From cooking to soaping

   I started making soap during the winter last year.  I always like to learn something new when it's too cold to go outside and play.    I researched  the Cold Process method and decided it sounded like something I could do.  It's kind of like cooking.   I can make yeast breads, carmel, and many advanced recipes that many people wouldn't attempt so I figured soaping shouldn't be that difficult. 

When my supplies finally arrived I dove right in.   I had read and watched Youtube videos on mixing lye. I put on my gloves and googles and stirred the lye flakes until they disolved into the distilled water.   Mixing the lye was the most worrisome part.   Sodium Hydroxide reacts with water.   So, if you have water on your skin and a lye crystal or powder lands on it, you might want to be near running water.  And the fumes are noxious, so it's nice to have a close by window to open.  Oh, and the once the lye mixes with water the temperature shoots up to 160+ degrees.  There is steam.

Then I melted the coconut, palm and canola oils.   The lye and the oils can be mixed together between 80 -120 degrees.  From what I see, it just depends on who authored the recipe.  I stay between 95-105 degrees.     And you want to keep the lye and the oils no more than 15 degrees of each other.    Once my lye and oils were within the range I mixed them together.  I used a stick blender and blended until I thought we'd hit the "trace" stage.   Trace is when the soap mixture is ready to be poured into the mold.   The mixture looks like a thick pudding and leaves a trace of the mixture on top when you use a spoon and drizzle it on top.  Then it's ready to pour!