Making Bar Soap?

Has anyone ever made their own personal bar soap to use for their body? From what I understand, it's a relatively simple process. I think it's olive oil, coconut oil & Lye. 

I'm curious on the process and proportion of ingredients and what ingredients you might use on your own bar soap

Has anyone ever made their own personal bar soap to use for their body? From what I understand, it's a relatively simple process. I think it's olive oil, coconut oil & Lye. 

I'm curious on the process and proportion of ingredients and what ingredients you might use on your own bar soap

So far I've experimented with a few different formulations.

• Pure olive oil
  
• Olive, Coconut, Palm
  
• Lard, Coconut, Olive
  

They all worked just fine. My favorite is the lard-based. Pure olive is very gentle but doesn't lather really well. Different oils have different qualities and you can tweak recipes to find the best fit for yourself.


I have some more coming up to try after I have some breathing room on shave soap.

Has anyone ever made their own personal bar soap to use for their body? From what I understand, it's a relatively simple process. I think it's olive oil, coconut oil & Lye. 

I'm curious on the process and proportion of ingredients and what ingredients you might use on your own bar soap

So far I've experimented with a few different formulations.

• Pure olive oil
  
• Olive, Coconut, Palm
  
• Lard, Coconut, Olive
  

They all worked just fine. My favorite is the lard-based. Pure olive is very gentle but doesn't lather really well. Different oils have different qualities and you can tweak recipes to find the best fit for yourself.


I have some more coming up to try after I have some breathing room on shave soap.

That's interesting, I think olive, coconut and palm would be the most practical for me. What proportions of each ingredient do use and forgive me but how do you actually make it if you dont' mind me asking? Is it all melted in a big pot or what? My experience is very limited.

You don't melt everything in a big pot. You add your Lye mixture to your oils. That said, please don't do it until you get yourself familiar with this process. Lye will burn you or worse, if not handled properly. There are many resources on the web, as well as videos.

You don't melt everything in a big pot. You add your Lye mixture to your oils. That said, please don't do it until you get yourself familiar with this process. Lye will burn you or worse, if not handled properly. There are many resources on the web, as well as videos.

I'll definitely get informed before I even attempt it

Making bar soap can be fun but also addicting. You will find a gigantic variety of ingredients that you can use as base oils, replacements for water, colorants and other additives. I want to reinforce what was already pointed out, lye can be nasty stuff so please be careful and use PPE (goggles, gloves, etc)

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Has anyone ever made their own personal bar soap to use for their body? From what I understand, it's a relatively simple process. I think it's olive oil, coconut oil & Lye. 

I'm curious on the process and proportion of ingredients and what ingredients you might use on your own bar soap

So far I've experimented with a few different formulations.

• Pure olive oil
  
• Olive, Coconut, Palm
  
• Lard, Coconut, Olive
  

They all worked just fine. My favorite is the lard-based. Pure olive is very gentle but doesn't lather really well. Different oils have different qualities and you can tweak recipes to find the best fit for yourself.


I have some more coming up to try after I have some breathing room on shave soap.

Lard is extremely underrated as a base ingredient for a bath soap. My favorite bath soap, Pig Trail, uses lard as the main ingredient. The only reason we don't lard in more of our soaps is customer expectations. So many are hesitant to use a non-tallow based or Vegan bath soap.

Great pointers, was thinking about doing this myself.

Lard is extremely underrated as a base ingredient for a bath soap.  My favorite bath soap, Pig Trail, uses lard as the main ingredient.  The only reason we don't lard in more of our soaps is customer expectations. So many are hesitant to use a non-tallow based or Vegan bath soap.

Is that Pig Trail as in the winding, motion sickness inducing roads to the U of A across Northern Arkansas?

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That's interesting, I think olive, coconut and palm would be the most practical for me. What proportions of each ingredient do use and forgive me but how do you actually make it if you dont' mind me asking? Is it all melted in a big pot or what? My experience is very limited.

The first one I did was 50% olive, 25% palm and 25% coconut. You can make it hot process (cook it in a crock pot until the soap is finished) or cold process (combine your ingredients thoroughly then let it saponify on its own time).

Hot process has the benefit of being done right away, though I found that high olive oil soaps benefit from a long cure anyway. The downside is that it becomes lumpy and difficult to mold.

Cold process takes longer and requires at least of month of curing to let the excess water evaporate for good results. But the soap "batter" is liquid at the point of pouring so you can mold it easily, or mix colors, etc.

Lard is extremely underrated as a base ingredient for a bath soap.  My favorite bath soap, Pig Trail, uses lard as the main ingredient.  The only reason we don't lard in more of our soaps is customer expectations. So many are hesitant to use a non-tallow based or Vegan bath soap.

Is that Pig Trail as in the winding, motion sickness inducing roads to the U of A across Northern Arkansas?

That's the one!