I visited a craft fair a
few days ago. I always find it very interesting to
wander round and chat to the sellers. One of the soap
makers had a lovely range of cold process soaps, I have
recently been working with soap making using the hot
process, so I asked if they had ever used this
technique. I was very surprised to find that they hadn't
even heard of the process, despite the fact that they
had been making soap for many years, and from the tone
of our discussion they obviously considered themselves
experts.As the
conversation continued it became apparent that they
considered the hot process a "new fangled" way to make
soap, so it was quite pleasing to be able to set them
straight Hot process soap making has been used for
centuries, there are several reasons for this...
- It is much less
reliant on quality ingredients, historically this was
crucial, because ingredients of the purity that we now
take for granted were simply not available when soap was
first made.
- There is a great deal
more control over the outcome. Any ingredient -
fragrance or dye - added to a batch of cold process soap
is normally added as the liquid soap mixture thickens
(known as trace), the soap making (saponification)
process is still underway at this point, so any
ingredient added must suffer the alkaline nature of the
lye and the chemical reaction that takes place. This can
absorb fragrances, dyes and added oils. By contrast,
ingredients such as fragrance, dye and nourishing oils
are added to a hot process batch after saponification
has completely finished, thus leaving them essentially
unaltered.
- The process is
scalable from a small batch of just a few bars, right up
to industrial sized manufacturing. This is in fact an
element of the process still used in the manufacture of
commercial soap today - true soap anyway. It is possible
to create a batch of soap which uses less than a pound
of oils, right up to a batch weighing several tons.
- It is just as easy to
do as cold process even if it might take a little longer
on the day you make it. I have created a five pound
batch recently and without the use of a hand blender
(which is known to speed up the soap making process),
the mixture was ready to put into the mold less than an
hour after I added the lye to the oils.
- There is no need to
cure hot process soap for 4-6 weeks. If you are planning
to scale up your production to the point where you can
create a useful income from selling your soap, you will
need to create large quantities of product. If you use
the cold process, you will need to store each and every
batch that you create for between four and six weeks,
before it is cured and ready to sell. With hot process
you cook it, place it in the mold, leave it to set and
it is ready to use. At this stage the soap is still a
little soft and if left for a day or two to harden
fully, the soap will last longer, but if pushed for
time, the soap can be used as soon as it is set.
So if you mention hot
process soap making to a craft maker friend and they ask
you if this is a new fangled technique, you can set them
straight.
