Our soap bars, as indicated elsewhere, are made by hand from natural ingredients (olive oil, coconut oil, castor oil, essential oil, water, and sodium hydroxide). This is the process:
- Weigh water and pour into container.
- Weigh sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and add to water.
- Keeping face well away from container, after 30 seconds stir solution and set aside.
- Weigh oils and pour into a stainless steel pot.
- Heat only until coconut oil has dissolved.
- Combine the two solutions (adding the lye to the oils) when both solutions are at the same temperature – 45.5°C.
- Stir briefly to mix solutions.
- Use stick blender to thicken solution until “trace” is achieved (“trace” happens when you pour a bit of the solution off the back of a spoon into the pot and a raised portion is visible).
- Add essential oil and stir in well.
- Ladle mixture into silicone moulds to within a couple of mm. from the top of the mould. Be careful to ladle the mixture in one action (i.e., do not add mixture to mixture already in the moulds).
- Cover moulds with cardboard.
- Cover the cardboard with a blanket so that there are no gaps between the moulds / cardboard and the table (“tuck everything in”).
- After 72 hours, remove the blanket and cardboard and turn the soap bars out of the moulds.
- Lay the soap bars (not touching one another) on a sheet of wax paper on a flat surface in a cool, dry place, cover them with a sheet of wax paper (to keep dust off), and leave them to cure for three to four weeks. Turn the soap over every few days to ensure even drying. (Remember to wear disposable latex gloves when handling the soap, especially in the first week, as the chemicals in the soap are still active and will cause your skin to tingle.)
- Slice rough edges off soap bars, and rinse and polish bars (with a facecloth / towel) if necessary.
That’s how we make our soap bars.
For people sensitive to fragrance, step 9 falls away. The result – “Aromanone” – is a pure soap with a scent imparted by the oils.