How to Make Soap From Scratch (DIY)
Soap-Making 101: Prepping Skills to Learn Now“Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.” –William Osler.
The average American consumer spends almost 90 dollars a year on soap and detergents. Once you’ve made a batch of your own soap, you may never use store-bought soap again. Soap making is incredibly easy, and it’s an excellent skill to have after a disaster if you are homesteading or just want to pick up a highly addictive hobby. One large batch can provide you, your friends, neighbors, and their friends all the soap you could need for months and months.
In this video, I will make a simple batch of fragrant soap using oil, and sodium hydroxide, commonly known as lye. Because there is some chemistry here to get it right, I have done all the calculations for you. Lye is highly corrosive in its pure state and can cause chemical burns, so you will want to wear hand and eye protection and even a mask. You will also want to mix these chemicals in a well-ventilated area or outdoors, as the sodium hydroxide can give off poisonous gas. Don’t let this scare you, though. You won’t have to worry if you practice reasonable safety precautions, as I will outline here. I will take you step-by-step through what you need, the recipe and method, an example of a usable failure, and then a bit of the history on soap, fats, lye, and my shocking theory about the origin of soap. By the end of this video, you will have a batch that works that you can play around with and tweak however you like…
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