HOW TO MAKE HANDMADE SOAP

Cold Process or CP soap. Cold Process soap is made by mixing oils and NaOH (sodium hydroxide) solution which call "lye" ...then triggers the saponification process.

Before go to the cold process soap making , you should read these first :
Cold process soap equipment - Click
Cold process soap recipe

How to Make Cold Process Soap Step by Step

1. Once you have selected the recipe you like, prepared all necessary equipments & ingredients...weigh all ingredients by follow the recipe carefully.

2. Prepare lye solution. Weigh the amount of distilled water of your recipe. Weigh the NaOH (sodium hydroxide). Once you have weighed both, slowly add the lye to the pitcher of water...WARNING: ALWAYS add the lye to the water, not water to the lye. Adding the water to the lye can cause explosion!!!!

Gently stir the mixture until the lye is completely dissolved (this time it's very hot but continue stir until it completely dissolve). The lye will be ready to use when it cools down

3. Melt & Mixing the Soapmaking Oils. Put solid oils into the pot, then put the pot onto the stove using medium heat. Slowly melt the oils while stirring softly. Turn off the heat when the oils get to about 110 F. Keep stirring until all of the solid oils are melted...then add the room temperature liquid oils to the soap pot. This step will cool down the overall temperature. The oils' temp should be at about 100 F when you add the lye-water.

4. Slowly add the lye solution to the pot that melted oils (step 3) are in. The oils will instantly begin cloudy. While adding lye also slowly stir. The starting of the saponification process is here which means the actual soap making process begins!!

5. Continuous stir the mixed oil and lye until it get "TRACE". If you use your hand to stir the mixed oil and lye , it will take about an hour to become trace.

To test for trace, dip a spatula or spoon into the mix and dribble a bit of it back into the pot. If it leaves a little "trace" behind, you're there. It just needs to be well mixed with no streaks of remaining oil.

At "light trace" and pour into the mold, the soap is still very liquid. For a more heavy trace which means pouring the soap into the mold after trace occurred for a while, and the soap has thickened enough - you will get the harder bar soap.

6. Before the soap mixture becomes too thick, slowly add the fragrance or essential oils to the mixture (depends on your recipe). Stir until completely mix.

7. Add additives depends on the recipe you use. Stir until completely mix.

8. Add color to your soap. If you want 1 color for your soap, add color and stir until it well mix. If you would like to get swirl color , this is technique :

- Ladle a half of the mixture , add color to one of a half of the mixture and mix.
- Go to next step.

Example of swirl cold process soap

9. Pour the Soap Into the Mold. For one color soap , just pour the mixture into the mold directly. For swirl color soap, pour un-color soap mixture into the mold first , then add the color soap mixture that you have prepared on step8 around the un-color soap mixture in the mold...after that use a stainless small spoon, swirl the colored soap through the mold. !!!!Don't stir too much because color will well mix , you may endup with 1 color soap - not swirl color.

Swirl soap in the mold

Set the soap in a warm, safe place to set up and begin curing. The soap is very hot (high temperature) now because saponification process continue running.

10. Done!! Normally, It takes about 1 day for the soap to harden enough to take out of the mold and slice it. Once you have sliced it, then set it to cure..because the saponification process will stop in about 4 weeks and the soap will be safe to use, you should cure it for about 4 weeks, then it's surely ready to use.

See cold process soap making process step by step in video for more details :