quirky underpants: Kitchen chemistry

Right, now, here's the next thing wot I do from time to time.

Making soap.

Yup. Making it.

Why? I hear you ask. Well, The Tinker has unusually sensitive skin, like my good self and his granny. So, I thought, why not have a crack myself and put stuff I know everyone's skin can cope with.

And this is why I love the t'interweb.

It's fairly simple process. You have your fats/oil and you have something the 'Merkins call 'Lye' or Caustic Soda to us Limeys and you can get it in a hardware shop. It's a powdery stuff you sling down drains to clear them. Honest. It looks like this:

Basically, you melt your fats and oils (more of them later) and to them you add a solution of 'lye' and water and you stir it all up. The technical name is 'saponification', for all you science geeks out there. You pour it in a mould and wrap it up and leave it to set. Jobs a good 'un.

Back to the fats and oils. You can use what you like. In the *adopts wizened old lady voice* 'olden days' folk would use animals fats rendered off carcasses mixed with some sort of ash thing. Mmmmm, sounds yummy. These days you can get cocoa butter, shea butter, olive oil whatever takes your fancy and achieve a vegan or organic soap if you so desired (or indeed, organic and vegan soap if you wanted to, if you can put the knitted organic mung bean and hemp salad down long enough, that is). You can buy these solid fats of said t'internet - ebay and specialist online places.

You can get a recipe off the internet if you like. You can make up your own if you feel brave/insane enough. If you are indeed brave or insane enough then you need to make sure your concentration of lye is correct. Different fats and oils need a different amount of lye to saponify (ooooooh, get me!) and you can figure it out by using this. This is what I have done today.

Warning: this is real chemical stuff wot causes real burns so not for kiddies. Even big grown up types will need gloves and a pinny on. Even then it's living dangerously, but I kinda like that.

You will need

100g coconut oil
100g pura cooking fat (try not to think about what it actually is)
100g cocoa butter
100g sunflower oil
58 g lye
153g water (bottled, dunno why, just do it) and yes, I know it says grams and it should be ml, but that's what 'soapers' do (just follow the instructions, don't ask questions people)
15g essential oil of your choice. I chose orange today, though lavender is nice.

You'll get 1lb of soap out of this lot, roughly.

equipment needed: a wooden spoon which you cannot use for food again
                            a saucepan to melt the oils
                             a jug
                             accurate scales (digital preferably)
                             an old bowl
                             a stick blender (will need a good old wash before you can use it with food again)
                             rubber gloves.
                             plastic mould (today I raided the recycling bin and found a dishwasher tablet box)
                             vaseline
                             old towels/blankets (yeah, weird, but more of that later...)

1. First put all the oils and fats in the pan and slowly melt them over a low low heat. Have a cup of tea whilst you're waiting. Don't let them get hot, just warm. Get an apron on.

2. *warning scary chemical bit coming up* Put your gloves on and pour the powdery lye/caustic soda into the water in the jug. Not the other way round for goodness sake or there will be horrid scenes of burning and mutilation. Keep your face well out of the way. The lye and water will produce an exothermic reaction i.e. it will get hot. Stir it a bit, again, keeping your mush well out of the way.

Put it somewhere safe for about 5 mins. Meanwhile get the mould ready by rubbing a bit of vaseline around it (like you would a cake tin with butter) Pay attention to the corners especially.
3. Put the oils/fats into the bowl and, with your gloves on, pour the lye solution onto them. Stir nonchalantly with the wooden spoon for a minute.
4. Use the stick blender to whisk it all up. It will go cloudy and get thicker.

Probably takes about 5 mins to do this. When you can lift the blender and draw a number 8 on the surface that stays there for a few seconds then it's ready. Then you can add the essential oil.
5. Pour into the mould (carefully, it could still chemically burn you a bit).

Give the mould a jiggle to get any air bubbles up and out. Then cover up the mould with the towels/blankets. Leave for 24 hours without peeking.

I always peek, but you're not supposed to, so am obliged to tell you that bit. If you do weaken and look and you notice that it goes weird with darker bits in it then do not worry - it's supposed to.
6. After 24 hours, wearing gloves, demould it. It's ready to slice now. You can do that with a knife (not a serrated blade though). It will be much easier to slice it up if you dip the knife in hot water and dry it between each cut.
7. Now, here's the rub. You cannot now scamper off bathwards clutching your own homemade soap, a copy of Heat magazine and a bar of Dairy Milk and jump in. It hasn't finished reacting yet and will irritate your skin. I wrap each chunk in tissue paper and leave in a drawer for a month. Then it will be ready.

This is known as cold-process soap making. It'd be nice to put bits in the soap but this is not possible with this method as the chemical would react and burn them - though I did sling some cinammon in one of my moulds and sprinkle some cinammon bark on the top (experimental, you understand).