Cold Process Soap

If you’ve been with us for any length of time, you know we make handmade goat’s milk soap. We usually have a few different scents in stock, year round. We do try to plan ahead & ramp up production, before market season begins or if we know we have an upcoming event, as it takes about a month for the soap to fully cure.

But first of all, what is the cold process method for making soap? It’s the process our grandmothers may have used, or their grandmothers before them. It combines fat or oils (animal or plant-based) with sodium hydroxide, or lye. Lye is mixed with the liquid of choice (we typically use goat’s milk), then added to the melted fats & oils & brought to “trace”, a pudding-like consistency. We also add clays & fragrance before we pour into molds.

Then the process of saponification takes place. This is a chemical reaction between sodium hydroxide (base) and the fats or oils (acid). For any science nerds, like myself, the free hydroxide breaks the ester bonds between the fatty acids & glycerol of a triglyceride, resulting in free fatty acid salts & glycerol (alcohol). At the end of the reaction, the acid & base are neutralized. The process does create heat. We like to have our oils fairly cool before we begin & we use frozen goat’s milk to help prevent scorching.

Have you ever tried making soap? Do you notice a difference between handmade soaps & store-bought?!