The Process – How do you make soap?

Soap making is both a chemistry experience and an art. Precise measurement of ingredients, careful temperature measurement to make sure the water with lye is at the same temperature as the oils and essential oil… Blending, adding botanicals, blending more, and when it looks like pudding it goes into a mold to harden, to complete that fancy thing called saponification. Saponification means blending the water and the oil to create a solid with the help of lye.

Fun Fact Saponification was discovered in ancient Greece where at the edge of the village was the garbage dump. People brought their charcoal and debris from fires and dumped them over the cliff into the pit. Other people came and poured their cooking fats over the cliff. It rained, the ingredients combined, and someone was curious about the strange solids that occurred from that combination – and it was soap. The location was Mount Sapo, and that is where the term for turning oils and water into a solid (Saponification) came from.

The molded soap cures for several days, hardening and the pH is changing to a neutral through the curing process. We cut the block into bars, air dry for several days and then wrap our bars. It’s an interesting process and satisfying to see the outcome.