1. Soapmaking Theory
www.embodico.com 802-851-5336 Stephanie@embodico.com
©2013 Embodico All Rights Reserved

2. Welcome!

3. What is Soap?
• Well, the Definition is:
– a: a cleansing and emulsifying agent made usually by action
of alkali on fat or fatty acids and consisting essentially of
sodium or potassium salts of such acids
– b: a salt of a fatty acid and a metal
What this really means is: a cleansing agent that you create with a
chemical reaction between Fatty Acids (Oils) and Salts (Lye). This
reaction creates beautiful gentle and all around fabulous soap!

4. Why make or use handmade soap?
I am so glad that you asked!
Making soap is practical, as it is something
you can use, give to family and friends or you
could choose to sell it.
• Soapmaking also allows you to use your
creative side. Your creative choices are
endless. Colors, fragrances, essential oils,
dried herbs, herbal oils, clays and much
more.

5. Benefits of using handmade soap?
• You are using soap that was made I your local
area.
• It is gentle and moisturizing on your skin.
• Contains No chemicals or preservatives.
• Made with natural oils.
• Cleanses your skin without stripping away
your skin’s natural oils.
• Fun to use!

6. Safety
• When making soap you always want to take extra
precautions to be safe.
• You will be using LYE (Sodium Hydroxide) so you
need to make sure there are no children or pets in
your working area.
• You should work in a clean area free of filth and
debris.
• The utensils you use should be also be cleaned
with soap and water.

7. Lye Safety.
• Always work in a well ventilated area as not to inhale the
Lye fumes.
• Wear close toed shoes and clothes that cover your legs.
When measuring, pouring and stirring your lye, long sleeve
shirts are preferable.
• Treat Lye with Respect. Always handle it carefully and with
purpose.
• Always wear your protective gear when using Lye.
• Keep extra water on hand in the event of a spill.
• Always slowly pour lye into cold water. NEVER pour water
into lye, it may cause an explosion.
• Always keep your dry lye in a tightly sealed container
labeled Danger Lye.

8. Soap Making Terms.
Saponification: Saponification is the term used to describe the chemical
reaction that occurs when lye is mixed with oils. It is the actual creating of soap.
Alkali: Is a caustic salt that is used to create a chemical reaction. In our
use it is our lye.
Trace: Trace occurs when the oils you are mixing together with your lye
water start to thicken up and become creamy and harder to stir.
Gel: This occurs after the raw soap is poured into the mold. After pouring
the soap the chemical reaction continues for about 18 hours. During this
time the soap becomes very hot and the soap will look translucent, this is
gel!
Cure: Curing is the time period that we leave our soap out to “dry” and
become mild. This will be approximately 4 weeks.
Superfat: Is a standard soap making technique. It is the introduction of
additional oils in to your recipe. The benefit of this is that you will have oil
that has not been saponified. This extra oil helps keep your skin moisturized
and your bar of soap gentle.

9. Choosing your ingredients.
You will want to choose ingredients that:
• Are easily accessible to you.
• Locally grown oils and herbs
• Affordable
• Offer something to your recipe
• Lather, Moisture, Conditioning etc.
• You should choose fragrances that appeal to you.
• If you are adding dried herbs or clay’s, they
should be interesting to you.
• Color, smell, texture, etc.

10. Common Soap Making Oils
• Castor Oil – Used in small amounts Castor Oil provides lots
of big fluffy bubbles with stable lather and a bit of
moisturizing properties as well. I always use it at 3% of my oil
base. If you use too much you may find there are not as many
bubbles and it will make your soap a bit softer and sometimes
sticky to touch.
• Cocoa Butter – Adds conditioning properties with a
creamy stable lather while making a hard bar of soap. It is
also used to help keep your skin supple and moisturized.
• Coconut Oil – Offers superb cleansing properties, lots of big
fluffy bubbles and makes a harder bar of soap.
• Olive Oil – Is a very mild and gentle and provides extra
moisturizing in soap. It’s a great addition to baby soaps or
soaps for people that have sensitive skin and allergies.

11. Common Soap Making Oils Continued.
• Palm Oil – Contributes to a longer lasting hard bar of soap while
providing a creamy lather.
• Shea Butter – I love Shea Butter in soap. It makes your soap
moisturizing and conditioning to your skin while providing a hard bar of
soap with a nice creamy lather.
• Soybean Oil – Provides a creamy stable lather while conditioning
your skin.
• Sunflower Oil – It is rich in vitamin e, conditioning on your skin,
mild and has a nice creamy lather. It is a very light oil and will make
your bar of soap soft if you use too much of it.

12. Hard Oils Hard Creamy NaOH
Bar Bubbly Lather Conditioning Cleansing % to useSaponification
Beeswax * 0-3 0.067
Cocoa Butter * * * 0-15 0.138
Coconut Oil * * * * * 0-30 0.183
Lard - Pig * * * 0-50 0.141
Palm Kernel Oil * * * * * 0-20 0.176
Palm Oil * * * 0-30 0.142
Shea Butter * * * 0-25 0.128
Tallow - Beef * * * * * 0-50 0.143
Properties of Common
Soap Making Oils

13. Liquid Oils Hard Creamy NaOH
Bar Bubbly Lather Conditioning Cleansing % to useSaponification
Almond Oil * 0-20 0.139
Apricot Kernel Oil * 0-10 0.139
Argan Oil * * * 0-15 0.136
Avocado Oil * * * 0-25 0.133
Canola Oil * 0-50 0.133
Castor Oil * * * 0-10 0.128
Corn Oil * * * 0-15 0.137
Grapeseed Oil * * * 0-10 0.129
Jojoba Oil * 0-10 0.066
Olive Oil * * * 0-50 0.134
Safflower Oil * 0-20 0.137
Soybean Oil * * * 0-50 0.136
Sunflower Oil * * * 0-20 0.135
Baobab Oil * * * 0-10 0.143
Manketti Oil 0-10 0.139
Marula Oil * * * 0-25 0.137
Moringa Oil * * * 0-10 0.137
Neem Oil * * * 0-30 0.139
Sesame Oil * * * 0-10 0.134
Tamanu/Kamani Oil * * * 0-10 0.148
Watermelon Seed Oil * * * 0-10 0.135
Yangu/ Cape Chestnut Oil * * * 0-10 0.137
These oils are
considered more
costly in the USA
so we use them at
lower quantities.
If you have easy
access to them at
a lower cost you
could up the
ratios 0-25%

14. When making a recipe you should create a balance
of hard oils/ butters and soft oils. As an example:
Coconut Oil (Hard) 30% - Cleansing & fluffy bubbles
Cocoa Butter (Hard)10% - Hard bar & conditioning
Soybean Oil (Soft) 15% - Conditioning with
stable lather
Shea Butter (Hard) 30% - Moisturizing,
conditioning, creamy lather & hard bar.
Sunflower Oil (Soft) 15% - High in Vitamin e, creamy
lather and conditioning.
This recipe will give you a pretty hard bar of soap
that is cleansing and has really nice creamy lather
while being moisturizing to your skin.

15. I recommend always trying to create a balance
between each oil or butter and what it will bring to
your bar of soap.
If the oil really does not add any benefits to the
recipe, you should not use it.
If you want to make a gentle bar of soap you would
pick mild moisturizing ingredients.
The perfect bar of soap will be a balance of science
and careful planning of your oils and butters.

16. While creating your recipe you should take into
consideration the shelf life of your ingredients. If an oil
tends to go rancid quickly you should avoid that oil or
use it in small amounts up to 5%. I recommend using
.25% - .50% of vitamin e oil to help keep the free oils in
your soap from going rancid. If you do not have access
to vitamin e I would recommend adding oils that are
high in vitamin e naturally. Approximately 5-10%
Almond Oil
Avocado Oil
Neem Oil
Sunflower Oil
Shea Butter

17. Making Recipes
• Choose your ingredients.
• Decide how much of each oil/ butter you will use based on
what you would like the properties of your soap to be. Your
total oil percentages should add up to 100%.
• Calculate how the volume of soap you need to fit in your
selected mold. You will multiply the length by the height by
the width of the mold and take that number (maximum
volume) and multiply it by 40% to calculate the oil amount
you need to fit the mold. Our example will be a soap mold
that is 12 in Long X 2.5 in High X 3 in wide.
We multiply the dimensions 12 X 2.5 X 3 = 90
Then we multiply 90 X .40 = 36 oz
36 oz is the amount of oil you will need to
make your soap.

18. Our Soap Recipe:
Cocoa Butter 10% * Coconut Oil 30% * Shea Butter 30% *
Soybean Oil 15% * Sunflower Oil 15%
• We need 36 ounces of oil (1020 grams) to fill
our mold.
We are now going to figure out the water
amount that we need. A safe and easy way to
figure out your water is to use 38% of your oils.
36 oz, 1020gr X .38 (38%) = 13.7 oz (387.60)
ounces of Water.
Lets break down our oils amounts and figure out
how much Lye we need. Let’s calculate that……..

19. 36 ounces = 1020gr total oils.
To figure out how much we need of each oil we
should take the total amount of oils, 36 ounces,
and multiply by the percentage of each
individual oil in the recipe. See below.
Cocoa Butter 10% ~ 1020 gr x .10 = 102.gr
Coconut Oil 30% ~ 1020 gr x .30 = 306gr
Shea Butter 30% ~ 1020 gr x .30 = 306gr
Soybean Oil 15% ~ 1020 gr x .15 = 153 gr
Sunflower Oil 15% ~ 1020 gr x .15 = 153 gr
Total Oils 1020 gr

20. Cocoa Butter 102 gr
Coconut Oil 306 gr
Shea Butter 306 gr
Soybean Oil 153 gr
Sunflower Oil 153 gr
Total Oils 1020 grams
Now that we know our oil amounts we can
calculate our lye needed to saponify the oils.
Oils in the amounts needed for
our soap recipe as we previously calculated.

21. Lye Calculations
Lye
Ingredient Weight X SAP Needed
Cocoa Butter 102 gr 0.138 14.10gr
Coconut Oil 306 gr 0.183 56 gr
Shea Butter 306 gr 0.128 39.2 gr
Soybean Oil 153 gr 0.136 20.8 gr
Sunflower Oil 153 gr 0.135 20.6 gr
Total Oils 1020 gr 150.7 gr
To calculate the lye needed we will take the amount of oil in the
recipe and multiply it by the SAP (Saponification Value) to determine
the amount of lye we need. See below.

22. Total Recipe, Congratulations! You have
made it this far!
Ingredient Weight
Cocoa Butter 102 gr
Coconut Oil 306 gr
Shea Butter 306 gr
Soybean Oil 153 gr
Sunflower Oil 153 gr
Total Oils 1020
Water Needed 388. gr
Lye Needed 150.7 gr

23. Superfatting. To superfat or not?
Superfatting your soap is a very personal choice. To
superfat you would incorporate additional oil to your
soap recipe. This additional oil will not actually get
saponified it will stay free floating within the soap.
This gives your soap a more moisturizing and gentle
bar. It also will give you a buffer in the event that you
measured your lye incorrectly. The suggested rate of
superfatying would be 2.5-5%. You must keep in mind
the climate you live in. If you live in a hot humid
climate, I would suggest 2.5 – 3%. This will give you
some extra moisturizing properties but won’t make
you soap sticky in the hot humid air.

24. Final Soap Recipe Including Superfatting.
If we choose to superfat 3% we will take the amount of
oils 1020 gr and multiply it by 3%. That would give is
30.6 gr of extra oil. I would choose the extra oil to be
sunflower oil as it is high in vitamin e.
Water Needed 388 gr
Lye Needed 5.29 oz
Extra Oil-
Sunflower 10.20gr
Ingredient Weight
Cocoa Butter 102 gr
Coconut Oil 306 gr
Shea Butter 306 gr
Soybean Oil 153 gr
Sunflower Oil 153 gr
Total Oils 1020

25. Soapmaking Utensils

26. Make sure that your utensils and
molds are clean and free of debris.
Make sure your work space is also
clean.

27. Gather your supplies.
Make sure you have everything you will need before
you get started. It makes soaping easier, I promise!
– Recipe
– Ingredients
– Apron
– Gloves
– Eye Protection
– Face Mask/ Respirator
– Scale
– Molds
– Wax paper or other mold liner
– Spatula
– Stainless steel pots
– Wire Wisk
– Spoons for scooping
– Bowls Stainless or Glass for measuring

28. Mold choices
There are many different options that you could
choose.
– Wooden Mold, pre-made or you can make your
own.
– Heavy Duty Plastic ex. HDPE
– Silicone loaf pans, square pans or assorted sizes.
– Individual plastic molds similar to candy molds.
– Cardboard boxes, which I have used many times.
– PVC pipes

31. Get your safety gear on! Face Mask.

32. Gloves!

33. Face Mask
Apron
Gloves
We are
ready to
Soap.

34. Next you should measure out your water & Lye separately.
Use caution when weighing your lye. The little beads/ flakes
tend to move around when your pouring.

35. Measuring my cold water.

36. Slowly and carefully pour your
measured lye into your measured
water. NEVER pour your water into
the lye it will cause an explosion.
While slowly pouring your lye into
the water whisk the lye water so
that the lye dissolves. Be careful as
the lye water becomes very hot,
very fast and produces toxic fumes
for a few moments. If you are
asthmatic please use extra caution
as it can exacerbate asthma.
You should never handle Lye with
out being properly covered!

37. I personally take my lye and water
outside to mix them together. It
keeps the fumes out of my house.
Each person does something
different and you will do what works
comfortably for you. Please make
sure where ever you choose it is
well ventilated and safe. Meaning
there are no pets, children or
unsuspecting people that may come
along and get hurt with your lye
water.

38. Prepare your mold. This mold is a High Density Plastic that I
use for trial batches. I line it with freezer paper or wax paper
so that the fresh soap does not leak out the sides. You could
also use Mylar sheets cut to fit the mold.

40. Next we will begin weighing our ingredients. Notice I have now removed my
face mask and have chosen different gloves. Being that I am not using the lye
water I can safely remove my face mask. You should continue to wear gloves
to keep your ingredients free of germs and other contaminants that you may
be carrying on your hands. I would also suggest pulling back your hair.

41. Weigh each ingredient separately and then add to your stainless steel pot. Use caution when
weighing as not to cross contaminate any of your ingredients. Always use clean utensils for each
individual ingredient. Ex. Do not use the spoon that you scooped out the shea butter with to
then scoop out your coconut oil. That is cross contamination!!!

42. More weighing.

43. Weighing
accurately is very
important for the
integrity of the
soap. You should
always be as exact
as possible.

44. Humor is, well……… fun. You have to
love what you do.

45. Start melting all of your hard oils. I
suggest using a low heat.
Shea Butter
Cocoa Butter
Coconut Oil

46. Then measure out your liquid oils.

47. Add your liquid oils to your melting solid oils.

48. All the oils in the pot, melting.

49. Melted oils. After they are melted remove them from the heat.
Put the pot somewhere safe so that you can mix in the lye water. I
suggest a sink so that if you need water immediately you have
quick access to it. I typically use a stick blender to mix my soap
together but a wire wisk works really well also.

50. Slowly and carefully pour your lye water into your melted oils. I typically pour the lye
water away from me in the event of an accidental spill or splash. You should always be
very careful and cautious when working with lye.
I am not doing that here because I needed a picture.

51. You can see as you pour the lye water into the oils it
starts to coagulate. Once the lye water hits the oil it
immediately starts the chemical reaction of turning oil
to soap. Saponification is starting.

52. I am gently pulsing the stick blender to
thoroughly mix the lye water and oils together.

53. It is getting thicker.

55. Soap has come to a medium trace. If you were going to
add fragrances, herbs or coloring you would add them
at a light to medium trace which is right here.

56. Medium trace looks thick. Which you
can see on the end of my stick blender.

57. You can tell that you have reached trace several different ways but in this picture you
can see that when I picked up my spatula the raw soap that fell into the pot left a trail
in the soap. This is a classic trace sign. The soap is also clinging to the sides of the
soap pot almost like a pudding.
Trace

58. Once you have added any additional items such as
fragrance, essential oils, clays, herbs, therapeutic oils or
colors you should promptly pour your soap into your
prepared mold. If you wait too long to pour the soap
can it can set up (get thick and become hard) right in
your pot and then it is difficult to transfer to your mold.
Your mold should be lined and close by so that you can
work quickly with your raw soap. You should absolutely
be wearing your cloves and eye protection while mixing
the lye water to the oils, stirring and pouring the soap
into the mold.

59. Gloves & Apron

60. Beautiful, don’t you think? I always use a clean spatula
to scrape down the sides of my pot to get every last
piece of soapy goodness 

61. Now that you have your soap poured into your
mold you need to put it in a safe place where it
will be untouched and not knocked over for 24
hours. In the next 24 hours your soap will go
through several stages and they have different
names for these stages. Essentially the lye
reacts with the oils and converts the oils into
soap.

62. During this process of transformation the soap
will get really hot (the gel phase) so please do
not touch it. Then it will start to cool down and
set up (get hard). Some people choose to cover
their soap (in the mold) with an old blanket or
towel to keep the heat in the mold and help the
saponification move along quicker. There has
been no real evidence that covering your soap
makes it saponify quicker or better.
I personally do not cover my soap. I have made
soap both ways and have found no benefit to
covering it. I also like things to be simple!

63. After 24 Hours.
Now that your soap has rested/set for 24 hours you
should look at it. Put on a pair of gloves and gently
touch the top to see if it is hard. If it is you can take
it out of the mold. If it is not you should let it sit
another 8-12 hours and then recheck it and
proceed. After you have unmolded your soap you
should look at it and make sure it looks good. It
should have a relatively uniform look with nothing
oozing out if it. If it looks good then you should cut
it into bars.

64. Here is the loaf of soap. How does it look?
It looks uniform in color, consistency, there
are not weird spots or anything leaking
out. Should we cut it? Yes we should.

65. I make soap in 30 lb batches (88 - 4.5 oz bars) in a large
block mold. This is what they look like out side of the
mold. The next few slide is me cutting it up.

66. Getting my grid
cutter into place.

71. The block is
all cut, now I
must cut them
into bars.

72. Cocoa Butter Soap with swirls
of cocoa powder.

73. Cutting
into bars.

75. The soap is so
beautiful!

76. Curing Period
After you have cut the loaves into bars you should
place them on a shelf or rack to cure for 3 to 4 weeks.
The bars should be separated and have space between
them. They need air to cure and dry out. In this 3 to 4
week cure period your soap will completely finish the
saponification process, any unused water that is left in
the soap will start to evaporate and the bar will
become hard. This 3 -4 week time of curing is very
important and should not be skipped.

77. Notice the bars are not touching and
are on a wire shelving unit.

78. This is a simple
“cigar band” label. Goats milk
soap
wrapped
in cheese
cloth.
Glassline
bag with a
printed
ribbon.
Inside the
soap is
wrapped in
a paper
cigar band.

79. Problem Soaps. The following
examples of soaps are real soap
batches & errors that I have made.
Soaps that look suspicious should
never be used.

80. Here is an example of soap that
should not be used. There are
lye spots here. Lye spots can
happen for lots of reasons.
Most likely reasons: Not
stirring the lye into the water
well, lye that has been exposed
to moisture in the air so it is
not as active as it should be,
not stirring well enough when
adding lye water to the oils.
Lye Spots.

81. This soap is made with raw milk, maple syrup and oatmeal. This
soap looks mottled and uneven in color and texture. It should
not be used. What happened here is the raw milk that I used
saponified at a different rate than the oils. These are things to
look for in your soap when determining if it is safe to use.

82. Here is a picture of the same
milk soap but a different
batch. This batch had too
much sugar (maple syrup) it
in and as you can see it all
settled to the bottom of the
soap. The Lye was not able to
saponify the soap correctly so
when I opened it up, liquid
gushed out and I saw holes in
the block. This soap was
safely discarded! It is very
unfortunate when you have
to discard soap.

83. Soapmaking Resources
• Lye Calculators
http://www.soapcalc.net
www.summerbeemeadow.com
www.brambleberry.com
www.soapguild.org
www.soapmaker.ca ~ Soapmaking & Supply Organization Software

84. Websites with Soapmaking Directions
and information.
• http://www.soapqueen.com
• http://www.soapqueen.tv
• http://www.lovinsoap.com
• http://teachsoap.com
• http://www.soap-making-essentials.com
• http://candleandsoap.about.com
• http://www.otionsoap.com/blog
• http://www.natural-soapmaking.net

85. Soap Making Books
Essential Soap Making
by Alyssa Middleton & Mary Humphrey
The Everything Soap Making Book
by Alicia Grosso
Soap Naturally
by Patrizia Garzena & Marina Tadiello
The Soap Makers Companion
by Susan Miller Cavitch

86. Trade Organizations
These are 2 Organizations that are based in the United States
however their reach is worldwide and I would highly recommend
that you spend some time on their websites.
Indie Beauty Network www.indiebusinessnetwork.net
Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild www.soapguild.org