People who know me, know I need my coffee. Not just in the morning, although I am a better person when I start my day with some, but in the afternoon, in the evening, and of course a cup at night (I'm one of those odd people who fall asleep with caffeine).
I can't just wake up with coffee, I need a good hot shower in the morning, however it can be really difficult to keep the soap and water from getting into my coffee cup. I had to come up with a way to have my coffee and my shower and not miss a minute of the day. That was when I began making my coffee soap, whats better to get you going than coffee and a hot shower all at once!
Heres what you need to make this fabulous rich soap that helps keep your skin at that perfect pH balance, and makes you feel like your soaking in a big hot cup of coffee!
Safety Gear: this is very important as you will be using caustic materials
1. Heavy duty rubber gloves
2. Goggles
3. Mask (not as important, but still recommended)
4. Baking Soda (this is to neutralize your utensils and any accidental spills of the Lye)
5. Phenolphthalein to test the soap's alkalinity (this can be purchased online through soap making sites, chemical suppliers or where I get mine - Wine making Sites.)
The Ingredients:
4 ounces NaHCl - Lye
22 ounces Olive Oil
10 ounces Sweet Almond Oil
12 ounce Strong Coffee (brewed with spring water is best, if your water is alkaline you can use bottled drinking water or distilled)
2 Ounces Castor Oil
1.5 ounces of essential fragrance oil - COFFEE of course!
4 ounces of powdered goats milk
Materials:
Scale
small plastic container to be used for the lye
large measuring cup or glass jar for mixing lye and liquid
Large Stainless Steel or enameled cooking pot ( WARNING! Never use aluminum pans or utensils when working with Lye as this will contaminate your soap)
2 Thermometers
Large Wooden or Plastic Spoon
Plastic Spatula
Hand Blender (not necessary but definitely nice to have as it cuts down stirring by 75% at least)
Non-Stick cooking spray
Mold (I made this sosp mold from left over laminate scraps when I removed my kitchen counter, but a small plastic bin will do or even a shoe box lined with wax paper).
I can't just wake up with coffee, I need a good hot shower in the morning, however it can be really difficult to keep the soap and water from getting into my coffee cup. I had to come up with a way to have my coffee and my shower and not miss a minute of the day. That was when I began making my coffee soap, whats better to get you going than coffee and a hot shower all at once!
Heres what you need to make this fabulous rich soap that helps keep your skin at that perfect pH balance, and makes you feel like your soaking in a big hot cup of coffee!
Safety Gear: this is very important as you will be using caustic materials
1. Heavy duty rubber gloves
2. Goggles
3. Mask (not as important, but still recommended)
4. Baking Soda (this is to neutralize your utensils and any accidental spills of the Lye)
5. Phenolphthalein to test the soap's alkalinity (this can be purchased online through soap making sites, chemical suppliers or where I get mine - Wine making Sites.)
The Ingredients:
4 ounces NaHCl - Lye
22 ounces Olive Oil
10 ounces Sweet Almond Oil
12 ounce Strong Coffee (brewed with spring water is best, if your water is alkaline you can use bottled drinking water or distilled)
2 Ounces Castor Oil
1.5 ounces of essential fragrance oil - COFFEE of course!
4 ounces of powdered goats milk
Materials:
Scale
small plastic container to be used for the lye
large measuring cup or glass jar for mixing lye and liquid
Large Stainless Steel or enameled cooking pot ( WARNING! Never use aluminum pans or utensils when working with Lye as this will contaminate your soap)
2 Thermometers
Large Wooden or Plastic Spoon
Plastic Spatula
Hand Blender (not necessary but definitely nice to have as it cuts down stirring by 75% at least)
Non-Stick cooking spray
Mold (I made this sosp mold from left over laminate scraps when I removed my kitchen counter, but a small plastic bin will do or even a shoe box lined with wax paper).
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Signing UpStep 1: Getting started - The Recipe and Preparing the Lye solution
I want to make this instructable as complete and comprehensible as I possibly can. When I first began making soap I wish I could have found some good information on how to do it safely. I read all I could, but there was no one around I could ask the many questions that I had, so some of it was trial and error, and some of those errors are why I am adamant about using safety materials when making soap. I can attest that even a tiny little granule of lye can inflict some really bad pain!
THE BAREFOOT BOHEMIAN'S GOLDEN RULES OF SOAP MAKING!
Make sure you have plenty of room for a work surface.
Fill a pan or bucket with some lukewarm water and about 1 cup baking soda to 1 gallon water. Mix this well. It will come in handy to neutralize utensils and to pour over spills in case of accidents.
During nice weather, I will make my lye combinations outdoors. This keeps the fumes dispersed and when the weather is cooler it helps the solution cool back down to proper temperature faster. However since I lived in a very windy area of the country I tend to measure my lye indoors.
**Lye and soap calculators can be found online to help you develop your own recipes. They take all the math our of calculating saponification values and make life much easier for the every day soap maker.
I measure all my soap making ingredients on a digital scale - after all this is chemistry and not roll the dice and hope for the best.
Using a good quality scale, carefully measure out 4 ounces Sodium Hydroxide into a non-reactive container using a non-reactive utensil.
THE BAREFOOT BOHEMIAN'S GOLDEN RULES OF SOAP MAKING!
- Safety equipment is NOT OPTIONAL it is a MUST HAVE!
- Measure, measure and measure. Exact measurements are very important. From something simple as the soap not setting up right to it being caustic and unseeable. You don't want something to literally clean the skin off the user.
- EQUIPMENT MUST BE NON-REACTIVE. NO ALUMINUM OR GALVANIZED METALS. I use an enameled pot that I must check before every use to make certain there are no chips or cracks in the enamel s this would make the pot unusable. I never use non-stick coated pans although I am not certain if they are safe to use. I am not going to take the chance just to find out,
- HAVE FUN WITH YOUR SOAP MAKING!!! There are literally thousands of various combinations of oils you can use and just ad mny resulting soap properties as there are mixtures. There are hundreds or essential oils and fragrances to whose from and even is and match. Keep a log of each batch of soap you make, the ingredients used, any special additives and how the soap performs after its cured. Do you like the lather? Hw does ir leave you skin feeling? Did you like the scent and did it linger on your skin, This way you can repeat a batch that you particularly like or see if there are parts of the press's you want to change.
Make sure you have plenty of room for a work surface.
Fill a pan or bucket with some lukewarm water and about 1 cup baking soda to 1 gallon water. Mix this well. It will come in handy to neutralize utensils and to pour over spills in case of accidents.
During nice weather, I will make my lye combinations outdoors. This keeps the fumes dispersed and when the weather is cooler it helps the solution cool back down to proper temperature faster. However since I lived in a very windy area of the country I tend to measure my lye indoors.
**Lye and soap calculators can be found online to help you develop your own recipes. They take all the math our of calculating saponification values and make life much easier for the every day soap maker.
I measure all my soap making ingredients on a digital scale - after all this is chemistry and not roll the dice and hope for the best.
Using a good quality scale, carefully measure out 4 ounces Sodium Hydroxide into a non-reactive container using a non-reactive utensil.
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Since I am no chemist, I'm not certain about the use of baking soda as a neutralizer. It is what I use most often and have never had a problem. I have used it to neutralize acid seeping from batteries as well. I guess since I never thought much about it, I have kept on using the same as when I was a child and my father would use baking soda on car batteries. But using an acid to bring up the pH makes more sense than using another base on a base. I think I will pull out my old chem book from college and do some studying. Not that I don't believe you, I just like understanding the "why" behind things. Thanks for the comment!
Worst I've ever had happen with the soap making, has been a small, but incredibly painful, lye burn on my finger when I stupidly swept some off my work counter with a damp bare hand. That small granule and the pain it created have kept me honest in adhering to my own rule of SAFETY FIRST. I don't even want to imagine how some in the eye, or a big splash on the skin would feel. And as for the potential of a "volcanic" over flow from putting the liquid into the lye, I've done that and moved faster than i ever thought I could!
Maybe a few milligrams of powdered caffeine added into the base, and then coffee grounds for exfoliating... maybe a little vanilla fragrance.
(before anyone says anything, yes, I know you have to be very precise with powdered caffeine. I've been doing a lot of research lately into making my own energy drinks.)
Good luck and if you try it let me know how it goes!
BTW I have 4 yorkies that I have to make sure don't get underfoot when I'm doing just about everything. They are notoriously nosy and demanding, so I understand wanting to keep your pets safe.
Right after "ALWAYS" you said "add the liquid into the lye whether you are using powdered lye such as this, liquid or granular. If you reverse the process and add the liquid into the lye, it will form a volcano like eruption" You are saying "add the liquid to the lye" both after "ALWAYS and after "If you reverse the process". In my experience both in soap making and in an industrial chemical factory you add lie to the water not the other way around..
I hope what I said made sense.
Hope you are feeling better.
Joen
As much as I would love to win a prize, I would rather share something I know how to do so that others can join me in doing it.
Now if someone would just great an "instructables app" that would be so great!! **HINT HINT** for any of you programmers out there. :)
sunshiine
Please excuse the mess here, but I promise any errors will be fixed. Tried to upload from my iPad, but didn't seem to work too well. Sorry......