November 29, 1999

Soapmaking So Easy, It Should Be Illegal.

Saturday night I tried, for the first time, closed-system double-boiler hot process soap. (CSDBHP for the acronym-addicted.) Oh Man! It was so easy. It was fabulous. I read a book practically the whole time, and when it was done I poured it into molds and let it cool and I had soap! I used it in the shower this morning. And it's wonderful soap. I can't sing the praises of this method enough. It's just so easy. How easy, you ask? Well. . . .

Step one: make CP soap. Don't worry about temps. Just mix your oils and lye-water and whiz to a trace with a stick blender.

Step two: While you're stirring your soap to a trace, put on a huge pot of water to boil. When it's a rolling boil. . . .

Step three: Put your pot of traced soap inside the pot of boiling water. Put the lid on both pans. Now ... set the time for half an hour and go do something productive, you big couch potato! (J/k.)

Step four: At half an hour, check your water level to make sure your water in the outer pot still comes up to the top of the soap in the inner pot and that the water hasn't boiled away. Add more boiling water from a teapot if necessary. Now set that timer for another half hour and go finish whatever you started.

Step five: Okay, your soap has been cooking for an hour now. You can try a taste test. So uncover both pots and dip in a plastic fork and then if you want, rub a bit of soap between your fingers. As it cools in the open air it should turn kind of waxy and stiff on your fingers, and if you touch your soapy finger to your tongue you shouldn't get a lye tingle. If you do, don't worry .... you still have more cooking to go. So cover your pans back up and set that timer for another half hour.

Step six: Get your molds and fragrance and whatever ready.

Step seven: After an hour and a half, take your soap double boiler (both pans!) off the heat, and set them (still nested together) in a sink of cold water to gently cool down. Take your trusty thermometer and measure the temperature of your soap in the inner pot. It should look, by the way, like some old melty vaseline ... like CP's gel stage, kind of. Whisk it up with a spoon to scrape down the sides (although it should all be nicely mixed due to the heating action of the boiling water) and when the temp is 190° Fahrenheit or less add your FO/EO. Now if your luck holds, you can pour the finished soap into your molds ... otherwise, scoop it into your molds and tap the mold on the counter after every glop to release air bubbles.

Step eight: Get a cold drink, because you now have completed soap sitting on your counter top! HAPPY SOAPERS DANCE!!!! Let it cool in the room temperature air, and when it's done you can cut it and use it right away. Sometimes it might need a day or so to fully firm up, but it's finished soap by that time.

So anyways, that soap was just so easy that it ought to be illegal. LOL. I wouldn't recommend doing it unless you were already familiar with basic soapmaking with CP and maybe direct-heat hot process as well (to be familiar with the steps and how the soap looks at different stages, not to mention how to handle the caustic materials), but it was a great method. Plus I love anything that's a success the first time I try to do it. LOL