Liquid Soap
Hot-process coconut oil soap paste, diluted into liquid soap.
Cook 5–6 h
You'll need
Oil
- 454 g coconut oil
Lye solution
- 252 g water
- 113 g glycerine
- 122 g potassium hydroxide, KOH
To dilute
- 200 g soap paste, from this recipe
- 500 ml filtered water
Equipment
- slow cooker
- large heatproof bowl
- stick blender
- digital scales
- gloves
- eye protection
Method
- Put on gloves and eye protection.
- Melt the coconut oil in the slow cooker.
- In a separate heatproof bowl, mix the water and glycerine.
- Add the KOH to the water and glycerine, never the other way round, and mix. It gets very hot.
- Pour the hot oil into a large bowl, then pour in the lye solution and stir.
- Stick-blend until solid. Use a big bowl: it expands a lot during blending.
- Transfer to the slow cooker, cover, and cook for 5–6 hours.
- Every half hour or so, stir and turn the paste over so it cooks evenly. It gets more and more translucent as it cooks.
Is it done?
After 5–6 hours it should be. Soap makers use a “zap test” to check for leftover lye; look it up before trying it.
Diluting
Mix 200 g of soap paste with 500 ml of filtered water.
Safety
- Potassium hydroxide (lye) is caustic and burns skin and eyes. Wear gloves and eye protection, work somewhere ventilated, keep children and pets away, and always add lye to liquid, never liquid to lye.
- Use bowls, blenders and a slow cooker kept only for soap-making, never for food.
- Keep out of reach of children.
- Store in a clearly labelled container.