How do you clean up your raw soap?

[Fuzled]

Well Fuzled, if you've got little critter cats around that love to jump on countertops, I'd be sure to wipe everything down with vinegar. I clean everything right away by wiping my soap pot and utensils with paper towels (but I do like TRex's rag suggestion) and wash everything in very hot water. The pitcher and utensils I use for lye gets a prewash in a vinegar solution prior to going into the hot water and these items I wash last. Everything in my kitchen gets spritzed with a vinegar solution for a final wipe down. Even if I am making multiple batches on the same day, I go through this procedure between batches --- can't help it, it's my OCD!

Thanks for the input.. so many tutorials/how to's and walk throughs out there, but seems very few deal with the clean up!!

 

[Healinya]

I have my routine when I am not feeling lazy (lazy days wait til tommorow for cleaning). As soon as I stir in the lye, I add a bit of vinegar to the empty lye container and fill halfway with hot water and put in sink. When soap is ready for the mold I tap out the stick blender and put it in the lye container, turn it on for a few seconds. Pour the soap, put that container in the sink and pour the water in it and wash the lye container, and let that water fill up my soap pot the rest of the way. Stick blend the soap pot, clean blender and pot - and I'm done.

 

[madpiano]

I have a small kitchen now, so no longer have the luxury of leaving dishes for a day. Biological washing powder is your friend.

I crumble a washing powder tablet into a washing-up bowl, fill with hot water and then run the stick blender until it is clean in that. After that is done, I soak the soap-making bits in there (not the lye pot, as I don't want an oil film in that) and after about an hour I wash it all up and then wash it again with dishwashing liquid in the sink (or put it in the dishwasher for that second wash). Plastic is very hard to clean and tends to feel ever so slightly oily, even after 2 washes, but it's no big deal, as I have seperate soaping equipment. It gets cleaner in the dishwasher and if I know, that I wont be making soap for a while, I run it through there. Otherwise it will just get dirty again the next day and I say "clean enough".

The more items you can get in stainless steel, the better as they are easier to clean, and they can be sterilized easier if you ever want to make lotions and creams.

 

[Stinkydancer]

I have my routine when I am not feeling lazy (lazy days wait til tommorow for cleaning). As soon as I stir in the lye, I add a bit of vinegar to the empty lye container and fill halfway with hot water and put in sink. When soap is ready for the mold I tap out the stick blender and put it in the lye container, turn it on for a few seconds. Pour the soap, put that container in the sink and pour the water in it and wash the lye container, and let that water fill up my soap pot the rest of the way. Stick blend the soap pot, clean blender and pot - and I'm done.

This is exactly what I do and once you get the routine down it takes no time at all.