Making soap i

2 servings

Ingredients

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Directions

You can add emolients to soap for their desirable qualities. Such ingredients include cold cream, lanolin, cocoa butter, or even powdered oatmeal. Add emolients in appropriate amounts, so as to not affect the soapmaking process. Also, you should add most emolients after the soap has saponified while it is still cooling, Remember to always add fragrances as the very last ingredient.

You can also add special ingredients to soap, such as aloe vera, vitamin E, wheat germ oil, jojoba oil, vitamins A and D, and baking soda. Do not add cornstarch to soap. Cornstarch can leave a thin film on your skin that might attract bacteria. Do not put in your soap any ingredients that might be poisonous. Poisons can be absorbed through the skin. Some people like to add buttermilk (in liquid or powder form) to their homemade soaps; others like to add lemon juice.

Coconut oil is a favorite ingredient for people who really like suds.

Do not add any ingredient that you are allergic to unless you do not plan to use the soap yourself. INGREDIENTS There are only three ingredients essential to making soap: grease (fat), lye and water.

Other ingredients are added to give certain desired qualities to the soap. Although soap making is fairly simple to do, it is critical that you follow instructions carefully. Lye is a caustic substance.

If mishandled, it can burn skin or even cause blindness. Add lye only to COLD WATER. Never add lye to hot water, because it might cause a violent chemical reaction. Most commercial lye is either a caustic soda, such as sodium hydroxide, or a mineral salt known as potassium hydroxide. Hard soaps are made with sodium hydroxide or caustic soda; soft soaps are made with potassium hydroxide. Lye is commercially available with instructions for its use on the can. You also can make your own lye water by soaking a bucket of wood ashes overnight. The water that you pour off in the morning will be lye water. This is the way colonials made their soap. Use only wood ashes. Do not try to make lye water from coal or coke ashes. Coal ashes contain chemicals that might irritate or damage the skin. Some people add salt to help curdle the soap, but it is not necessary. You can add baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, to soap. It is an inexpensive ingredient that contributes desirable qualities, including deodorizing and cleansing.

TO ALL Submitted By ALISON SCHUCHS SUBJ SOAP RECEPI WANTED On 06-13-95

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