How to Make Homemade Soap Without Lye
If you are looking for recipes to make soap without lye, I have a feeling you have looked at many soapmaking recipes and decided you didn’t want to deal with such a toxic ingredient or maybe you just wanted a simple, easy recipe that you could do with your kids. Either way, this recipe is perfect for you.
Types of Soap Making
There are a few different methods of soap making, each with their own pros and cons. I found a great article that breaks it down for you, check it out here.
Cold Process
Cold process soap is made by combining oils and sodium hydroxide lye, which causes a chemical reaction called saponification. In the process, you can choose which types of oil you want to use like coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil, etc.
Hot Process
Hot process soap is made in the same way as cold process but with heat added. It still requires you to handle the lye directly.
Melt and Pour
Melt and pour is the simplest of all the methods. You don’t have to handle the lye but there is still lye in your recipe. The difference is that you use a soap bade that has already undergone the soaponification process. This is the method we use in this recipe.
Ingredients
- Soap Base: Choose any melt and pour soap base that you like. There are a few different options like goats milk, shae butter, glycerin, etc. We are using a goats milk base for our recipe since I am trying to convince Mr. Cracker to let me get goats soon.
- Heatproof bowl: You will be using this bowl to melt the soap and it needs to be able to handle being microwaved. I use Pyrex bowls because I have about a million of them in all different sizes.
- Soap Molds: You can find so many cute options for silicone molds in different shapes or you can get silicone loaf molds or even use a regular loaf pan lined with parchment paper if your just starting out and dont want to buy a bunch of supplies. I ended up buying a 4 piece mold kit from Amazon that came with the slicers.
- Herbs/Spices and/or Essential Oils: If you have dried herbs and spices, you can use them in this recipe as well. This is where you get to be creative. Some common options are peppermint, rosemary and cinnamon. Use 1/2 to 1 tsp for every pound of soap. If essential oils are more appealing to you as they are to me, use 30 drops per pound of soap. You can read about where I get my oils here.
- Something to cut with. You can use a regular knife of a soap slicer like the one that came in my kit.
- Cutting board
- Mixing spoon
Instructions
- Cut your soap base into small cubes. and place them in a microwave safe bowl.
2. Microwave your soap cubes a little at a time and mix them to get them to melt evenly without burning. I did 1 minute at a time and it took 3 minutes total.
3. Mix in your essential oils and/or herb. Remember: 1/2 to 1 tsp of herbs per pound of soap and 30 drops of essential oils per pound.
4. Pour your soap into your molds.
5. Place soap molds in the refridgerator for an hour or so until they are fully set.
6. Slice your soap if you used loaf molds or just pop them out of the molds you used and enjoy.
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