Soothing Handmade Soap

I started making soap several years ago because my sister told me I should!  It contains olive oil and coconut oil, very soothing to the skin and easy to make, once you have the ingredients.  The most fun is experimenting with different scents from essential oils and adding a few extras, like oatmeal, sage or tumeric, and superfatting with oils such as Vit. E and cocoa butter.  If you want to make a trial batch, here is a small recipe for a beginner:  

Wear goggles, and no young children around.  Use rubber gloves and a heavy apron. This is because of the lye being so caustic.  As long as you are careful, do not worry.  Have some ice ready in a basin or large bowl to cool down the lye water.  Your goal is to get the lye water and the oils at approximately the same temperature, and the lye gets very hot when you mix it into the water.  

Use plastic or stainless steel pans and spoons.  You will need an immersible thermometer for the liquids.  

Wearing your goggles and rubber gloves,  

Water:  1 C.                      Mix the lye carefully and slowly into the water.  Mix with a spoon, set in a bowl of 

Lye 1 C.                            ice and put a thermometer in the lye mixture. 

Coconut oil 1 C.

Olive oil  1 C.  

Vegetable shortening 1 C   

Measure the above 3 ingredients into a pan and heat on low until it is melted.  Allow to start cooling and measure temperature with a thermometer.  You can set the pan in a bowl of ice.  

You want the lye mixture and the oil mixture (still separately) to come to about 110 degrees.  While they are cooling, get your mold ready.  You can use a shoe box or a plastic box.  It is easier if the box has straight sides.  Line with a plastic bag, spread out to the corners and sides.  

When you get the temperatures right (and you may have to re-heat one or the other carefully), you carefully add the lye mixture into the oil mixture, stirring as you do so.  Take a wisk and stir the mixture until it traces, which is when you can drizzle a spoon of the mixture across the surface and see a trail.  This does not take too long at all, so get it in the light right so that you can see it well.  Here is where you could add a tablespoon of an essential oil and/or a superfatting oil like cocoa butter, melted already.  They would of course need to be stirred in well. 

When it traces, immediately pour into your mold.  Cover with plastic, then a blanket or towel.  It will be quite hot, and needs to incubate for 24 hours before you take it out of the mold.  At that point you can cut it into bars and let it sit in the air, bars separated, for about 2 weeks.  Then it is ready to use.  The soap goes through a chemical change so that it becomes very soothing (saponification).