Soap

After doing a soapmaking workshop a couple of months ago and getting quite excited about making my own soap finally I made some time to give it a go. Im not sure that after working an afternoon shift then coming home at 10pm then starting on this new task was such a good idea.
Anyway my recipe was for
450ml rainwater ( if you dont have this use tap water and leave sit on bench over night)
172 grams caustic soda
1000 grams olive oil
250 grams coconut oil.
Making soap you need to be very organized with ingredients and make sure you have all the safety equipment like rubber gloves, safety glasses and old clothes and some white vinegar on hand just in case you spill caustic soda on your self.
Use only stainless steel pots and spoons. I used a wooden chopstick for stirring caustic soda and mixed it up in a glass jar.
I lined all the bench with newspaper
Make sure you have accurate scales.
I measure out the olive and coconut oil and heated in a stainless steel pot.
Then I measured the water and added the caustic soda to the water, never ever add water to the soda.
Stirring this until caustic soda was dissolved, this becomes quite hot. Make sure there are no kids or pets around.
The oils have to heat to 50 degrees and the lye has to cool to 50 degrees, so make sure you have  a thermometre this is very important.
Once the oils and lye were at the same temperature I added the lye slowly to the pot of oils and stirred until it started to thicken, then I used a stick blender to bring the mixture to trace, which looks a bit like custard, this is the time you can add your essential oils I used peppermint and ylang ylang.
The spooned the mixture into silicon moulds or old cardboard milk cartons.
Leave this mixture 24 hours then remove from moulds and cut . The leave for 6 weeks before using.
Store in linen cupboard or somewhere out of reach.
Clean up was quite easy I used old rags and wiped out everything and sat in an old bucket in laundry for a day and then put in the washing machine.

Im looking forward to making another batch now using another recipe.
Also I have a great recipe for laundry liquid which I will try next.