Soaping Equipment

[ilovesoap2]

Hi All,
I;m a little scared but pretty anxious to start my soap making.I am trying to stay as low cost as possible until I know for sure where I want to take it. I understand I need to use plastic to mix my lye...bowl and stirrer and on some videos I've watched I've seen them add the lye water to the oils in a stainless steel container. My question is, overtime, will the ss container be ruined? I ask because I have a very nice ss stock pot that I really hate to lose to soaping, but for now seem the ideal thing to use. It's deep enough so I won't have to worry about splattering.

 

[cmzaha]

I would not use a pot you are in love with. Yes eventually it can pit the stainless steel. If you have a local Goodwill you may be able to pick up a stainless steel pot that you can dedicate to soaping. I use hdpe 1-2 gallon buckets for my soaping and fit in the micro to melt my oils. These buckets can be purchased at a Graingers, McMaster Carr etc, and you can buy several buckets for the cost of a stainless steel pot. (Industrial suppliers) I usually have 5 or so ready with my batch oils premeasured and ready to go when I decide to soap. If you want to hot process crockpots work great and can also be found at Goodwill stores

 

[lpstephy85]

If you are in the US, Wal-Mart is a great place to go for equipment for cheap. They have packs of spoons and spatulas under a dollar each. Packs of thick plastic mixing bowls that are under $5 for a pack of three. Cheap but sturdy measuring cups, etc.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I only use things for soaping AND food only when there is no lye, soap batter or EOs/FOs involved. So basically just for heating up my oils and fats, then!

Everything else is soaping only, 100%.

 

[Lin]

This is what made the difference to be able to start soaping for me. I didn't have the money for equipment but once I saw how cheap it can be, I sent the video to my bf and he took me shopping at dollar tree

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWnqXTqZTvU

 

[mel z]

All great suggestions.

I have another. If you want a dedicated SS pot, you don't need the worlds best one for soap making. You can get one of the thin ones that are around $8 at WalMart, Family Dollar, and some hardware stores.

SS pots pit just from using salt in your soup, I know, I was on the search for a great SS pot once upon a time and have tried many. Unless you are going to a restaurant supply store for a very high grade of SS (and lots of $$) just buy one you can afford for cooking as they are low grade SS now, no matter what the name brand. Lots of reviews on Amamzon for SS pots too.

For soap, you will not be heating the oils long. You will want to heat on low temps anyway, no high temps. So a cheapo pot works well.

I must confess to using my cooking pot for making soap on occasion. It makes it sparkly again. I figure once in a while is okay, as pretzels and some corn chips are cooked using lye. I only cook for myself too, btw. I probably shouldn't tell anyone that. I never use silicone or plastic for anything but soap making, those are totally dedicated to soap and only soap.

 

[neeners]

i think you can find lots of stuff at the goodwill or the dollar store near you. or garage sales

as for molds, you can use anything as a mold - I've used tissue boxes, cereal boxes, PVC pipe, and now a bamboo organizer.

 

[ilovesoap2]

I am glad I asked. I would have been really disappointed to lose this pot. It's one of those high quality ones that was pretty pricey.

Thanks for all the suggestions, will be looking for those hdpe buckets.

 

[roseb]

Spend your $ on a good digital scale! Do not cheap out on this, because you need accurate measurements.

 

[ilovesoap2]

roseb, sorry I missed your suggestion.
You are so right about the scale, I have one and can't decide
if I should use it because I can't tell how accurate it is.
I am shopping around for a new one.

 

[Soaplily]

I bought a MyWeigh scale and love it. But I test it time to time to insurance it is balanced. I bought 1/2 oz metal fishing weights. I weigh them on the scale and if it reads .50, then I'm good to go!

Sarah

 

[Dennis]

Cheap plastic will serve you well if it is hpde. Don't use any plastic container with seams. I did that and it gave way after a couple of batches. A real mess but was lucky that it only had oil in it when it started leaking. roblem: NO SEAMS.

Here's a pretty inexpensive scale available everywhere it seems. I've used this for a couple of years and it has served me well. There are more expensive ones but this does the trick for me.



My my, look what I drug up while looking through old pics. This is the batter bowl that separated while heating the oil. It is perfectly fine for its intended purpose. That purpose just doesn't happen to be heating oil in the microwave and then mixing with lye. It was inexpensive, picked it up at WalMart and if used properly would still be around. Again, remember, no seams.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

There is also an article that I wrote on the home page about it -

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/entries/basicequipment.html

 

[shunt2011]

You can test your scale by putting 5 quarters on it and it should be 1 oz. I get a lot of my soaping supplies at the dollar store. I too use HDPE buckets from Home Depot to mix multiple batches of oils. I also have a SS pot that I dedicated to soaping as I had two.

 

[seven]

I dont use ss except for making big batches of mp base. For cp soap, i prefer plastic. Been using deep water jugs and it is fine so far.

 

[songwind]

If you can't find an inexpensive stick blender, but have a drill, you can make life a little easier than hand stirring w/ a steel paint stirring attachment.

(The only stick blender I could find at my local second hand store had a plastic disc as its "blade." So I spent $8 on a paint mixer for my drill instead of $20-$30 for a stick blender. It worked okay, better than stirring everything by hand.)

 

[ilovesoap2]

You can test your scale by putting 5 quarters on it and it should be 1 oz. I get a lot of my soaping supplies at the dollar store. I too use HDPE buckets from Home Depot to mix multiple batches of oils. I also have a SS pot that I dedicated to soaping as I had two.

I did the 5 quarters and got the 1 oz. Right after that I did it again and got 1.4 oz. I think it would be usable but I went ahead and ordered an Escali on Amazon anyway.

Thanks for your help.

 

[ilovesoap2]

If you can't find an inexpensive stick blender, but have a drill, you can make life a little easier than hand stirring w/ a steel paint stirring attachment.

(The only stick blender I could find at my local second hand store had a plastic disc as its "blade." So I spent $8 on a paint mixer for my drill instead of $20-$30 for a stick blender. It worked okay, better than stirring everything by hand.)

I have a stick one I could dedicate to soaping but it's plastic body with a stainless blade so hopefully it should work. I'll keep the paint mixer in mind too. Great idea.

 

[Dennis]

I did the 5 quarters and got the 1 oz. Right after that I did it again and got 1.4 oz. I think it would be usable but I went ahead and ordered an Escali on Amazon anyway.

Thanks for your help.

I use grams most of the time when weighing oil to minimize errors in my notorious rule of thumb, ball park range, method of doing things. A bit much is usually ok but I am that way with oil, not lye. Anyway, 0.1 ounce equals 2.83495 (whew!) grams so you can reduce the margin of error using grams.
I used to hate the metric system and fought it for years. Then I started making soap. The metric system is so much simpler and makes sense. Who knew? The answer is most of the world. :smile:

 

[tschwenn]

I have one and can't decide
if I should use it because I can't tell how accurate it is.

I KNOW this is an old post lol but a nickle weighs 5 grams for an accuracy check