I have made dozens of batches of soap and by now I know what my face likes and what it does not. It is difficult to keep making shaving soap when you are sitting on over 10 pounds of it but when you start to do fun things or use unique scents it continues to be a fun experiment. It's a pretty straight-forward process which you can learn from a variety of books or online websites. I will spare you all those details and just get right to it. This Thread is going to be more about the experimental phase rather than doing what I know works because that is pretty boring and can be found anywhere. Beta 2.5 Add the stearic acid and then all the butters. Melt until it is liquid and pour in your lye solution. I used potassium hydroxide only this round. Normally the picture above is where you end and dish the soap into your container of choice. Today I'm going to take it a step further and attempt to hot process in a vacuum to remove all air and water. It looks like I can fit 7 tins in the vacuum, this should be a very interesting experiment. While I get that set up its time to add the glycerin, lanolin and sodium lactate to the soap. Stir and cook for an additional 5 minutes. You are done and your soap can be put in any container you wish.
So what happens when you put a vacuum container on a hot plate at 450 degrees to finish processing your soap in a vacuum? As you can see the water boiled off and the air bubbles left behind caused the soap to expand all the way up to the lid of the vacuum container. I let it sit there for a while hoping it would collapse on itself like other substances but it would not. Eventually I had to release the vacuum and see what damage I had caused. Well that was fun but my wife is not amused. Time to clean up. Next time I'm going to cook the soap until all the water is out and attempt the same experiment again. For this batch I just took all the scalding hot soap and scooped it into containers like every other soap maker does. The sodium lactate helps maintain fluidity during the cool down but my ultimate goal is to remove every air bubble in the soap unlike any soap maker that I'm aware of other than the 5x klar soap that was discontinued.
That was quite cool. I admit that the pictures made me laugh. That can't have been fun to clean up. You might want to try something that uses vibration to work the air bubbles out.
Thanks for documenting this with pictures. Now I'm wondering what crazy mishaps popular soap makers have gone through in order to reach the point where they are today. Do you really just mix everything with a spoon? Seems like that could get tiring pretty quickly as I'd imagine the soap is pretty thick and semi-solid even when it's melted down.
Yeah, that's what I normally do. It makes soap as flat as possible on the top but it looks just like CRSW. It works extremely well but I was going for glass like soap, literally like a sheet of glass. I know it's possible with the ingredients I'm looking at but the execution is probably going to be more difficult than I anticipated. I might have to put the soap under vacuum in bulk and then spoon out after the air bubbles have been taken out and then re-vacuum again in containers, I'm not sure but I'll let you guys know as I go!
We use an immersion blender at the beginning especially in large batches but towards the end it's like bread and needs to have a solid spoon for mixing. MdC actually uses a big commercial dough maker for their soap. Someone here has the video I'm sure, it's very popular.
Thanks bro, it's a lot of fun and the kids really enjoy it as well. I went ahead and made a second batch with the exact same ingredients and with the exact same process but this time with a very popular and well-known barbershop scent. As soon as you use it you will instantly recognize it as it is used in some of the top shave soaps online. Oh and for the record the exploding soap put under vacuum was: Top Notes: Mandarin, Black Pepper, Cardamom Mid Notes: Clove, Vetiver, Leather Base Notes: Frankincense, Myrrh, Sandalwood, Musk Such a waste of a beautiful scent profile. On the plus side the house smells great LOL. Here is the normal process and all its boring pictures. Take the butter balls and roll them in stearic acid for amusement while it melts. Once everything is melted pour in your lye solution Once saponification is complete cook an additional hour. Put 5 ounces of soap into each 4" rust proof metal tin. The soap in the picture below is still over 200 degrees. After four and a half months of open air aging your soap will look like the soap on top. Only one and a half months to go before I can give these out as gifts. Now you may notice right away that the soap that is new looks like the soap that you get in the mail. I will take some pictures in a week or two to show you what it looks like at that point as well. I have that same problem with most soap companies as they don't take the time to age and I think it is our responsibility to give them feedback if they are getting soap out the door too quickly. The good news is that some of them do age and you can tell immediately when you receive the soap. It is something that I'm going to include in my reviews as I am a big proponent of open-air aged soap and the soap makers who take the time to do it.
Thanks for sharing this. I have been interested in soap making for quite awhile, but I don't have the time to devote to it...
I agree! I think it would be cool to make soaps and aftershaves, but the time factor is just too much. Thanks Rockclimber for very interesting reading!
Wow, interesting update. The idea of the vacuum is interesting, but I kinda figured before even seeing the pics that it would cause a soap eruption. Although I agree that aging really helps a soap, I'm not sure it's really necessary to remove all the air like you're trying to do. Thanks for the pics and the explanations. Fascinating.
Subscribed. Thanks for the info and I agree with you on giving artisans feedback. Sent from my LG-H811 using Tapatalk
Since badger & blade frowned upon reviews of non vendor soap even if the recipe was posted for everyone to see it has been months since I have tried any of the recipes I posted on there. This time I'm going to write down my thoughts as I go because ingredients are very important to me and one of the primary things I look at when I purchase a soap. Beta 1.0 Load for 30 seconds, end up being way too much soap. Slickness 8.8/10 Residual slickness 9/10 Cushion 9/10 Moisturizing 8.8/10 Scent 2/10 Overall 8.9/10 not counting the scent. This stuff smells like sheep wool, very much like Mitchell's wool fat. Some people like that smell I do not. Slickness is good but residual slickness is better which is a pretty rare thing. I really like the addition of lanolin and all the butters but I think the percentages could be tweaked to the makers choosing and have been tweaked to my likings obviously since this is beta 1.0 Overall a fantastic soap, easy to make for new soapers and one which does not have any added glycerin or clay/silk and as such is a fantastic way for new soap makers to get into the game. I encourage everyone here to try this out at least once in their lifetime and add their favorite scent, you will be surprised at how good you are at making soap in a crock pot and you might even surprise your wife, friends and family.