Evan Sarah Epstein

A couple months ago a girlfriend and I visited my mother-in-law, Mary, to learn how to make soap. Mary is a total renaissance woman. She makes soap, weaves baskets, spins her own yarns to use in her beautiful knitted creations. And she’s funny and smart. Really, I don’t know how much more I could ask for a mother-in-law.

When I first met Sean, one of the things that really stuck out in my mind was how he always had this natural clean smell. Not a hippie-dippy patchouli smell, but kind of earthy nonetheless. I soon found out that he used soap his mother made and upon smelling said soap, it all made sense. Shortly thereafter Mary gave me a bar of my own – it was grapefruit scented. It lathered beautifully, smelled nice and clean, lasted a long while, and didn’t irritate my skin. Naturally I thought making this miracle soap must have been a painstaking lesson in chemistry. Not for me.

Throughout the years though, I started to want to make my own soap too. Mary would offer to teach me, but it never worked out time-wise and I was still a bit reticent to jump into soap-making head on.

Boy, my fears were unfounded.

Making soap really was as easy as Mary claimed it to be. I can’t help but wonder why high school chemistry teachers don’t do something like this – it certainly would have kept my attention at 16.

Weigh and melt your fats until they form a uniform mixture. This is especially easy when you have tools like this: http://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php

In a separate container, carefully mix in lye with water. Let the lye/ water mix cool down.

Add the lye mixture to the fats carefully and slowly. Use a spoon to mix the solution while you are pouring lye.

Stir the mixture well using a stick blender.

Measure out the fragrance and add it to this mixture and stir again with a spoon.
Pour the mixture into the plastic molds immediately and let it cool down.

Let the mixture sit at room temperature for 24 hours or so until the temperature has dropped down to room temperature. Remove the soap bars from the molds. Cut into bars and let them cure.

I am hooked. It’s so easy and fun to do and you end up with the satisfaction that you’ve made something that will definitely be used!