Nice Lathery Soap Recipe

Finally! A soap recipe that has a nice, stable lather in the shower. All of my previous batches didn't lather quite as well, but they were still nice. I'm a big fan of using tallow as my base fat for all my soaps. It's free and just requires a little work to render.

You will need:
Pot for melting fats & oils
Stainless pot for mixing soap
Mason jar for lye water
Spatula
Thermometer
Kitchen scale
Mixer
Soap Mold
Note: You will not be able to use your kitchen items after you use them for soap making.

Fats & Oils (oz wt)
28 oz tallow
3 oz olive oil
3 oz coconut oil
2 oz sweet almont oil
2 oz shea butter
3 oz cocoa butter

2 oz grapeseed oil (added at trace)

Lye Water
5.2 oz wt lye (sodium hydroxide)
10 - 15 fl oz water or other liquid

Combine fats & oils until all fats are melted. Meanwhile, pour the water or liquid in a mason jar. ALWAYS ADD THE LYE TO THE LIQUID. Adding liquid to lye will cause an explosion. Preferably, mix your lye water in the garage or a well ventilated area.

Let your fats & oils mixture cool to about 100 degrees F. Do the same with the lye water. Don't let your lye water cool to less than 100 degrees. I've heard that some people never monitor the temperatures, but I have always monitored the temperatures. I have found that if you try to mix your soap with extremely hot liquid, it will take a long time before it comes to trace.

While you are waiting for them to cool, prepare your soap molds. I have a wooden soap mold, but you could use a shoebox lined with parchment paper.

Time to mix! Combine the fats, oils & lye water in a stainless steel container and mix with a hand mixer. You could do it by hand, but you will be mixing for a LONG time. You will notice a change right away, but you will probably need to stir for at least 15 minutes.

Once the mixture starts to look like pudding, that's known as the trace stage. You have to work quickly once it reaches trace. Now you can add essential oils, fragrance oils, and other delicate oils. I added some grapeseed oil at trace, because I didn't want to lose it's properties once it mixed with the lye. I also added some apple fragrance oil.

Pour your soap into a mold and smooth it with a spatula. You will be able to cut it the next day, but you will need to wait a week before you use it. Enjoy!