Hot Process Soap Making Course Step-by-Step for Beginners

Ingredients And Tools

See the downloadable list below for clickable links to each of these items.

These things should be separate from your food preparation tools that you use in the kitchen. It’s just safer! Unsaponified soap can get into crevices and fragrances leach into glass and plastic. It’s part of the Good Manufacturing Practices set by the FDA that you should not use the same tools.

Safety Equipment

-goggles should completely cover your eyes so no lye can sneak in if it splashes

-you’ll want a mask to avoid breathing lye fumes. Some soapers wear an air-filter mask

-chemical resistant gloves are recommended to protect your skin from lye splatters, but thin disposable gloves or even dishwashing gloves will work too

-long sleeves, pants, and closed-toed shoes- you’d really prefer not to get any lye on your skin. It’s best to choose old clothes you don’t care about because lye can damage your clothes too

Soap Making Tools

-a crockpot you don’t use for anything else

-kitchen scale

-spatula dedicated to soapmaking

-heat-resistant bowls for mixing colors and measuring oils- I use these pyrite measuring cups, but glass or plastic bowls will work too

-container reserved for mixing your lye solution- I have a repurposed coconut oil jar that I keep separate from other jars in my kitchen. Glass or plastic will work here

-container reserved for measuring your lye- I repurposed a little mango butter jar for this and keep it separate from other jars. Glass or plastic will work here too

-sieve that’s reserved for soap making (optional)

-stick blender (also known as an immersion blender) that’s just for soaping. Choose one with a stainless steel shaft preferably. You can also whisk it the old fashioned way, but that will take a lot longer

-measuring spoons for colorants and scents

-possibly a swirling tool (you can also use a skewer, a chopstick, or the back of a spoon for your designs)

-a soap mold– There are of course TONS of different sizes and shapes of molds. I usually go for this loaf mold. I like that it’s uniform and my bars come out… as bars. I also have slab molds that lend themselves more toward cold process soap making. I also have some hearts and seashells that I enjoy, cats, chakra molds (+these), a lotus… you name it, it’s out there! You can choose any shape you’d like for your soap. I’ve also used an empty milk carton!

- small cups for mixing colorants - I like to use espresso cups

- a soap cutting tool is also helpful! I have a box soap cutting tool, but I would probably choose a wire cutter if I could go back and choose again

Oils and butters

-olive oil

-coconut oil

-sweet almond oil

-castor oil

-cocoa butter (or shea butter)

Other Ingredients

-Lye

-Distilled water

-Fragrance

-Colorants

Cleaning up

-distilled vinegar for cleaning up your counters and workspace

-commercial detergent like Dawn for cleaning your soapy dishes and cutting grease and oil going down the drain.

-dedicated sponge for cleaning up lye dishes and drips. I cut a corner off of mine so I know it’s my soap sponge

Make sure anyone who is in your home knows to be careful about lye in the kitchen (or wherever your workspace may be). Also, keep pets out of your work area.

Be sure to clean up any food dishes before you get started to help avoid cross-contamination. Keep your soaping tools and supplies away from food.

You may want to cover the surface you’re working on with newspaper or cardboard to protect it from possible lye splatters.

You’ll need a kitchen scale because soap making is kind of scientific and specific. This recipe uses ounces for measurement. So make sure your scale is on the right unit of measurement. Then put the container you’ll be measuring the oils in on the scale and tare the scale. Your scale might let you push one button to reset it to 0 with the container on it or you might have to turn the whole thing on and off again. You want to be sure the scale isn’t counting the weight of the container as part of the weight of your soaps.

Start by measuring the solid oils and butters so they can get a head start on melting. This will be your cocoa butter and coconut oil. You’ll need 4 ounces of cocoa butter. It melts more quickly if the cocoa butter is in small pieces, but you can definitely toss it into the crockpot in a big chunk. If it comes in a chunk that’s too big, you can use a knife to shave some off so you have 8oz.

Dump it into the crockpot! And turn the crockpot on low.

And you’ll measure 10 oz of coconut oil and add it in too. You don’t have to melt it first. Use a spatula to get out as much as you can out of your measuring container because you don’t want to miss some of the coconut oil and you don’t want the coconut oil to count on the scale as part of the next oil you measure either. If some coconut oil stays stuck to the side of the container, tare the scale again before measuring your next oil so you can be sure you get all you need.

Measure the other oils and add them to the crockpot as well, scraping the bowl between oils- 8oz of sweet almond oil, 1 oz of castor oil, and 10 ounces of olive oil. When all of the oils are in, close the lid of the crockpot and let them do their thing (melt)!

I just set the container aside rather than washing it out-you can use it again when you mix in colorants later.

Suit up! You don’t want to have any skin showing on parts of you that could get splattered when you pour the lye into the water. You also need to protect your eyes and respiratory system.

Make sure you’re in a well-ventilated place for this part of the process. You don’t want to breathe in any lye fumes. I do this phase outside. If you’re inside, it’s preferable to do this step over the sink so it’s easy to clean up if any lye spills.

You’ll need these tools:

-your safety gear (preferably on your body)

-your scale

-your container for mixing the lye

-a container for measuring the dry lye into

-something to stir with

-your lye

-water

Measure your water first- tare the scale with the container you’ll use for water and lye together and measure just the water into it. You need 12.54 oz.

Tare the scale again with the lye container on it. Measure 4.73 oz of lye into the lye container.

A word of caution: ALWAYS pour the lye into the water, NEVER pour the water into the lye because it may bubble up like a volcano.

It’s about to get hot! The lye reacts to the water by heating up. Pour the lye into the water and Stir!! I like to use the back of my spatula since it fits easily into the jar. Lye can get a little clumpy so you want to be sure there isn’t any lye stuck on the bottom of your container or floating on the top of the solution. If some lye is stuck you can try to scrape it out and stir some more.

I like to put the back end of the spatula into the lye container so it won’t drip on the way to the sink. First, using your heat-resistant gloves, put the lye container in a place where it won’t get toppled while you wait for the oils to finish heating up and the lye to cool. It’s ok to take the lye solution inside. It gives off toxic gas for about a minute after you first pour the lye crystals into the water, but after that, it should be safe to have in the house. Make sure your family knows what’s going on in this container and your pets aren’t around.

The lye is ready to add to the oils when it’s gone from cloudy to clear.

I recommend washing the container and spatula right away with your dedicated sponge and a commercial detergent so you can’t make any mistakes with the lye, but you could potentially also set them aside in a safe place for a big lye dishwashing session after you combine the lye and oils.

When the butters and oils are melted, set up your stick blender beside the crockpot and have your sieve on hand too. It’s time to make sure you have all of your safety gear on again! I also like to turn off the crockpot, just do be safe.

Pour the lye through the sieve to catch any undissolved lye crystals. I hold the sieve over the lye mixing container to carry it to the sink, ditch the sieve in the sink, then fill the container halfway with water to catch the stick blender when I’m done using it. Put the container near the crockpot, but not in a place where the cord can knock it over (been there!).

Then put the stick blender down into the liquids. Tap it a couple of times on the bottom to release any air that may have come with the blender into the mixture. Then put the blender on an angle- for my blender about 45 degrees is good- but it depends on the size and shape of your crockpot. Too upright of an angle won’t get everything moving inside the crockpot, and too steep toward horizontal with have the end of the stick blender spitting unsaponified soap everywhere. There’s a pretty big sweet spot, but when you start blending, use a low speed to test your angle.

When you feel good you can turn it up a little- or not- slow will get you there too! Either way, It’ll be a few minutes here. You’ll see the mixture start to thicken. If you’re getting a lot of bubbles, try a slightly different angle. You can also turn off the blender and use it to stir the mixture and the bubbles will dissipate a little.

We’re going for a medium to thick trace, like a nice pudding texture. When you touch something to the surface of your will-be-soap, it leaves a little imprint. I like to (turn off the blender then) use the base of the blender and just tap it on top of the mixture- if I can clearly see where it was after I move it, we’re good! If not, I put the tip back down into the mixture, tap it on the bottom, then blend it a bit more on that special angle.

Once it’s reached medium trace, take the blender out and put it into the water in the lye mixture container, put the crockpot lid back on, and turn the crockpot back onto low.

With the blender in the lye mixture container (no more than half full of water!) pulse a couple of times- it’s kind of like prewashing the blender, and using the container to hold it also catches the lye as you move to the sink.

Next, wash everything that has touched lye with your dedicated sponge and your gloves and sleeves on! The soap is still caustic and can burn you. Wipe down surfaces with distilled vinegar. First, remove excess soap and soak your tools in hot water with a grease-cutting detergent. Scrub the bowls and containers and then the sink!

Especially when the soap is first cooking and especially when you’re first soaping, don’t leave your soap unattended. It can be a little immature, and it acts out when it’s not getting enough attention. Namely, it likes to make volcanoes. It expands and expands and then seeps out over the side of the crockpot and all over your counter and you have to clean it up really carefully with your gear on.

But you can stop it! When it's expanding it will be pale yellow, frothy, and possibly pulsing. When it’s starting to come toward the lid, I’d say an inch or 2 below the top, open it up and stir like crazy! When the soap settles back down toward the bottom of the crockpot, close it back up and wash your spatula with your dedicated sponge. The soap will have less air in it and be more stable looking- less fluffy and less movement. Still keep an eye on it though! Some soap tries to erupt more than once.

In general if it’s not threatening to come out of the crock pot, you don’t want to stir it. You want to leave it closed so the moisture stays in and it gets more even heat while it’s sealed under the lid. Some soapers even use plastic wrap to seal the crack between the crock pot and the lid to maintain as much moisture as possible.

When it’s under control, check on it every 15 minutes or so. You’ll be looking for the vaseline stage. Your soap will become translucent, a similar look to vaseline... hence the name. You’ll see it near the edges first, but wait until you see it throughout the whole mixture. When it reaches this phase, that’s the best indicator that it has saponified and the lye isn’t dangerous any more.

Some soapers use an old fashioned method called ZAP testing. To ZAP test, you get a bit of soap on the spatula and make sure it’s cool! Then touch it to your tongue. If you feel like you just got an electric shock, there’s still raw lye inside and it’s not done cooking. If you just taste a gross soapy taste, that’s soap and it’s done cooking! I share this with you as an annecdote more than a suggestion.

When you have vaseline stage throughout the soap, turn off the crockpot. You may get some matte white parts around the edge. That part has overcooked. It’s ok. Just leave that part in the pot, rather than scooping it into your mold when you’re all done. You’d rather overcook some parts than undercook others.

If you’re scared about being sure all of the lye is gone, you can always leave your finished soap out “to cure” after it’s unmolded and cut. Cold process soap never gets cooked after the lye and oils are combined. It just sits out for 4-6 weeks and the lye naturally saponifies with time. The heat speeds it up, so yours doesn’t need that long and shouldn’t need to cure at all if it reached the vaseline stage, but if you’re nervous, you can still let your soap have some extra time too.

This part can be deceivingly hard if you’re excited! Most likely your soap will sort of shrink down in the crockpot. It will drop and have a thin smooth sort of film on top. You don’t want hot steam billowing out when you open the lid. If you put your hand in like you were going to touch it you want to be able to get pretty close- like within an inch and not have to pull your hand away because it feels super hot, but warm is ok.

Essential oils have a low flash point compared to fragrance oils (I said high in the video, oops!!), so if you’re using essential oils, you don’t want to add them too early and ruin their scents. Sometimes pouring them in too early burns off some of their potency too.

If you pour scent in and your entire house reeks of it immediately, it was probably too early. That’s ok. If that wasn’t all of the oils you wanted to use you can put the lid on again and give it a little more time before you add more and try to add colors and mold it.

On the flip side, you also don’t want it to be too cool because it will have a harder time doing fun swirls and designs. It’s a little flexible though. Neither too hot nor too cold will ruin your batch. You’re still going to have handmade soap.

You’ll actually add the scents to your soap first, but you want to prepare your colorants ahead because once you open the crockpot to start working with the soap, it starts cooling and hardening faster.

I recommend choosing colors with a bit of contrast both from each other if you’re using more than one, and from the color of your pure soap. It will help your design stand out. If you missed it, check out the video on colorants to learn more about different options and how to prepare them for your soap- it’s usually a teaspoon of colorant to a tablespoon of water or lightweight oil- depending on what the colorant is made of- to a pound of soap.

I used to measure all of my scents out down to the drop into a shot glass and add them all at once. It’s totally an option if you don’t want to waste time measuring once you take the lid off of the crockpot. I also went through a phase where I would also divide the oils and portion them out for different colors in different containers. Now I have my oils beside the crockpot and I have my 1 Tablespoon measuring spoon ready to go. I measure 3 ⅓ Tablespoons (give or take a little on the last third- it’s about 10 teaspoons) of various oils straight into the crockpot and stir the whole batch up together.

Divide your soap into as many bowls as you have colors. Start with mixing the lightest one and then go from there to the darkest. You’ll pour your colorant mixture straight onto the soap and stir it until the color is pretty evenly mixed. Then move on to the next color and mix it up too. You want to do this reasonably quickly so you can get on with the molding.

[Feathered diagonal stripes: 0:02

Spirals and circles with the swirling tool 4:11

Bunny hops and spirals 4:54

in-the-pot swirl 8:18

other molds 13:14]

Have your mold right near the containers of colored, scented soap and use your spatula to scoop some soap over into the mold. Move somewhat quickly because the soap is starting to cool and harden as you go.

There are several different techniques you can use.

• You can stack the layers of colored soap into the mold to make stripes- horizontal or diagonal. Use your spatula to smooth the layers or drop your mold onto the counter to let gravity do the work.

• The first swirling method involves adding all of the colors in small bits at random intervals. Then use the back end of a fork to bunny hop through the soap vertically bouncing the fork across the length of the mold. And then/Or swirl the soap with spirals from one narrow end to the other to create a nice design. Don't get too eager and mix the whole thing into one color.

• Another swirling method involves the swirling tool. You can use it to feather the soap by moving it up and down or make vertical swirls through the whole loaf.

• The in-the-pot-swirl is one of my favorites. It comes out like a tie-dye. You put all of your colored soap back into the crockpot and fold the colors into each other, like you would fold flour into bread dough. Just do a couple of folds or stirs so as not to mix the colors fully, but let them swirl through each other. Then add all of the pot's soap to the mold.

Once it’s in the mold, I slam the whole thing on the counter a couple of times. It helps push any air bubbles that might be sitting in the soap up and out.

For other mold shapes, an in-the-pot swirl works best. Most other molds don't have the same amount of room for designing and maneuvering tools inside. After swirling the soaps in the pot, scoop the soap into the mold and use the spatula to push it into the mold and smooth it down. The drop on the counter technique is not as successful here.

I like to put my molded soap into the freezer. It makes it super hard which makes it much easier to pop it out of the mold later and it makes the hardening go faster. You could also leave it on a level surface like a shelf, table, or counter.

I just pulled this out of the freezer. Take the wooden box off first so you can just work with the silicone. If you’re using a loaf mold like this one, be gentle with the corners. They’re the part that’s easiest to bump and hardest to fix. If it was in the freezer, let it defrost before you try to cut it.

I actually wouldn’t recommend this soap cutting box. The guiding gaps are actually enough wider than the blade that I can still get a slanted cut on my soap. And this wood is so soft my blades slice into it.

So I basically use it as a template and mark the soap on the tops and one side then cut it freehand, straight down from the top, using the mark on the side as a guide.

If you’re about to shop for a soap cutter, I’d try a wire cutter instead. It seems more exact to me.

If you’re using blades like this, they usually come with a straight blade and a crinkle-cut curvy one. I like to alternate them with my cuts. I use my logo stamp on the flat side and I like how the crinkle cuts feel on my skin when I first use the soap. You can of course use either on any given bar!

A soap saver looks a little bit like a sponge. It has holes that allow drainage so that the soap isn't sitting in a puddle of water. This helps it last longer.

Try to avoid placing it in a spot that's in the direct line of water in the shower. This will melt your soap away more quickly.

Store your finished soaps in a cool, airy place, out of direct sunlight.

Avoiding volcanoes- If your soap tends to volcano, think about melting the solid oils and butters separately in a double boiler. Then measure the other oils straight into the crockpot. You don’t even have to turn the crockpot on until after you add the lye. Then the temperature will not be as high at the start and it may help avoid the dreaded volcano.

Also keep an eye on the soap as it’s heating up, for my crockpot 10 minutes or so after I begin, the starts expanding quite rapidly. This is a good time to stir! It helps cool the soap and keep it from getting out of hand too quickly. When it’s heating and expanding, it will be a pale yellow and when it’s more stable, it will be a little darker and less fluffy with less active movement.

Maximize Liquidity- If you feel like your soap is often getting too hard to make fun designs, consider splitting the water in half on your next batch. Add half of the water at the beginning of the process with the lye and save the other half for the end right before the scents. Add the water warm or hot to your soaps to add new liquidity and create fluid designs.

Heat your tools- Pro tip! If you want to get really fluid designs, set your oven to the lowest temperature it can be on, and when it reaches that temperature, turn it off. Put the tools you’ll use for your design into the oven- the mold, the spatula, and the measuring cups you’ll mix your colors in. Then when you go to move the soap, it won’t get shocked with the comparative coolness of the tools and harden up. It buys you a little time and more room for creativity. Make sure your hands are protected when handling the warmed tools.

Colorants- If you choose water to mix with your colorant and it needed oil, the colorant will not mix into the water. It will sit in clumps on top. I’ve made this mistake and I just added some oil to the mix too. It’s not ideal to add the extra water as well, but in a pinch, oil and water and colorant will do the job. You’ll want the colors ready before your soap has finished cooling so you can get right to work when it’s ready. It won't take long though so don’t stress.

CONTACT ME

If you're still struggling, please send me an email and I'll do my best to help! Explain what's going on and send a picture if you can over to hello@latherandlightco.com

You can also add in other additives like coffee grounds, ground oatmeal, salt, loofahs, honey, coconut milk, avocado, aloe, goat's milk. Dried chopped herbs or flowers can be added before you mold your soap too. If the pieces are too big, they can mold with time so ground or chopped is preferable. Adding in a tablespoon of coconut milk right at the end can add extra nourishing and moisturizing properties.

You can also use tea or coffee instead of water with your lye (in the same measurement that you would use the water). This can bring in some great herbal properties. Make sure you chill the tea or coffee first since combining lye and water is an exothermal process, meaning one that produces heat; you don’t want to start with added heat from hot liquids and then heat it up more with adding lye.

If you'd like to use a soap stamp, place it in the middle of your soap and rock it side to side. Then, also rock it up and down. Lift off the stamp and voila! Your logo or message is there!

Also, here are a couple of gift packaging ideas

• tie it with a ribbon or twine and a pretty bow

• put your soap in a paper or waxed paper gift bag with a sticker

• put the soap in an organza bag

Get creative! This is your handmade soap to personalize as you wish!

First, check out the Soapqueen's Guide to Common Soap Making Oils. It's a huge list of oils that you could include in your soaps. It details the name of the soap, its shelf life, beneficial properties each oil adds to soap, and percentages of the oil that are usually good in the overall proportions for a soap recipe.

Then head to the Soap Calculator. Here you can enter which oils you want to use by percentage or weight. Click Calculate Recipe. Then click View Recipe and your recipe will open in a new tab.

It will show you how much lye and water to add to your oils as well as the qualities of the soap you've created. If your soap doesn't fall within the typical range for any of the qualities, you can go back to update your recipe by adjusting the proportions, adding more of another oil that helps with the quality you're looking for, or substituting an oil with the quality you're looking for for a portion of an oil you had already. It can be a big process of trial and error, but I hope you'll enjoy experimenting!

To double a recipe, just double the amount of every ingredient you're using! As long as the ratios are the same, you're good to go! If you want to double-check you could always put your ingredients back into the soap calculator too.

Congratulations! You did it! I hope you enjoyed this course! I would love to hear how it went for you and see some of the soaps you made! Please feel free to share your feedback and accomplishments through the messenger here on Udemy!

I'm so happy I got to share this with you and I hope you're enjoying making lots of beautiful, creative handmade soaps! That's a wrap for now, but keep an eye out because I always have some other ideas up my sleeve. See you soon!

+See my other courses here:

https://www.udemy.com/user/katia-davis-5/