How do you make homemade lye?

How do you make soap with natural oils and lye?

• I can make tallow and have oak ashes at the .

• Answer:

  A2A I make natural soap for myself. It's pretty easy to do at home as long as you have the ingredients and a recipe that is well balanced. My normal recipe is something like 28 oz coconut oil, 20 oz olive oil, 16 oz grapeseed oil, 2 oz jojoba oil, 2 oz avacado oil, 1 oz kukui nut oil, and 6 total oz of any combination of cocoa butter, she's butter, and mango butter. That is just the base oils, I also use 9.8 oz of sodium hydroxide, and 14.7 oz of water. Beyond that I will use 8 oz of a blend of essential oils for scent and aromatherapy benefits. I put all the base oils together in a pot and heat it at a medium-low setting. Then I mix the sodium hydroxide with the water and set that in a cool area and let it cool off. When the lye solution is around 130•F and the oils are around 120•F I will mix the lye into the oil and remove it from the heat. At that point I begin to use a stick blender to mix the solution. If the oil or lye is too hot that will cause the reaction to proceed too quickly, too cold and the reaction never seems to happen. It's ready when you can trace a line in the surface with the top of a spoon and that line does not disappear immediately. Once I can get a "trace" I add the essential oils and any colorings or clays or other things to it and give it a few really good stirs. Then I pour it into a wax paper lined mold that I have. I made a mold years ago that allows me to pour it and let it harden and then once that's done I can just remove the sides of the mold and cut the soap into bars. Once the soap is fully set, it will need to be cut into bars. I do this as soon as possible because if it gets too hard I can't cut into it easily and it breaks instead of cuts. After cutting, I let the soap sit for at least a week before using it. I wrap it in wax paper and let it sit out during that time. I don't expose the soap directly to the open air. This soap will stay good for at least a year or more. If I added more base oils it would not last as long since the base oils will go rancid if they are not reacted with lye.