Making Soap

Making soap is quite an easy task. There are many websites online where you can get precise tutorials and recipes of making all sorts of soap. The history of making soap began with the Ancient Babylonians, where they made soap like substance to clean their bodies with cypress oil, ashes and sesame seed oil.

Both the Egyptians and the Romans were also known to have been making soap. The former mixed animal and vegetable fats with alkaline salts and also used it in seasoning the wool before weaving. The Egyptians were known for their make-up invention and clean habits. The Romans meanwhile, made soap out of tallow and ashes as the Babylonians but according to Pliny the Elder who wrote the Historia Naturalis, they used this soap only for the hair. The Romans even wrote of Celts using soap. Throughout the Roman history making soap has been mentioned several times. Doctors suggested soap to wash the bodies off any infectious impurities and noted often that the Germanic soaps were better than the soap acquired from Gaul. In the 15th century, semi-industrialized France began the commercially making soap. The first soaps were made using animal fat but by the 16th century they had been replaced by much more refined vegetable oils. The first white soap was created in France under the name of Castile soap and is still in production today.

The process of making soap comes down in two ways; hot process and cold process. Hot process soap making is opted for when the fat used to make the fat, known as lye is changeable. The cold process must be made under specific temperature conditions to ensure that it liquefies properly. Hot process is beneficial as the exact concentration of the lye does not have to be known when creating the soap, whereas in cold process a miscalculation in the amount of lye solution used will disrupt the final result of the soap.

Here is a recipe for what the website calls ‘Breakfast for your Skin.’ Exfoliating and moisturizing early morning scrub. Making soap of this kind is very easy. This is to be used after a shower, scrub a handful into your body and rinse.

3/4 cup Brown Sugar, 1/2 cup ground oatmeal (not instant), 1/4 cup pure honey, 3/4 to 1 cup (or to total saturation) Oil of choice - jojoba or grape seed or almond - and add 1/4 tsp essential or fragrance oil of choice (optional) Vanilla works nicely. Adding a fragrance is not a must because the concoction smells fine without it. Mix the brown sugar & oatmeal together in a large bowl. Now add the honey. Pour the oil over the mix. Mix well. When all your mix is saturated and sinks to the bottom of the bowl and you have oil on top you're done. Add your essential oil or fragrance oil. A six or eight ounce wide-mouthed jar works nicely. Spoon the mixture in and you’re done! It’s great for the morning, thus the apt naming!