bar soap manufacturing process

Homemade soap making lets you watch the fascinating process of fats and lye mixed with water turning to mild bar soap. It seems almost like magic… It is a simple process to perform, but it’s easy to make mistakes. Here are a few of mine…

1. Too little scent.

Scent oils are expensive and it’s tempting to use just a little less. Recipes often don’t call for enough of the smelly oils either. If it doesn’t smell, you either used oils that don’t work in soapmaking or you used too little scent. Know what a soap that doesn’t smell is called? Unscented soap, no matter how much expensive smelly oil you poured in it.

2. Poor recipe.

Getting the right proportions of each ingredient is critical. Some recipes are just flat wrong. Probably because the author of the recipe was ignorant about how to design soap. Watch who you listen to.

3. Mis-measure.

Small recipes are harder to get right than large ones. It is critical that all proportions are right. That’s why recipes that use weights are better than recipes that use measures like cups and so forth.

4. Too little stirring.

Different recipes take different times to start hardening or tracing as it’s called. You can design recipes that trace quickly, but in any case, you just keep stirring until the soap traces. It can take 10 minutes or it can take hours…

5. Wrong tools.

The tool require are simple, but the right tools make working much easier. Cutting soap is one place where you can get hurt. Try to get soap cutting tools so you don’t use knives to cut soap. Cutting hardened soap with a knife is a quick road to injury.

Handmade soapmaking is part science and part art. The science part takes some study. The art part takes practice as well. Making soap is a great hobby and can be a profitable little business as well.

There are a variety of reasons that people decide to make their own soap.

Some do it for a greater degree of customization; some, because commercial soaps are too harsh for their skin; still others, because it’s a fun and rewarding hobby.

To get started making your own soap, you will need to consider three things:

* Your ingredients,
* Equipment
* Method

The ingredients are, arguably, the most important component of the soap-making process. Without quality ingredients, it is impossible to get a quality product. The basic materials needed to make soap are water, lye and fats. Distilled water is the best to use, because any impurities in the water, such as excess minerals, can affect the way it reacts with the lye, or alter the final soap product. Lye is the material that saponifies the fats and oils, and turns them into soap.

It used to be extracted from wood ashes, by soaking them in water, but now you can buy it in most grocery or hardware stores, or online. 100% lye is fairly easy to find, but you have to be careful, because there are different varieties of lye.

Sodium hydroxide lye (NaOH) is typically used to make hard soap, while potassium hydroxide lye (KOH) is usually used to make liquid soap. Also, be sure that you’re using lye that is indicated for soap-making, because food-grade lye is not strong enough, and lye used for drain openers or other industrial purposes is much too harsh to be used in a product that will be in prolonged contact with skin.

The fats and oils are probably the most difficult of the ingredients to select, because there are so many different oils, with so many possibilities.

Almost any natural vegetable oil or animal fat can be used to make soap – corn oil, canola oil, olive oil, vegetable shortening, beef tallow, bacon grease, lard, etc.

Be sure to thoroughly research the oils you plan to use to make sure that they will impart qualities to your final soap that you will like; for example, if you use too many unsaturated oils to make bar soap, the bars will be mushy and won’t last very long.

Other ingredients that can be used in the soap-making process include colorants, essential or fragrance oils, and other additives.

Micas, FD&C colorants, pigments or natural colorants can all be used to color your soap; again, each has its own properties, and you should research them all before deciding which ones to use.

Fragrance and essential oils can be used to scent your soap; many people prefer essential oils, because fragrance oils can sometimes cause adverse reactions in people using the soap, and they can also have an unforeseen impact on the soap batter when they are added. Essential oils are more expensive, but they also last longer in the soap, and you don’t have to use nearly as much. Avoid candle scents, potpourri oils or other commercial scents, because they are typically too harsh for skin and can cause allergic reactions.

Other additives include oatmeal, coffee grounds, sand, pumice, etc., and are usually added to make exfoliating soap, or just for aesthetic purposes.

Within the world of handmade or homemade soap making are trends which the makers follow. One of these trends is the organic soap bar.

Organic soap bars gained popularity soon after many people started turning to more natural products for their food. The demand for natural ingredients in every day items was so strong that many crafters felt the need to design this type of product. These types of soap bars use little chemicals (just lye) and so the end product really is all natural!

Since organic soap bars use natural ingredients, usually food products, it is natural and good for the environment, something that was a great selling point to environmentalists. Some organic soap bars are even free of animal fat, something appreciated by vegans or animal lovers. Also, most organic soap bars are scented naturally by the ingredients, and are colored naturally as well. Many food products have their own scents and colors that they can add to the product, and these are often taken into consideration and used as properties when creating organic soap bars.

The best selling point of organic soap bars, however, is that they are good for the skin. The natural ingredients used give the product natural moisturizing properties. Plus, because the bar goes through the natural soap making process, it skips over the commercial process in which glycerine is extracted from the final product. Glycerine is a great moisturizer, and natural soaps retain all of their glycerine.

Other times, these soaps have natural exfoliating properties. Many spas use natural soaps or similar types of liquid soap as part of their luxury treatments. If you make and use your own, you get to pamper your skin the way a spa would on a daily basis.

There are many different types of natural soaps, they can be made based on certain properties you would like the product to have. As a soap maker, it is important that you come up with unique types you can sell to your clients. Try using good quality oils and natural ingredients, which are also organic in source.

For example, if you want to make a carrot soap, be sure the carrots you use were organically grown and no pesticides were used in the growing of the produce. In cases wherein tallow or lard is used, be sure the animals from which the fat was taken are from reputable farms which raise their livestock in an organic manner, meaning no growth hormones. Though there are no recorded side effects of using non-organic ingredients in making organic soap bars, it is always best that you use the very best ingredients whenever you make your products, organic or not. This way you are sure of your product’s quality.

Finally, be sure to experiment with your ingredients. Try as many edible ingredients as you can, and be sure to try using a lot of herbs or herb infused oils too. You will be surprised at how many types of natural soaps you can create! Some people have even built entire soap making empires simply on organic soap!

Cold Process Soap is an old way of making soap that was widely spread a century ago. Making this soap, you add fatty acids to sodium hydroxide (lye). You can use any kind of oil (because that is what fatty acids are) – which can be from pig fat,olive oil etc etc.

There is a million ways of how to make it, with thousands of soap recipes just waiting for your creativity.

Cold process soap manufacture is equally science and art! In short, you take some specific amount of sodium hydroxide and then add water to fatty acids to saponify. During this chemical process, the fatty oil and sodium hydroxide mix. It can take up to 5-6 weeks to fully complete.

What you will need for Cold Process Soap Making.

• Safety equipment ( Gloves And Goggles).
• Soap Recipe.
• Lye (sodium hydroxide).

Prior to making soap through this process scrupulously research the methodology. As the result you will get high quality hard soap. The soap bar that you get will either have high lather, (coconut oil is very good for lathering); have outstanding mildness, olive oil is of help here; or have a moisturizing effect. For the latter, you can add cocoa butter or shea with hemp oil.

No matter what soap recipe you chose, have fun throughout the whole process and enjoy the final result whether you use it for your self or pass it on as a gift to someone special.

I will be adding more soap making, lip balm making and candle making topics shortly. Please keep checking.

Soap: In our daily life we use different forms of soap. We can’t imagine a single day without the use of soap. It is an essential part of cleanliness in our civilized society.
There are three different forms of soap available in the market. These are Soap Bars, Detergent Powders and Liquid Soaps. Now we will discuss how these are manufactured in detail.
Bar Soap: The raw materials in bar soaps are fats, fatty acids and inorganic water-soluble bases. Fats are extracted from mutton tallow, beef, coconut, palm and palm kernel oils. After extracting the raw material it goes to a treatment plant to make it pure.
A continuous process makes it into a liquid form of soap. During the process glycerin is produced as a byproduct. The neat liquid soap then goes through a process called vacuum spray drying, to form dry soap palette.
In the final phase the dry palettes go to the finishing line. An amalgamator blends soap palettes with all other ingredients, colorants and fragrance. In a rolling mill and refining plodder the soap palettes are then homogenized and refined. In this section the soaps palettes get the desired texture. Then the palettes are cut into the bar size and in a press unit the stamping process is done.
Detergent Soaps: In the case of powder detergents three processes are used. These are dry mixing, spray mixing and agglomeration. Spray drying process combines all constituents into a thick suspension in a big tank. The thick suspension is then heated and lifted to the top of a tower by pumping it. At the top of the tower small nozzles spray the suspension with high pressure. It creates small droplets. These droplets fall from the top of the tower. When they fall, they pass through hot air. This converts the droplets into dry granules. These granules are then collected from the base of the tower and run through a screening process. This process makes all the granules uniform in size. These uniform sized granules are cooled and some enzymes, fragrance and bleach are added.
Using new and latest technology soap manufacturers now make high-density granules. In these granules percentage of air is very low, hence the granules can be packed in a smaller packet.
Liquid Detergents: To make Liquid Soaps two processes are used. These are continuous blending process and batch kettle boiling process. Added stabilizers ensure the stability and uniformity of the end product.
During the continuous blending process in a mixer dry and liquid ingredients are blended to make a stable and uniform mixture. In recent times, high-energy mixing processes have been introduced. In this process some stabilizing agents are used.
Packaging: Packaging is the final step of soap making. Bar soaps are first packed in single packs. Large numbers are packed in cartons. Detergent powders are packed in pouches, cans or bags. Good packaging can increase sales and hence soap manufacturers lay emphasis on good packaging.
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