Thread: Home-made soap update

Update to the update!

Made another batch. I'll post the recipe here soon. It looks ugly, but it shaves REALLY nicely! This was a soap heavy on "manteca" and coconut oil.

So Manteca is lard (Pig Fat) I would love to see this recipe i'd love to try this myself one day. Use a boar brush to enhance the piggy goodness of the lather

Originally Posted by rlmnshvstr8

now I'm no soap maker but I think I am correct in this.

look for "Sodium Tallowate" and "lanolin". Tallow when mixed with NaOH produces the Sodium Tallowate, and you get tallow from the mutton fat. Lanolin is an extract from mutton fat.

Oh and by the way, How does one purchase the caustics? I would love to know as a reference if I get the desire to try my hand at soap making

Edit: I just found out that Lanolin is not from the fat but rather a byproduct of washing wool before spinning into thread or yarn

Is the lanolin a by product of the oil washed from the wool or is lanolin the oil itself?

The great soap "Mitchell's Wool Fat" name comes to mind.

Okay...

1/2 Manteca
1/3 coconut oil
1/3 castor oil

Is there any saponification happening here or is this just face grease?

Originally Posted by Razorfaust

Is there any saponification happening here or is this just face grease?

And 100% NaOH. 5% superfat as calculated by soapnet.

Thankyou I'd love to try it out

Originally Posted by jgjgjg

1/2 Manteca

Just plain butter or anything special? If this really works, I will be glad to try it out! I am not a soap maker, and it is becoming hard to find common soap where I live...

Originally Posted by MT4

Just plain butter or anything special? If this really works, I will be glad to try it out! I am not a soap maker, and it is becoming hard to find common soap where I live...

Yeah...you've got problems. I'm a bit of a 'history of technology' buff and what the news media has portrayed here in the US I will interpret as basically climbing your way down the technology ladder. I would suggest the following:

1. If you can't find Lye, which is SODIUM hydroxide, you can also make liquid soap from POTASSIUM hydroxide.
2. If you really insist on hard soap, you will need Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH). See link HERE --> http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...ium-hydroxide/ If batteries are scarce in Argentina, PM me and I'll send you some links how to generate electricity with things you can probably find. Not 'power the house" electricity, but "make a small batch of chemicals" electricity.
3. If liquid'ish soap, good enough for body washing, is good enough for you, then see How to Make Lye: 13 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow
4. Note that 2 and 3 make DIFFERENT forms of lye. I send you these links because if you can't get soap, it's highly unlikely you will be able to find Lye (Sodium Hydroxide NaOH) or Potassium Hydroxide.

5. You need to enter the correct type into the 'soap calculator'. See soap calculator --> SoapCalc

Note that the soap calculator allows you to choose a HUGE array of different oils: coconut oil, pig fat, beef fat, palm oil, peanut oil, olive oil, etc. The problem you will have is determining lye strength using what you get from the above links. You should go one step further and simmer (NOT BOIL) the lye until it is a dry powder. Then you can dissolve the correct amount. You can also check the pH for 'neutrality' or 'baseness' using litmus paper. You want your soap to have neutral pH. Hugely important, and hugely hugely important for soap used on children, the elderly, or beautiful ladies with radiant skin. Not so important for macho manly men that don't care about walking around with huge chemical burns on their dumb selves.

6. But....if you can't find soap, you sure as heck won't find litmus paper or pH meters. See here --> Test papers: Journey to Forever

Originally Posted by MT4

Just plain butter or anything special? If this really works, I will be glad to try it out! I am not a soap maker, and it is becoming hard to find common soap where I live...

One more thing...manteca as the word is used in the local 'pocho' dialect in Texas does not mean 'butter', it means rendered pig fat. Butter...meaning thoroughly churned milk....is not used in the soap recipes I have seen. I believe that is the case because butter is not pure fat and not pure oil (fat=oil).