you probably need your own soap quite often. Soap is super-versatile and useful for all sorts of things. But constantly stocking up on soap can be time-consuming and inconvenient. As well as that, it can also be expensive. While soap doesn’t cost a lot by itself, try adding up everything you spend on soap throughout the year—that’s a lot of money. So maybe you’d like to look at the cheaper option of making your own soap. If that’s the case, then you’ve found the right article for you.
In this article, we’re going to look at a few different ways to make soap, as well as why making soap is a good idea. It’s not only cheap, but it can also be better for the environment (depending on what you use). As well as that, and perhaps the number one reason people like making their own soap is that it’s actually much better for your skin. The problem with lots of mass-produced soaps is that they can irritate people with certain conditions. So when you make your own soap, you can choose exactly what goes in it if you’ve got specific concerns or allergies. Not only that, you can also make sure all your ingredients are ethically sourced if that’s something you’re concerned about, too.
Benefits of making your own soap
There are lots of benefits of making your own soap, as we’ve already touched on. Here they are in detail…
It’s cheaper
Soap might not be the most expensive thing you buy, but the cost soon adds up. Think about it. You probably get through a lot of soap each week and have it in multiple rooms around your house. Well that soon adds up. Soap can be costly and inconvenient to keep replacing. When you make your own batch, it could last for months or even years just from a couple of hours of work. That saves you time and money—and it could be more convenient.
It’s better for the environment
Some of the ingredients used in mass-produced soap aren’t always produced the most carbon-neutral or environmentally sound ways. When you make your own soap, you can fine-tune the ingredients and only use exactly what you want to put into things. That means you can make sure you source them from the right producers and you know exactly what’s going into your soap and onto your skin. People are getting more and more concerned about where their toiletries and other products come from, and how much of an impact they had on the environment. You can make sure your soap is the most ethically produced around with only ingredients your happy with, if this is a concern to you.
It’s better for people with skin conditions
This is probably the main reason why people choose to make their own soap at home. If you’ve got sensitive skin, allergies or other requirements for what you use on your face and hands, finding the right soap can be difficult. Sometimes it can be hard to work out exactly what’s in different soaps you buy, they don’t have full ingredients lists like food products do. So whether you can’t find what’s in them, or you know something that irritates you is, then making your own becomes almost a necessity.
You can be creative
When you make your own soap it isn’t just about helping the environment and your skin, there’s a lot more to it than that as well. You can actually be really creative when you make your own soap. That means you can start making unique designs and shapes that fit your personal tastes. It also means you can be creative with smells and colours.
How to make soap
Now that you know why you’d want to make your own soap, you probably want to know-how. Let’s have a look…
There are actually four different ways to make great soap at home. The most common and popular is known as cold process. The other types are known as melt and pour, hot process and rebatching. As it’s the most common, let’s have a look at cold process.
Cold process is similar to making a cake. You get your mixture together and then put it in a mold. That means you can make natural soap or any other type you like because you are in charge of everything that goes in the soap.
All soap making requires a product called lye. For cold process soap making you need a lye-water mix. You’ll also need plenty of space to make the soap as well as some animal fats or vegetable oils. If you want to make vegetarian soap then you obviously won’t want to use animal fats. You’ll also need a pot to mix in, some fragrances such as essential oils as well as a mold or selection of molds. You can use ice cream molds, ice molds, or other shapes to get really creative if you want to. You’ll then need a cool area for the soap to set and cure.
When making soap, start by heating the oils in the soap pot or pan until it reaches 100 degrees. Then add the lye-water a little bit at a time and blend the soap until the mixture thickens. After this, you can make the soap smell nice by adding your fragrances of choice, along with other additives like colour if you want to. If you want to keep things really natural, you might want to consider fragrance and colour-free soaps. This entire mixture should then be poured into the mold and allowed to set. This should take around one day to harden, and then a further month or so to cure until it’s ready to use as soap. As you can see, it isn’t the fastest process, but you can get some great results with it.
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