Try Soap Making As a New and Interesting Hobby
When you go into hotels, do you notice those specially made soaps that make their bathrooms extra attractive? Or have you seen soaps that are displayed in specialty stores? These soaps may seem really hard to make and you might think that these require special equipment and machinery to make. But contrary to what you may think, soap making is an easy process that you can do at home.
Soap is made from a fairly easy process called saponification. It is basically done by mixing the two basic ingredients in water and letting them undergo a reaction that will produce soap. And if you think these two ingredients are very hard to find, think again as you will only need some fats and lye and you can already start with your soap making process.
The first method of saponification is the hot process. This requires heating of the lye and water solution, and upon addition of the fats, further heating is still required. This method is used if you have an impure lye and don’t have its exact amount. The quality of soap produced in this process may not be as good as the cold process but it can serve its purpose of cleaning.
The second method of saponification is through the cold process. This process will not require heating of the fats and lye mixture, instead it relies on the heat produced by mixing lye in water. The catch in this method is that you have to follow the exact amounts of each ingredient or you will not be able to produce a good type of soap. You will need pure lye in order to achieve the desired results.
The first step in to making those soaps with advanced designs is by first mastering the basics. You will need to learn how to make soap that has the properties that you need by changing the type of fat you use, as well as the exact amounts that you will need. Once you have mastered how to make the basic soap, you can then move on to making more advanced designs.
The ingredients that you will need to make more advanced soaps are dyes and fragrances. In addition to these, you may also need several molds and a knife which can be used for sculpting soap. Dyes will of course give you the color of the soap that you want, and fragrances will add to the appeal of your soap. Molds and knives will help you shape your soap in any way that you please.
But soap making is not all fun and games. You must also be careful as lye is a very corrosive substance. It also emits dangerous fumes when immersed in water. This is why you should take precautions such as wearing gloves and face masks in order to protect yourself from its harmful effects.
Keep on practicing and eventually, you will start coming up with soaps that are comparable to those that you see in specialty shops and hotel bathrooms. One day, you might even surpass their designs and you may want to sell your own designs and earn some money from this hobby.