Starting today, we are revisiting the basics of cold process soap with the Back to Basic series. Over the next two weeks, we will cover basic concepts and tutorials designed for the beginner in mind. If you have never made cold process soap before, now is the perfect time! The Back to Basics Soapmaking Kit includes all the ingredients you need to make all 4 projects. If you are a seasoned soaper, it’s always good for a little refresher course. For our first lesson, we are covering the most important part of soaping (other than having fun)…safety! In particular, we are chatting about lye safety, including how to safely mix and handle your lye solution. Pencils ready? Let’s get started!

In order to make soap, oils must emulsify with lye, which begins the saponification process. During this process it’s important to make safety a top priority. Sodium hydroxide lye is an inorganic compound commonly found in drain cleaners like Draino. Sodium hydroxide lye is highly caustic and has the potential to burn the skin. Like driving a car, sodium hydroxide is safe when handled properly. But because lye has the potential to be extremely dangerous,  it’s important to take every safety precaution when making cold process soap.

Sodium hydroxide lye is available in various forms, such as flakes, pellets and powder. To make cold process soap, lye is introduced to a liquid like distilled water. The liquid dissolves the lye and creates a lye solution. Mixing water and lye creates an exothermic reaction that causes a dramatic temperature increase. Adding lye to room temperature water can cause the water to reach temperatures up to 200 ° F. The mixture also creates fumes, which should not be inhaled.

Yes, all this information sounds a little scary, and it’s totally normal to be nervous when first working with lye. Luckily, it’s easy to protect oneself from harm when creating lye solution. Below are my basic lye safety tips. I also recommend watching the How to Make Cold Process Soap: Lye Safety & Ingredients video below.

Wear Proper Safety Gear:  When working with lye, wearing protective safety gear is a must. This includes eye goggles, gloves, long sleeves and long pants. Covering your skin helps protect it from spills or drops of lye solution. Some soapers also like to wear surgical masks to avoid breathing in any fumes.

Mix Lye in an Appropriate Place: The area in which you mix your lye solution should have good ventilation to avoid breathing in lye fumes. When weather allows, some soapers like to mix their lye solution outside to get the best ventilation possible. When indoors, I like to open a few windows or turn on a fan. In addition to ventilation, it’s important to make sure kids, pets and other distractions and tripping hazards are out of the house or don’t have access to your soaping space. Some soapers prefer to soap with a ventilator or air filter on to help filter out any fumes that happen during the mixing process.

Always Add Lye to Water (Never Water to Lye!): When mixing water and lye the first step is to measure the correct amounts into separate containers. Once you have the correct amounts for your recipe, the lye should be slowly added to the water. NEVER add water to your lye! Doing so can cause the lye to expand, or erupt, out of the container. A popular rhyme to help you remember the order is: “It’s smarter to add lye to water! Add water to lye and you may die!” It’s definitely an extreme rhyme, but it can be helpful in the beginning! 

Use an Appropriate Mixing Container:  It’s important to mix your lye solution in a durable and safe container. The container should be a sturdy, heat-resistant plastic or glass. I don’t recommend mixing lye solution in a metal container. This is because the lye solution gets incredibly hot. It’s also because lye and some metals produce a hazardous reaction. Sodium hydroxide and aluminum produce hydrogen gases, which can be extremely dangerous. Lye also reacts with tin. To be on the safe side, I avoid metal containers entirely. If using glass, make sure your container is extremely sturdy. I have used Pyrex containers successfully for years, but I know some soapers have had experience with these containers breaking. On occasion, I also use Easy Pour and Mixing Containers to mix my lye, as they are made out of a sturdy plastic. I recommend choosing a container that is large enough to catch any splashes as you stir. To be extra safe, mix your lye and water over a sink in case there are any spills.

Store Lye Appropriately: While waiting for the lye solution to cool to suitable soaping temperatures, make sure your container is clearly labeled “LYE” to ensure nobody touches or tampers with the solution. It’s also helpful to move it to a place where kids or pets will not touch or drink the solution. The jar of lye flakes, pellets or powder should always be kept out of reach of children, and should be properly labeled “POISON,” or “DO NOT TOUCH,” to ensure people do not tamper with the lye.

If You Get Lye on Your Skin: According the sodium hydroxide MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet), if your skin comes in contact with lye, remove any contaminated clothing. Flush immediately with plenty of water for at least 15 minutes. Seek medical attention. If it comes in contact with eyes, flush immediately with water for at least 15 minutes and get medical attention. If inhaled, move to fresh air.

Many soapers keep vinegar on hand, believing it neutralizes lye burns. There is some controversy in the soapmaking community about washing lye burns with vinegar rather than water. Adding vinegar (an acid) to lye (a base) creates a chemical reaction that releases more heat. Additionally, the act of putting vinegar on a lye burn hurts. Just use water as the MSDS sheet suggests.

Although vinegar should not be used to treat lye burns on skin, it can be used as precaution during the cleanup process. A quick wipe of your workspace with a vinegar-soaked rag will neutralize any lye dust that may have gotten on the surface.

Now that you have safely mixed your lye solution, it’s time to make cold process soap. But safety doesn’t stop here! During the entire soap making process, it’s important to wear your safety gear which includes goggles, long sleeves and pants, and gloves. This is because the lye solution still has the potential to irritate the skin once mixed with soaping oils.

Once you pour the lye solution into the oils and begin to emulsify, the saponification process begins. For an in-depth explanation of what saponification means, check out this blog post and Soap Queen TV video. As the saponification process develops, the lye solution becomes less caustic. Raw soap batter is not as dangerous as pure lye water, but it can still irritate the skin. Wearing saftey gear while soaping helps avoid any contact with the soap batter. If soap batter touches the skin, you may not notice until several minutes later when your skin begins to tingle and burn. Quickly wash away any soap batter on the skin with water and a gentle soap. Once  saponification is complete, all lye molecules have been transformed into soap and will not harm the skin.

The soap above has reached a thin trace. If you were to get the mixture on your skin, wash it off immediately under cool water for several minutes until the itching or burning subsides. 

After you’re done soaping, it’s time to wash your dishes. Because the soap will still irritate the skin, leave your gloves on while washing any soaping dishes. I recommend wiping out any excess soap with a paper towel, then washing your dishes in the sink with hot water and grease-cutting soap like Dawn. If you want to avoid washing oils down the sink, you may prefer the “garbage bag clean up method.” Read about each clean up method in the Soapy Session Clean Up Guide.

Making cold process soap is extremely rewarding and fun. During my entire “soaping lifetime,” I have never experienced a serious lye burn. I have experienced both lye water and soap batter on my skin, but was able to wash it off right away with no serious harm done. The worst injury I ever experienced while soaping was when I got fresh soap in a cut on my hand…ouch! I attribute my soaping good fortune to always taking the extra steps to ensure safety for myself and people around me. Much like wearing a seat belt when driving a car, proper safety precautions are the first step in creating homemade soap. What steps do you take to ensure you are soaping safely?  I would love to hear your input!

Be sure to check back tomorrow for our first cold process recipe, a Simple & Gentle Cold Process recipe. It’s the perfect soap for somebody who has never tried cold process soaping before.

The post Back to Basics: Lye Safety Guide appeared first on Soap Queen.

Before jumping into the complicated world of substituting oil in cold process recipes, I recommend reading the Free Beginner’s Guide to Soapmaking: Common Soapmaking Oils blog post. The key to substituting oils is to find an oil with similar properties in terms of how it behaves in soap. The Common Soapmaking Oils blog post provides a brief profile on each oil including what properties it contributes to soap, along with recommended usage rates.

In addition to this handy blog post, I also recommend becoming familiar with the Lye Calculator. The calculator is key for determining how much lye  is necessary to turn the oils in your recipe into soap. For more information on how to use the calculator, check out the Using the Lye Calculator blog post. When substituting oils in a recipe, remember: always run the recipe through the Lye Calculator again. Even if you are using the same amount of oil, the amount of lye necessary to turn the oil into soap may be different. The Bramble Berry Lye Calculator is also available on your phone via the Soap Lye Calculator App! Available for both iPhone and Android, just search “Bramble Berry” to download.

The amount of lye necessary for the recipe depends on the saponification value of each oil. The saponification value (aka: SAP value) refers to the amount of lye it takes to turn 1 gram of oil into 1 gram of soap. The SAP value for each oil and butter may vary slightly depending on where it comes from. Because SAP values can vary, one lye calculator may give slightly different results than another calculator. When substituting oils in recipes, the SAP value can be helpful to identify oils that behave similarly. Keep in mind the SAP value does not reveal the characteristics (such as lather and moisture) that the oil gives to soap.

The amount of lye needed for the recipe depends on the type, and amount of oils used. Remember to always run your recipe through the Lye Calculator to ensure proper lye and water amounts.

Some of the best cold process recipes contain a combination of both hard and soft oils. What is a hard oil, and what is a soft oil? A hard oil or butter is solid at room temperature. Some of the most common hard oils include palm oil and coconut oil. Butters such as cocoa, shea, avocado, coffee and mango are a mix, but most consider them to be hard oils as well. In order to use these oils in cold process soap, they must be melted to a liquid state. Hard oils and butters contribute firmness to the final bar. If the recipe does not contain enough hard oils, the bar may be soft or sticky to touch.

Shown above are palm oil, shea butter and cocoa butter. All three are hard oils because they are solid at room temperature. 

Soft oils refer to oils that are liquid at room temperature. The list of soft oils is expansive, but some of the most popular include olive oil, canola oil, rice bran oil, avocado oil, and sweet almond oil. Soft oils contribute skin-loving properties to soap, and ensure it is not brittle. Soft oils also help prevent the soap from cracking.

When substituting an oil from a recipe, the first step is to consider what kind of oil it is. Is it hard, or is it soft? In general, hard oils should replace hard oils, and soft oils should replace soft oils. Doing so will help maintain the balance of hard and soft oils. Once you’ve narrowed down the texture of the oil, consider what the oil does for the recipe. Does it give the soap firmness, moisture, or contribute to the lather? Selecting an oil with similar soaping qualities helps retain the properties of the original recipe. Of course these guidelines are not absolute; For example, if you want to soften the original recipe, you may replace a butter with a soft oil.

Remember, there are no concrete rules when it comes to substituting oils in cold process recipes. Let’s take a look at the Espresso Shot Cold Process recipe below, which features cocoa butter. The percentage of each oil and butter are listed as well.

Espresso Shot Cold Process Recipe:
16.5 oz. Olive Oil 30%
13.7 oz. Palm Oil 25%
13.7 oz. Coconut Oil 25%
2.7 oz. Hazelnut Oil 5%
2.7 oz. Coffee Butter 5%
5.5 oz. Cocoa Butter 10%
7.7 oz. Sodium Hydroxide
18.1 oz. distilled water

This recipe contains the normal 20-30% of olive oil, palm oil and coconut oil. It contains 10% of cocoa butter, which is an extremely hard butter. Coffee butter is also a hard oil, but is slightly softer than cocoa butter. Hazelnut oil is light, non-greasy liquid oil that is great for dry skin. You’re ready to recreate this recipe, but realize you don’t have any cocoa butter. What else could you use?

The cocoa butter makes this soap firm. Other oils that give this recipe firmness are the palm oil and coffee butter. One option is to slightly increase the palm oil to 30%, and increase the coffee butter to 10%; increasing these oils will make up for the firmness you lose by omitting the cocoa butter. Another option would be to increase the palm to 30% and the hazelnut oil to 10%. This option will result in a slightly softer bar. Palm kernel flakes would also make a great substitution. However you choose to tweak the recipe, don’t forget to run the new oil amounts through the Lye Calculator! There are many more substitution options for this recipe. The key to substitutions is to consider what qualities the oil gives to the soap, and how it interacts with the other oils in the recipe.

Substituting Palm, Olive & Coconut Oils:
Palm, olive and coconut oil are the three most common soap making oils. Many recipes revolve around these three oils. Palm oil contributes firmness, coconut oil provides cleansing properties and olive oil gives the bar softness and skin-loving attributes. The combination of these three oils creates a bar that is firm, cleansing and moisturizing. A very common soap recipe involves using 30% olive, coconut and palm oils with an additional 10% extra oil. Looking to substitute one of these oils? Here are my recommendations and tips:

• Replacing Palm Oil: Palm oil gives soap firmness and is a secondary lathering agent. It makes soap easier to unmold, and contributes to a thicker trace. When replacing palm in a recipe, you’ll want to find an oil/butter that contains high amounts of palmitic or stearic acid. If you are looking to replace palm oil, tallow is a popular option. Tallow is a rendered form of beef or mutton fat. Tallow gives soap firmness, and a creamy lather. It is not particularly cleansing, and because of this it is often combined with coconut oil. For more information on tallow, click here. Another option when formulating a recipe without palm, is to use other hard oils such as butters or palm kernel flakes. Keep in mind, palm oil can be used up to 30% in cold process recipes, while butters and palm kernel flakes should be used at 15% or below. Adding sodium lactate to your palm free recipe helps the soap harden faster, making soft recipes easier to unmold. Sodium lactate should be used at a rate of 1 tsp. per pound of oils.
• Replacing Coconut Oil: Coconut oil is a unique soap making oil. In addition to adding firmness, it gives the recipe cleansing properties and a full lather. Because of its cleansing nature, using more than 30% coconut oil can result in soap that is drying to the skin. In my opinion, coconut oil is the trickiest oil to substitute. If you are looking to formulate a recipe without coconut oil, palm kernel flakes can help. I recommend using 15% or less of palm kernel flakes in your cold process recipe.
• Replacing Olive Oil: Olive Oil is extremely gentle, and gives soap a mild and creamy lather. Olive oil can be used up to 100% in cold process recipes; soap made with 100% olive oil is referred to as castile soap. Good substitutes for olive oil include rice bran oil and canola oil. Both rice bran and canola oil contribute a creamy lather, very similar to olive oil. Rice bran oil can be used up to 100%. while canola is recommended at 40% or below. Pomace olive oil is very different from pure olive oil. Pomace olive oil is made by extracting the last bits of oil and fat from the paste left over from pressing extra virgin olive oil. Pomace olive oil speeds up trace more so than pure olive oil, and adds hardness.

Below is a list of common soap making oils, along with oils that have similar properties. Keep in mind that while oils may have similar soaping characteristics, they may have different usage rates. For example, if you need to make soap without coconut oil, palm kernel flakes also give cleansing and firmness. But, palm kernel flakes have a slightly lower usage rate than coconut oil. While these oil substitutions will maintain the basic makeup of the recipe, some oils have unique properties that cannot be substituted, like castor oil. And of course, don’t forget to always run your recipe through the Lye Calculator! If you make a substitution, we recommend making a small test batch of soap. That way you can see how the soap feels with the new ingredient and make adjustments if necessary.

Common Soap Making Oil Substitutes
Apricot Kernel Oil: Sweet Almond Oil, Hazelnut Oil
Avocado Oil: Chia Seed Oil, Sweet Almond Oil
Avocado Butter: Shea Butter, Mango Butter
Canola Oil: Olive Oil, Rice Bran Oil
Castor Oil: No substitute
Cocoa Butter: Beeswax, Shea Butter, Palm Kernel Flakes
Coconut Oil: Palm Kernel Flakes, Tallow
Coffee Butter: Avocado Butter, Shea Butter
Chia Seed Oil: Sweet Almond Oil, Avocado Oil
Grapeseed Oil: Olive Oil, Hazelnut Oil
Hazelnut Oil: Grapeseed Oil, Apricot Kernel Oil, Hemp Seed Oil
Hemp Seed Oil: Avocado Oil, Hazelnut Oil
Jojoba Oil: Meadowfoam Oil
Mango Butter: Avocado Butter, Shea Butter
Meadowfoam Oil: Jojoba Oil
Olive Oil: Rice Bran Oil, Canola Oil, Grapeseed Oil
Palm Oil: Tallow, Palm Kernel Flakes
Palm Kernel Flakes: Palm Oil, Coconut Oil
Peanut Oil: Olive Oil, Canola Oil
Rice Bran Oil: Olive Oil, Canola Oil
Safflower Oil: Canola Oil, Sunflower Oil
Shea Butter: Avocado Butter, Mango Butter
Sunflower Oil: Olive Oil, Safflower Oil
Sweet Almond Oil: Apricot Kernel Oil, Avocado Oil, Chia Seed Oil
Tamanu Oil: Neem Oil, Pumpkin Seed Oil

Remember, if you do sub out any oils in your soapmaking, always run it through a lye calculator!

When you substitute oils in a recipe, what steps do you take? It’s such a complicated and personal process, and everybody does it a little differently. I would love to hear any tips or tricks you may have!

The post How to Substitute Oil in Cold Process Recipes appeared first on Soap Queen.

Mixing lye water and oils together starts the saponification process. Saponification occurs once the oil and lye molecules create new soap molecules. If you are a visual learner, this Soap Queen TV episode explains the saponification process visually. And for even more information, in Erica Pences’s online classes (here and here) she delves deep into trace and the uses of different types of trace. Once the lye and oils are saponified and the two will not separate, the soap has reached trace!

Immediately upon pouring lye water into oils, the mixture will begin to turn slightly cloudy and milky. With a few pulses and stirs of the stick blender, the entire mixture will turn a creamy consistency. This process happens fairly quickly. Before the age of stick blenders, it could take hours for soap to reach trace! In the photos below, you can see the lye water and oils are beginning to emulsify. Trace has not been achieved.

Notice the streaks of oil in the photos below? These mixtures have not reached trace, because they are not thoroughly mixed. Some of the oils have not yet started saponification, and the mixture is not completely emulsified. These mixtures need more stirring and stick blending to reach trace. If the soap was poured into the mold at this point, the soap would not properly set up. There may also be pockets of unsaponified oil and lye in your soap, which may cause skin irritation.

With a few more pulses and stirs with the stick blender, the soap will reach light trace. Light trace refers to soap batter with no oil streaks, and has the consistency of thin cake batter. The batter will be easy to pour, as shown below. Thin trace is an ideal time to add colorants and fragrances because the thin texture is easy to stir and blend. Light trace is perfect for swirled cold process designs, such as the Fall Sherbert Cold Process and the French Curl Cold Process soap.

Once the soap reaches light trace, medium trace soon follows. Medium trace can be recognized by a a thick cake batter or thin pudding consistency. Trailings of soap stay on the surface of your soap mixture when lightly drizzled from a few inches overhead. Medium trace is a great time to incorporate additives that need to suspend within the soap such as poppy seeds in the Lemon Poppy Seed Cold Process Tutorial.

Adding poppy seeds into medium trace soap keeps them evenly suspended throughout the batter.

In order to reach thick trace, excessive stick blending is usually required. Thick trace is the consistency of thick pudding and holds its shaped when poured. Thick trace is perfect for bottom layers, as it is able to support lighter soap on top. It’s also great for creating textured tops, as seen in the Christmas Tree Swirl Cold Process. An extremely thick trace is necessary for creating cold process soap frosting, as seen in the Whipped Cold Process Frosting on Soap Queen TV.

When making cold process soap, beware of false trace. False trace occurs when soap batter appears to be a thick consistency, but the oils and butters have not saponified. Perhaps the most common cause of false trace is using solid oils or butters at too cool of a temperature. If solid butters and fats are below their melting point, the oils and butters may re-solidify. When this occurs, the soap batter may begin to thicken due to the oils and butters cooling and solidifying, and not because saponifaction is taking place. To avoid false trace, ensure any hard oils or butters are thoroughly melted and do not cool during the soaping process.

Factors that can affect trace:

• Stick blenders bring soap to trace more quickly than stirring by hand. When mixing your water and oils, alternate between stirring and pulsing the stick blender in short bursts. Once the soap has reached a thin trace, do not continue stick blending unless you’d like to reach a medium or thick trace.
• Some fragrance oils can accelerate the soap batter, causing it to reach a thick trace more quickly. To avoid this, use a whisk to blend in fragrance oils rather than a stick blender. Mixing in a fragrance oil with a stick blender can cause even the most well behaved fragrance oil to accelerate trace. Read more in the Soap Behaving Badly post.
• Adding fragrances after colorants and other additives gives you more time to work with the soap before a medium or thick trace is reached.
• Some additives, such as clay, affect trace. This is why pre-mixing with water helps to slow water absorption when using clays. The water and oil absorbing properties of the clay can speed trace.
• The oils and butters used will affect how quickly the soap will reach trace, and how quickly it will turn into medium or thick trace. Soap made with a high percentage of hard oils and butters will reach trace more quickly than soap made with mostly liquid oils. For example, the Castile Cubes Cold Process are made with 100% olive oil. With no hard oils or butters, this soap  could be stick blended for a long time before reaching medium trace!
• Temperature also plays a part in trace. When soaping at higher temperatures, medium and thick trace will be reached more quickly than when soaping with cooler temperatures. If your design requires a lot of swirls, soaping at room temperature is common.
• Water discounting results in faster trace. A water discount is the process of decreasing the amount of recommended water in a recipe. Water discounting results in a harder bar of soap, with a shorter cure time. But, when water is discounted the recipe will reach medium and thick trace faster. Because of this, water discounting is recommended for more advanced soapers.
• Adding cold additives, such as cold milk or cream, at the end of your soapmaking process can dramatically speed trace.
• Increasing the superfat in a recipe will result in a slower moving recipe. Superfat is the amount of oils and butters in the soap that did not go through saponification. Increasing the amount of free-floating oils will slow down trace, but it also leads to a softer bar of soap that is more likely to develop DOS. In our experience, a superfat of 5 percent produces a balanced bar that behaves well.

The best way to learn about trace is to make soap! It can take some practice to get a feel for what trace looks and feels like. When making soap, do you have any tips or tricks when it comes to trace? 

The post All About the Trace appeared first on Soap Queen.