Dinosaurs and Moustaches
Homemade honey and nut soap
Let's make some soap, some honey and nut soap. It's quite a nice thing to do on a rainy afternoon and not particularly taxing either. I thought I'd share the recipe I used, which worked quite well.
Other combinations of ingredients are quite possible, but the molecular structures and all varies, so you're best off finding a proper book by an actual chemist if that's your game.
Caustic soda
Soap is basically a sodium salt of a fatty acid: it provides another welcome demonstration of the fun to be had with caustic soda. The sodium comes from lye, which is just caustic soda dissolved in water.
250ml of tap water goes into a clean jar, then pour in 125g of caustic soda crystals and stir like buggery. You should probably wear rubber gloves and use a funnel for that, since you really don't want it on your skin.
Also remember to always add caustic soda to water, never the other way around or it will become angry. The fluid gets rather hot, up to maybe ninety degrees, which is kind of surprising since all you did is put one thing in another thing.
Leave that on the side for now, you'll need it later.
Oils
Next comes the other side of the equation, the oils, and three will be required. All the recipes you find for these measure them out by weight, not volume, and oil is less dense than water. This is rather annoying when you need 250g of something expensive, and can only find 250ml bottles of it.
The first oil was peanut oil, 350g thereof, which serves as the soap's base.
The second was hazelnut oil, which must be fairly fancy because you even Waitrose don't stock it. I couldn't quite find the 250g of this needed, so I got as much as I could and topped it up with a cheeky dash of sunflower.
The third, coconut oil, is a comedy experience. It's a solid at room temperature and will help to make your soap hard; squeezing it out is just fun. You want 400g of this one, but it's no good to you in solid form: put it in a bowl and microwave it on medium until it's melted.
Pour them all into an old ice cream tub and and mix it up.
Nice little extras
You're pretty much ready now, and can see how simple this really is. It's just time to sort out some additions, so they're on hand for when you need them.
I used a tablespoon of honey, since it's awesome stuff and stops the soap from drying out your skin too much. All that and it's really tasty: good work bees! I also used a tablespoon of ground cinnamon and a teaspoon of nutmeg to make it smell a bit nice. Food colouring can make it look more enticing too.
Mix it up
Back on go the rubber gloves, and probably an apron since this next stage can splash somewhat.
Pour the lye solution into the tub of oils, and the two liquids will start reacting, doing their work. Once all the lye's been added, it's time to get stirring continuously; might want to use a low speed if using an electric mixer.
When the mixture reaches the consistency where lines form where you were stirring, stir in your additions. That's what the book says, at any rate, but I wasn't really sure when that was, so probably stuck them in too early.
The waiting game
Not much left to do but to leave it work now. That's what you get for cold process soap making: it takes a few hours. There is also a hot process which involves hot boiling mixtures of death that work quicker but just aren't as nice. You were probably just going to waste any time you'd save, wouldn't you?
Lid goes on the tub, and tub gets wrapped up with a tea towel. Just leave it there for a few hours, and marvel that the mixture heats up naturally. Witchcraft, that's what it is. You'll know it's done because it'll be a completely solid lump of cold soap which you can turn out.
Tada! Aren't you pleased with that? Have a bath, give it a go! Well, a great big litre-and-a-half bar is probably a bit unwieldy and you'd drop it and slip over in the shower. Better to chop it up, since then you can give it to people and impress: this recipe should produce twelve decent sized bars.
It's quite good that - I might have to make some more.
