Soap making Materials/Chemicals

 Many people slide to my dm on Facebook and WhatsApp and the first question I see 

"Hi, please can you give me a  recipe for soap making". 

When I give them a recipe they will still come back to ask for another. I got tired of giving recipes to people all the time. I have thoughts on how to solve this problem and I came up with this blog. I said to myself, is better to have somewhere I can refer these people to learn how to formulate recipes on their own. 

In this blog post, I will be teaching soap-making materials and also on recipe formulation. 

Soap making chemicals 

We have various chemicals we use in making soap. Some of these chemicals are harmful to the skin while some are not. That's why it is advised to always be on safety kits when dealing with soap-making chemicals. In soap making, we have major chemicals we use while others are additives added to achieve a particular result. I will name the major chemicals you must see in any type of soap then I will talk about other additives. Always know that anytime I mention soap I mean hard bar soap and not liquid soap.

Minor soap-making chemicals 

a. Sodium Hydroxide

b. Potassium Hydroxide

c. Soap-making oils and fats

d. Water

These four things are the major chemicals used in soap making. Any other added something is called additives. 

Right now, we will talk about these chemicals in detail and the role they play in soap. 

a. Sodium Hydroxide => Sodium hydroxide or caustic soda is a chemical used in soap making. It is a whitish crystal in appearance and irritates the skin when it comes in contact. When you leave it open in the atmosphere, it will absorb the atmospheric water 💦 and becomes thick. When your skin comes in contact with sodium hydroxide, wash the area with water as soon as possible. Always be careful when handling sodium hydroxide and keep it out of the reach of children. 

Role of sodium hydroxide in soap

Sodium hydroxide is one of the main chemicals used in soap making. The ability of soap to foam, cleanse, and kill germs is partially contributed by the presence of sodium hydroxide. 

How to dilute sodium hydroxide in water

Before making your soap, you need to dilute sodium hydroxide in water. As I said earlier, sodium hydroxide normally comes in form of white crystals. Before using it in soap production, you need to have it as a solution. There are two reasons for doing that. 

a. Has a crystal you can't work with it very well. 

b. Dissolving it in water will also lower the acidic property and makes the final product safer to use.

 I don't want to go into detail in explaining the above points because is more about chemistry and I don't want to dive into it for the sake of those with no fundamental background in chemistry.

Going further, we said we need to dilute our raw caustic soda before we can use it in soap production. When you have the quantity of sodium hydroxide you want to use in a particular batch of soap production, all you need to do is to get the right amount of water that you want to use in diluting the caustic soda and pour it into a bucket or any plastic, stainless, or silicon container and pour your caustic soda in the water and not to pour water in caustic soda.

Note: Don't pour water on caustic soda because caustic soda has a great desire to attract water and if water is poured on it, all the molecules can come at once to absorb the water which will create competition among them. This competition can cause an explosion because when caustic soda absorbs water, a great amount of heat is given out. Always pour caustic soda in water and not water in caustic soda.

Potassium Hydroxide => Potassium Hydroxide is also a soap-making chemical. It has the same role as sodium hydroxide but one particular thing makes them different. Sodium hydroxide is used in making both washing and bathing soap likewise potassium hydroxide but potassium hydroxide can only make liquid soap. I know most of us to buy liquid bathing soap and we don't know it is made of potassium hydroxide. The main reason is that potassium hydroxide never forms a hard bar when you use it in soap making, unlike sodium hydroxide. 

Potassium hydroxide looks much more like sodium hydroxide but a physical significant difference is that sodium hydroxide is more coarse than potassium hydroxide. 

How to dilute potassium hydroxide

Just as you dissolve sodium hydroxide, you do the same for potassium hydroxide. Potassium hydroxide is less toxic and less irritating to the skin but it doesn't mean you will handle it carelessly.

c. Soap making oils and fats => In soap making, we have varieties of oils and fats we use to achieve a particular quality in soap. The major work of these oils and fats in soap is to help in trapping the dirt ( both oily and non-oily dirty ). Oils and fats also help in other aspects like foaming, cleansing, moisturizing, conditioning, etc. 

I will not speak much on oil now because another article will talk extensively about it. We have over 50 soap-making oils and fats and each oil or fat have a chemical property that makes it unique from others. 

Every soap is manufactured in a similar method but what makes each soap differ in quality is the type of oil used and other additives added to it. Some of these additives can be essential oil, herbs, fruits, etc. Some people will add synthetic substances that will bleach or whiten the skin. 

I will never encourage adding such synthetic substances to soap because the after-effects are dangerous. Ignorance and lack of research also made people add such substances to soap. If such people are well informed, they will know that many natural oils can lighten up the skin and make it glow and shine. 

I will speak more about lightening natural oils in another article. Some of the soap-making oils and fats include Olive oil, cocoa nut oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil, shear butter, honey, cocoa butter, etc. Each of these oils and fats has its unique chemical and physical properties. For example, if I use olive oil and produce soap and in another production, I use palm kernel oil the two soaps can never have the same quality and properties in terms of hardness, foaming, cleansing, moisturization, and conditioning. 

This variation is caused by the chemical properties of each oil I used. I will talk more about the chemical properties of oils in another article. For you to be an expert in soap making, you must understand soap-making oils and fats and their chemical properties as well as physical properties. Without having a grounded knowledge of this, you can never be able to produce soap of your desired quality. 

d. Water => Water is very essential in soap making because it helps to bring down the acidic properties of sodium and potassium hydroxide down and acts as a binder for oils and sodium or potassium hydroxide. There is always a quantity of water to be used in a particular product based on the quantity of the chemicals to be used in the production.

Having known the major chemicals in soap making, now we will dive into recipe formulation but before we go into it, I will love to discuss the procedures in soap making. I will narrow my discussion to laundry soap.

 

Procedure in making laundry soap

The chemicals I will use in this laundry soap production are

1. Caustic soda       => 50.64 grams.
2. Palm kernel oil    => 300 grams.
3. Water                  => 151.93 grams.
4. Perfume              => 0.3 grams.
5. Salt                     => 20 grams.
6. Sodium Silicate  => 30 grams.
7. Sugar                 => 30 grams

I used a soap calculator to calculate the actual quantity of the chemicals. If you are not conversant with soap calculators or if you don't know what a soap calculator is, don't worry I will still explain what a soap calculator is and how to use it. a soap calculator is a powerful tool that saves time and gives you a precise quantity of chemicals you needed for particular soap production.

This recipe will give you a simple laundry soap that is super cleansing and foams. always remember that the major chemicals there the Caustic soda, Palm kernel oil, and water. Other things added is to improve the quality of the soap like the salt and silicate is to make the soap harder while the sugar is to make it foam very well. Though the palm kernel oil used is very nice foaming and cleansing oil, I choose to add sugar because I have chosen two hardliners (Salt and Silicate) which can affect the foaming of the oil.  The perfume is to give it a nice scent.

Having talked about the chemicals and the functions in the soap now, we can go into the procedures of making the soap.

Process/Procedure in soap making