Hello from Birmingham, UK

[Neon]

Hello, I would just like to introduce myself to you all and tell you a bit about myself, be warned I waffle sometimes!

I am a 59 year old man that lives in Birmingham, UK. I recently got made redundant so I have had to make quite a few changes in my lifestyle and living.

To cut a long story short I ran out of washing powder and fabric softener so popped to the shops to get some and for the first time noticed the cost of it, not only it but the cost of fabric softener as well. Until this point I wouldn't have been able to tell you how much a bag of sugar or a liter of milk were as I used to do a huge monthly shop when I got paid and never actually checked the price of anything, convenience I guess. I was £1.99 short!!!

My mind went back to my youth where we lived in the middle east when my mother used to make her own soap occasionally because the shops had none in stock so I thought I would give it a bash. How she did it had been past down through the generations but mine but that was all lost to me because of the advent of the progress of time and the ability of being able to go and buy it at any corner shop and then of course supermarkets. So there am I in the middle of an aisle in my local supermarket looking it up in the internet!

Cooking oil and drain cleaner, how easy was that as both just happened to be in my cupboards what a bonus I needed nothing from the shop at all ..... bonus ..... I could get I got started right away. I checked off everything else I would need in my mind before I left the shop.

Large Steel pan or crockpot - check, (can't think when I Last used my crockpot)
Plastic Measuring jugs - Check
Stirring utensils - Check
Essential oils for scenting, um no but not at that cost anyway, plain smelling would have to do.

I waked out of the shop clutching a bottle of white vinegar and a bottle of the cheapest hair conditioner on the shelf. Yes I got a funny look for the staff when I paid for it because being bald I guess they wondered why I would buy hair conditioner. My day's spend was £1.99

That was the easy part of my experience although I will say making home cleaners is not difficult at all, but a bit of science (not rocket science) does come into it but with Lye Calculators and things like that to use it isn't as hard as it may at first seem.

I went to bed that night thrilled to bits that not only had I had learned something and achieved making soap but I had done ALL my laundry, I had also done all my washing up, scrubbed the kitchen (including the walls, floor and ceiling), cleaned the bathroom top to bottom and had a shower before I got into bed! And the wonderful thing is that I had enough washing soap, shower soap & fabric softener to last for quite some time all for £1.99, and even with adding the cost of oil & lye to the equation I would not have spent as much as the soap powder box I had been looking at!

A real bonus!

Yes I am new to soap making.
No I don't have a science degree.
Did I enjoy making soap, sure I did
Will I be making my soap in future, you bet I will, in fact I have done several times already just out of curiosity more than anything.

I have a very curious mind and I have always been the type of person to take things apart to see how they work so soap-making is going to be no different, I already know that so if ever I ask why something happened I would appreciate it if you guys would get back to me as there are some things that I just can't find on the internet no matter how hard I try.

Thank you and happy soap making to you all.

Neon

 

[Relle]

Welcome Neon - great to read your story - your hooked now.

 

[AnnaMarie]

Hi Neon!
Glad to meet you.
All of us were new at one point
Many of us don't have science degrees (mine is in history)
We all LOVE making soap
And yes, I'll bet you make a lot more in the future! (Curiosity is a great motivator!)
Cheers!
Anna Marie

 

[Hazel]

HI Neon,

Welcome to the forum and I enjoyed reading your story. I'm sorry you were made redundant but I'm glad you found something to raise your spirits. Soapmaking is addictive and you might want to consider fragrance oils in the future. They're not as expensive as essential oils and generally hold up better in soap. You might already know this and if so, I apologize but you want to make sure the drain cleaner says 100% sodium hydroxide on it since some have metal mixed into them.

 

[Neon]

Hello again everyone, I should have mentioned that it was my own soap bar that I used in the shower and wasn't randomly telling everyone that I showered before bed, mind you with all the mixing and stuff I needed it!

How nice that you have taken the time to read my introduction post and then take the time to reply, so thank you for that.

Yes I did check the 100% bit Hazel as I did learn that bit from the web but thank you for thinking about it.

Yes I am hooked now, had another bash this evening because there was nothing on the telly and I got bored so I did a couple of what I call "What Ifs", that is where curiosity gets you, and of course there will be a couple of questions at the end of it.

I would like to be able to say that "A stupid friend of mine ......" but you guys will have guessed that it is me I am talking about.

Anyway I made a batch of Olive Pomace soap that I wanted to make as a household (laundry type) soap as opposed to a body bar for me next shower! Which is why there is no super-fatting.

1000g Oil
135g Sodium Hydroxide
250 ml water

I was going to make it using the cold process method because up until now I have only done hot process soap making.

Heated it, mixed it, got it to trace, poured it into my loaf mold and popped it in my airing cupboard which has a small radiator in it to set.

Had a nose at it after a couple of hours and think I know where I went wrong, my mistake, it must have been that 'my stupid friend' had not turned down the heat after heating the oil so it had started to saponify as soon as I had poured it into the mold. IT looked like a Yorkshire pudding with an abyss in the middle! Gutted I though all was not lost I would just heat it up and carry on doing it as a hot process ... nothing happened, turned the heat up ... nothing happened. After three hours of watching it with nothing happening I decided all was lost but I would try some what if's on it.

So I chucked about 100ml of tap water into the pot, stirred it and wandered off to watch some of the Winter Olympics .... ok a lot of it and totally forgot about my soap batch. A couple of hours later when I went to make some a cuppa I suddenly remembered the soap was still on in the crock-pot. Luckily no spillage but when I stirred it a bit all I can say is that it resembled snot (sorry) but it did at least lather up when I washed the spoon . Well my cold process bars were definitely all lost now so I chucked more water into it thinking it might make washing-up liquid if nothing else. I set an alarm for 30 minutes and went back to watch the telly.

On my next visit it was quite frothy because of all my stirring before so I stirred it again very briskly and left it another 45 minutes (more telly) and then once again checked my soap. Not a lot had happened so I turned the pot off and gave up on it. Not wanting to handle so much hot liquid I thought I would leave it till tomorrow to tip out when it had gone cold.

A few minutes ago I went in and had a little stir, the foam had gone fairly firm and set a bit so I eased that aside lifting as much of the foam out as I could only to reveal the whole lot had separated and now in the pot I had a gelatinous load of perfectly clear brown gel. Curiosity got me and I tested the foam stuff for lather and it worked so I then got a bit of the jelly out of the pot and tried the same thing with that only to discover that that too foamed up, probably a bit more than the foam had and it didn't scum when I did the washing up in the sink like my first lot had done. (Always wondered why my mother used a dish cloth, now I know it was to absorb a lot of the scum that settles on the sides of the sink)

So questions:

1. Does over boiling cause the mixture to separate?
2. What is the clear brown gel that I have made?
3. Why is it born and much darker than anything that went into it in the first place.
4. If I hadn't chucked quite so much water into the mix might it have set and looked a bit like a bar of Pears soap?
5. How come it went totally clear?

Any rocket science guys out there know the answers?

Happy Valentines day to you all.
Neon

 

[AnnaMarie]

DeAnna is the rocket scientist soap maker around here. See if you can lure her out
Cheers!
Anna Marie

 

[gurdeep]

Hi neon I also live in Birmingham nice to know tere are others

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Hi Neon

Great intro!

I will just say - you should put a superfat on ALL soaps that will be used on people. It's not easy to be 100% accurate with measuring and so on, so the margin of error allows for more lye than the oils can take which means lye-heavy which is the opposite of No More Tears!

Also, a Castile (100% olive oil) soap is not too great until it has a long cure. Some leave it for a year before using it!

 

[Neon]

Hello Gurdeep, glad to find someone in my country and a real bonus the same city, beware I will be picking your brains on the local stores for my various supplies, if there are any that is. the real plus point on Birmingham being such a multicultural city is that the possibilities of finding things is a lot easier I think so that is fabulous.

Efficacious gentleman, I was trying to hake household soap to use in my laundry and for washing up which is why I did not superfat it at all. I do normally superfat my soaps at 6%.

I have done a few "what if's" such as adding too much lye and then salt bathing the batch to get it out, more out of curiosity than anything else and yes that will just be household. I have also tried to scent a tiny bit of a batch with lemon juice, of course the mixture curdled and the fat reformed. I did say I had a curious mind didn't I.

This morning I poured some of it into a couple of old washing up liquid bottles and it actually makes brilliant washing up liquid so it shan't be going to waste.

Today I am going to have to sit down and work out how to make a wooden mould & liner from scratch because I can't afford to buy them ready made. I have got a rough idea of what I need and how I want it so at some point I will let you know how I got along with it. Luckily I am quite practical so it might even turn out half decent.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

There are some great threads on here about mould making (you forgot the U, dear chap, don't let these Yanks turn you ) which can give some great pointers, and one about calculating volume so you can work out the dimensions to suit you.

I'm not sure how much time you've spent reading through things here or searching, but it can save you some wastage by eliminating things that will go badly (and/or dangerously!) - still room to experiment, of course.

And I personally would not try to make something 0% SF, even for house hold. If I wanted it to be 0%, I'd do the salting out method but I would not feel safe just making a 0% directly. It might be okay most times, but not all times............

 

[Neon]

Efficacious gentleman, I stand corrected so I have altered my spelling Sir. To be honest it looked wrong both ways so I gave up in the end, opted for the wrong one obviously.

The English language is a funny thing because I once made the mistake of asking a Dutch friend of mine to pare a pair of pears. That conversation let to an entire afternoon of strange sayings, meanings and origins.

As far as experiments are concerned it is all part of my nature and as a last resort there is always the bin. Having done many years as a hair dresser I know quite a bit about Ph values and the importance of them being within a certain range etc, but I am playing safe anyway because at the moment I only have my fish tank Ph checker to go by. Needs must I am afraid and at the end of the day, it is only for me and my own cleaning.

 

[Seawolfe]

I think that this narrative of your soap projects is a good read! And I'm glad it is serving you well.

 

[Neon]

Glad you liked it Seawolfe. It certainly is serving me well as I am a bit of a workaholic and doing nothing is driving me round the bend so it is nice to get stuck into something new and at least use my brain a little bit.