How do you make soap?

Making soap today is similar to how it was made originally. Quite simply, you need to combine vegetable or animal fats/oils with either sodium (lye) or potassium salts (KCI). Depending on the materials used and in what proportions, the final soap product can be solid, liquid, thick, thin, oily, or greasy. To start, the alkali is diluted in water which in turn heats up or bubbles and pops frantically. This part of soap making can be dangerous if proper safety procedures and apparel is not implemented. The fats/oils are heated up so that they are all uniformly liquid. Then both fat/oils and lye/water solutions are combined, blending until they have become unified. This process is called saponification. The material will appear still very liquid-y and will still cause burns if handled with bare hands. In this form, the substance is called crude soap. Colors and fragrances can be added as well as preservatives and textual objects (like poppy seeds). It is important to understand how these additives affect the process, some material speed up saponification and some slow it down. The batter-like soap will then be poured into molds. It is then often sprayed with a diluted alcohol to help eliminate soda ash from forming on the surface. Then the molded soap is covered and allowed to rest for 24 hours. When unmolding the soap, depending on the form, it is either left as is or cut up into bars and returned to rest in a cool and safe space. This resting stage known as curing, can take from 2 weeks up to over a month. The purpose of curing is to both eliminate any remaining lye and to allow the soap to harden so it will last longer. When made properly, no lye remains in the finished product. Because of this most soaps do not list lye or KCI in the ingredients even though it had to be made with it. So that it, that’s how you make soap. So maybe now you are wondering “When was soap first invented?”. I got you, tune in next time and maybe we will find out together.

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