Since we've already delved into candlemaking in past posts, it is only inevitable that we proceed to soapmaking this time around. The two crafts are just so connected that one cannot go without the other.
Given that more and more people are becoming conscious about their health and beauty that they only go for things that are natural, this kind of craft shows to have a lot of potential, especially when it we talk about it from a business point of view. A lot of websites out there offer to sell handmade soaps, which should make you wonder why they still flourish if the business is not viable.
If you don't intend to make it a business, then that would still go well for anyone. You can experiment with the different scents and ingredients so that you can have a unique soap fit for each and everyone of your family members! It definitely provides character unique to the user(s) of that bar of soap, something that you probably won't encounter in the commercially distributed ones.
Soap basically has two main ingredients, namely, fats or oils and lye. The soap is just a product of the chemical reaction between the two ingredients. At this point, it would all sound boring. However, one should know that the key to a good soap is the kind of ingredients that you will add to the basic recipe. Bread is just mainly flour, eggs, and water, but add to it other ingredients like flavor extracts, oil, and the like, and it will become more exciting.
For this particular post, let's talk about the four basic methods of making soap at home. They are:
- Cold Process - the most commonly practiced method, it involves making soap from scratch with ingrdients such as fatty acids and lye
- Melt and Pour - in this method, blocks of pre-made soap are melted and added with your choice of fragrance
- Hot Process - much like the cold process, except that in this method, the ingredients are actually "cooked" while mixing
- Rebatching - also a varation of the cold process where bars of soap are grinded, mixed with water or milk, heated, and left to dry again
In future posts, let's talk about some soap recipes made out of these methods.
