DIY Soap Like a Pro! Get 32 Bars From One Batch | HTME: Practical

this episode is sponsored by Squarespace it's linked to their support that our videos like this and more possible we've recreated our website using Squarespace and love using it you can check out the link of the description if you need to website yourself get 10% off by going to Squarespace comm slash make everything in our last video we had John give me some advice for making bug spray but the main product he makes himself is actually soap earlier this year I made over a dozen soaps myself an attempt to dissect and understand the full process behind soap making my method was probably the most unnecessarily complicated way to actually make soap so what we had John I thought we'd bring back our practical series or we have an actual expert come and give useful advice in the event that you ever wanted to make it yourself hello my name is John Hansen I'm the owner of the longfellow soap company in Minneapolis Minnesota I have been making soap for about eight years and I've had a business for about four years I started with one wholesale account and I now have eighteen and I have sold 40,000 bars of soap in the last three years you're most likely not gonna lose a finger making soap I lost this in a table saw accident and also you're not going to lose fingers if you accidentally get Ally on them doesn't work that fast so you can make a batch of soap in approximately two hours from the time you start lining your mold to the time that you pour the soap so let's make some soap here's the equipment you'll need to make your own soap you need two stainless steel pots one six quart or heating the oil and mixing the soap one four quart pot for mixing the lion water you need a stick blender for mixing the soap and the lye together you need chemical resistant gloves for handling the lye so you don't burn your skin you need an infrared thermometer for monitoring the temperature the oil as you heat it and the lye is you cool it freezer paper to make a liner for the mold you need a blanket to wrap the soap in while it's setting up so it cools slowly you need a mold for the soap into so it has time to set up before you cut it a level to make sure that the mold is level otherwise the soap will be thicker on one end than the other you can either use carpenters framing squares or a ruler to mark the soap for cutting you'll need knives for cutting you need scissors and tape for putting the lining in the and if you want to make a little fancier bar of soap and you want to have rippled edges you can use a julienne vegetable cutter ingredients that you'll need to make soap you'll need a three liter bottle of olive oil lowest grade olive oil but you can get you don't want to use virgin olive oil because it's more expensive and it's very dark in color so it will color your soap I also use 15 ounces of avocado oil you need 15 ounces of coconut oil you need one bottle of lye 16 ounces for the soap I'm making tonight I'm using lemongrass essential oil and I'm using grated lemon peel as an exfoliant the recipe I'm going to be using is for nine pounds of soap so a nine pound mold you need to have something that's roughly 12 by 24 and the interior dimensions will be 22 and 1/2 by 10 and a half you cannot pour the soap directly into the mold it'll stick to the wood you'll never get the soap out so you need to put a liner in the mold and I use freezer paper because it's plastic coated and the soap comes off very easily the way most molds are made the bottom is recessed so the inside diameter here is the same as the mold so you can make your liner using this and it will fit in your mold you want to pull the paper about two-and-a-half inches beyond the end of the mold this is going to form one end of the mold I also want to go another two and a half inches this way and you want to cut it off with a scissors because the serrated edges on the box will most likely tear the paper you want to turn it over so that the plastic side is up because this is the side you'll be pouring the soap into I'm gonna roll the paper up because it's too long to go lengthwise you won't have room for the tape so you need to roll it up and you need to cut off about two-and-a-half inches like so [Music] let's start by folding one side you want to turn it around push it against the edge of the mold and fold the other side so you fold your two long sides and if it's not square you want to square off the end and then fold that over because that's gonna form the end of your liner and then to come up with a square corner fold this back on each side at 45 degrees and when that opens up inside you'll get a nice square corner fold the other side and again leave about sixteenth of an inch gap for expansion of paper fold your forty-five degrees and generally this will be too long so you're gonna want to trim like this flip the mold over and you've got a liner that fits nicely inside your mold and this is a special tape masking tape made by 3m it's for concrete and stucco so it's extremely sticky and it sticks well because there's a lot of moisture inside the mold as the soap sets up if you use regular masking tape it probably will peel off the side of the mold your paper will cave in and you'll get big dents in your soap so I recommend you get this stucco and cement tape and I put three pieces on each end and five on each side to tape the liner in tape is in place I'm going to tape it in the middle and then work to the outside and because of that 45 degree angle you get a nice square corner and make sure that your liner is down tight against the bottom of the mold otherwise you'll get ripples in the bottom of the soap and now this is ready for pour in your soap the next step is to pour your oils into your pan to get ready to heat them this I measured ahead of time 15 ounces of avocado oil one jar coconut oil the coconut oil is normally solid at room temperature so you do need to melt this we're going to be making lemongrass soap with lemon exfoliat so this is about a tablespoon of grated lemon peel once you've got all your oils measured then you want to start heating it you want to do it on a very low temperature you don't want it to heat up too quickly now while the oil is starting to heat I'm gonna mix the lye in the water together you want to use either spring water distilled water or in the summertime save your dehumidifier water tap water's not good because it has a trace chemical in it like chlorine or fluoride always put your water in the pan first always always always add the lye to the water so you don't get any splashing the lye is readily available in hardware stores comes in a 16-ounce bottle my recipe uses one bottle so you want to pour that in slowly so it doesn't splash then you want to stir it thoroughly and you also if you have it you want to use a hood fan because the fumes are very noxious and will make you call it crazy if you don't have a fan that vents to the outside you want to mix your lye outside your home after about three to five minutes the fumes will dissipate and it's safe to bring the lye back inside if you've taken it outside initially the temperature of the lye will go up between 185 and 200 degrees so it's extremely hot the reason that lye gets so hot is when the water breaks the lie-down it releases almost all of its positive electrons in the form of heat and that's why it goes up to about 200 degrees Fahrenheit when you mix the lye with the oil the lye is trying to recapture those electrons from the oil and that's how it breaks the oil apart and turns it into soap and that's called saponification the saponification takes place and it's immediate and it is then safe the lye has been neutralized the waiting period while it is curing is really just for the soap to dry out for some of the moisture to come out of it once the fumes are dissipated and you've brought it back inside if you've done it outside you can put it in the water bath too to cool more quickly if you just cool it at room temperature it could take an hour for the lye to get cool enough to use when you're heating your oil it's important to monitor the temperature because you want to bring it up slowly to 100 degrees Fahrenheit once the lye reaches a hundred degrees you want to take it out of the water bath and you can bring it over to where your oil is waiting you're going to pour it in slowly so it doesn't splash and the lye will sink to the bottom of the pan you want to use a stick blender to mix it you can mix it by hand but it takes so long to do that to soak me thicken up before you get done and I mix it for about 45 seconds that's long enough to make sure everything is thoroughly mixed and the saponification takes place I do not bring my soap to trace because then when I pour it it will self level if you take the soap to trace it's so thick that'll glop up in the middle of the mold and you'll have to spread it out with a spatula once that's mixed you want to add your essential oil and I mix that for about 15 seconds just enough to get it throughout the soap once your soap is mixed you can pour it into the mold start on one end and move slowly to the other but I'm the lid cover with the blanket the blanket keeps it warm while it's setting up so it doesn't cool too fast sometimes if the soap cools too fast it will crack and in 12 hours it'll be ready to cut so after 12 hours this is what your soap will look like it's set up and firm enough to cut loosen all the tape pull the pin out open the front pop out the soap all right start by peeling the corners first and then pull the paper down off the side you want to pull it over the edge of your counter or your table and peel make sure to support the soap so it doesn't break off starting from one end I use this it's called a carpenter's square and I mark in three inch intervals because a standard bar of soap is too is by three inches and then line up your marks and make a mark across the length of the block now most people will have a butcher knife like this in their kitchen so you push that tip down try and keep it perpendicular to the soap once you've made these larger blocks then you can cut them into the three inch wide blocks use kind of a rocking motion to get through the soap if you want to make fancy cuts this is a julienne vegetable cutter and then you want to measure in two inch intervals and score where you're going to cut and then keep this as perpendicular as you can and chop straight down so once you've cut all your bars they need to cure or dry out for three weeks so you want to set them on a flat surface like a cookie sheet and you want to put paper towels down before you set the soap and then you want to lay your soap down with space between so the air can circulate and you want to let them cure for three weeks one week on one side and then turn them over and two weeks on the second side and in three weeks your soap is ready to use thanks again to Squarespace for making this episode possible 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Channel: How To Make Everything

Views: 769,972

Keywords: HTME, DIY, Fun, Smart, Learn, Teach, Maker, History, Science, Education, Educational, School, Invention, Agriculture, Technology, soap, soap maker, soap making, crafts, artisinal soap, artisan, organic soap, cleaning product, small business, saponification, cocout oil, maker, industry, innovator, diy soap, make soap at home, make your own soap, soap recipes, brow tidy ox, how to make everything, large batch soap making, handmade soap, make soap, antivirus, antiviral, coronavirus, anti germ

Id: 5dHrUJIIGrA

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 04 2018