Making Environ Friendly Natural Soap

The new generation is becoming more aware of environment friendliness as the days go on. They are also thinking of cost effectiveness. One way to be eco friendly is to make your own soap at home. To do this you must have some ingredients at hand and you can choose which fragrance to use.

Making your own natural soap can bring your peace of mind in two effective ways. You are no longer be a part of the chemical pollution that is harming the environment as the soaps are produced industrially and you can ensure that the ingredients you are using to make a soap are all natural and won't do any harm to your skin.

Soap making is a lengthy process but the quantities you make in one sitting could be beneficial to your skin and your pocketbook. All soaps are started from some type of oil. Normally a palm oil, olive oil or even coconut oil is mixed together with water and lye. The lye and water would be heated separately from the chosen oil and then when the final temperature is met by both they are combined together. You would want to stir or whisk this mixture until you are able to see stir lines on the top.

This is almost similar to making a pancake batter and the batter forms a raised line on top when a spoon is drugged across it. That is the consistency you are looking for. Once this consistency is fulfilled you would want to add the natural ingredients you have collected to make the soap your own. For instance, you can add beeswax to make it smooth or even cocoa butter to soften the skin. To make a successful natural soap though, you want to make sure to only use natural ingredients.

Once you have instilled the additives that you collected then you have to pour the soap mixture into pre-oiled molds. Normally the molds are brick shaped or tubular and you have to make sure that they have made greasy with a vegetable oil otherwise at the time of removing the soaps from the molds they may no slide out easily without breaking. The soap mixture has to be left in the molds for about 24 hours.

During this period of time the soap making procedure will experience many changes, for example, it may darken in color and begin to bubble and might get too warm. The changes you will see are all natural when the lye/water/oil mixture is set to rest after being emulsified together. This period of time neutralizes the soap and makes it fit to set into the chosen mold. Finally it is very important to make sure that the molds have been made oily otherwise you would not be able to remove the soap from the molds easily to continue the process.

You must have a cool, dry place ready beforehand to let your soap place after you get it out from the mold. The soaps then can be pieced into any desired shapes and then needs to be placed on wire racks, lined with most preferably wax paper, and then have to be set in the dry, cool, dark place for the curing procedure.

The entire curing process might take from 3 to 8 weeks. But once this curing process is done and the soap has dried out the moisture that was left, then you will have a finished product. Most people are relaxed knowing that the soaps they are cleaning their bodies and faces with are healthy and not harmful to the community. This lesson can be passed to our next generations to come and is really a precious one.

Jen Hopkins has worked in the skin care industry for years. She maintains websites about soap making process, and organic soap making. If you want to contact her, you can use the contact form at one of her sites.

- Jen Hopkins