Selfsufficientish.com

Hi - can anyone tell me how and where to get hold of the cheapest ingredients for soap making? - lye, or other such basic components.

Any tips on how to make lye, or how to make soaps from scratch.

We are looking at using olive oil and lye but I was kind of hoping to find some industrial soap concentrate or other such non-branded stuff that we could then add seaweeds and essential oils to etc.

We have soapwort.

Failing any major discoveries - what are the cheapest sources of bio-degradable soaps? Ecover is costing me an arm and a leg. We are getting frugal here!

If there is already a post on this subject that I have missed, please will you point me to it.

Best wishes!

Malcolm

This might help:

http://www.selfsufficientish.com/soapmaking.htm

I've bought supplies from here, I think they're quite reasonably priced compared to some I've seen:

https://www.soapkitchenonline.co.uk/acatalog/index.html

What do you want it for Malcolm? Body/clothes/dishes? I presume it's just for personal use, otherwise you need any formulations safety testing in order to sell.

Here's a recipe I found online many moons ago - never tried it but I did bring some soapwort up with me and it's just about surviving. So I'll have a go next year maybe.

Natural Soap
- uses Soapwort root, which is obtainable from good health food stores. Crush or pulverize 12 grms Soapwort root very well. Boil 2 litres of spring water and pour over the soapwort. Leave to infuse for 24 hours then filter though filter paper or very fine muslin then bottle in jars or bottles. Add any essential oils when it's cold and shake well.

I'm guessing that they use dried, so I'd at least double it for fresh root. You can always adjust the water as well to get what you want.

The other thing I do is - despite being a soapmaker by profession people keep buying me horrible smelly soaps for presents. I grate them then mix 1 cup soap: 0.5 cup washing soda: 0.5 cup borax (or the new substitute) and use it as washing powder. You can do it with the cheap supermarket white soaps and it cuts down costs dramatically. Put it in the washer drum though - so it doesn't clog your pipes

im thinking of making some laundry soup - as i have all this pig and mutton fat. anyone use homemade soap in their washing machine? does it bung it up?

As I said above if you use it in the mix I posted above, and put it in the drum, rather than the drawer, it should be OK. As long as it's saponified well without too much superfat.

I wouldn't use it without the soda and borax - it might froth too much for a front loader and won't remove stains so well.