Do you know what are the ingredients used by industrials to make the soap we are using everyday? Well actually soap is made by mixing the liquid of sodium (NaOH) / potassium hydroxide (KOH) with oil or fat. Through the chemical process, the sodium or potassium hydroxide change the oils or fat to soap. This process is called saponification. A good soap contains a lot of glycerin that can moisten and smoothing your skin as well as refreshing and oiling your skin’s cells. Unfortunately, the glycerin content in most soap produced by industries is very low. To overcome this problem, the best solution is by making your own handmade soap.
Here is the making process of handmade soap you can try in your home. First, make sure you understand the danger of NaOH and KOH without caution. You have to be careful as the substances won’t splashed directly on your skin or eyes. It is better you protect your hand and eyes by wearing gloves and eyeglasses while working with those dangerous substances. The other ingredients you have to prepare is oil or fat, water as catalyst, choose the one with less mineral content, essential oils or fragrance oils, and additive substance such as herbs, talk, or flour that can be added at the trace phase.
After you prepare the ingredients, prepare the casting molds with any shape as you like, and grease those molds. Now you can start to mix the chemical substances with cool water, make sure you don’t use aluminum bowl for this process. Stir well and the liquid will mixture will be heat up and looks whiter. After you sure they are all mixed well, keep it in the room’s temperature until cold and you will get a clear mixture. Now you can pour the oil or fat to the blender and mix it with the liquid mixture of NaOH / KOH. Cover the blender to avoid splashes and turn the blender on at the lowest speed. After a while, you will get your mixture entering the “trace” phase that means the soap mixture started to thicken. At this phase, you can add fragrance oil, and additive substance. Stir for a couple of seconds and then stop the spin. Now you can pour the mixture to the mold, cover it with fabric and wait for two or three days. Keep it for at least 3 weeks before you start using it.
Soap is the most important aspect we have to use on our bathing activity. It can be in a form of soap bar or liquid soap. The most important thing of using natural soap is simply because this soap will not make your skin dried. Handmade soap is different from common soaps. The soaps that you usually find in the market are a kind of detergent bars. Those kinds of soaps have a risk to irritate your skin because they have removed the skin-loving glycerin from them and replaced with synthetic foaming agents. This features will make your skin dry. As information for you, a bar of soap has to pass saponification chemical process first before its send to the markets.
Basically, the soap maker will blend oils (fat) with sodium hydroxide (lye) and the chemical process that follows to make soap. When handmade soap is finished saponifying, there will be no lye left in the soap. All lye has been neutralized during the chemical reaction in the process. Don’t worry about the moisturizer. During the saponification process, glycerin is produced naturally. This is the main feature which moisturizing the skin. Some soaps also have to pass superfatting process. This process means that when they figure up the formula to make a soap, the soap maker add a little more oil than the lye.
The benefit that you gain from this process is the extra oil will stays in the soap and helps to moisturize your skin. Usually, the soap maker uses 100% sea butter for the superfat. As we know, sea butter has many good benefits without the oily feeling. Your skin will feel so normal and healthy without any oily pores. Well, handmade soap has many good ingredients. Soap makers use many natural things to get the most beautiful and moisturize skin. You can choose the most suitable ingredients for your skin to get the healthy skin.
Ricardo Lubis
Handmade Soap and Pure Handmade Soap
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