Olive Oil Soap

I'm learning to make soap.  Olive oil soap is supposed to be the best for felting, so I thought I'd try making it.  Yes, it has been a learning experience!  The first batch took soooo long.  I started one evening and finished it the next day.  Once I got a stick blender, things went a lot better.  Making soap was faster and easier.

I made more soap yesterday.  This time I used different oils.  Olive oil soap is good for felting because it is slippery and low sudsing.  That's great for felt, but I wanted a more luxurious soap this time to just use as a hand soap.  I used olive oil, palm oil, and coconut oil.  Here it is as I am mixing it with the stick blender.  I am so careful with the lye.  It is nasty stuff, but the resulting soap is wonderful.

I never time this, so I can't really tell you how long it takes -- maybe 30 min. until it begins to "trace".  This means it starts to leave a pattern in the pan.  Here's a photo where it's starting to trace.

This is a good sign.  It's doing some sort of chemical change and becoming soap.  It gets thicker and you add the scent.  I like Lemon Grass -- the actual plant essence.  It has a nice, fresh smell.  Sorry for the blur.  I can't go back and do it over.  You should be able to see the yellow oil as it mixes in.

I am learning as I go along.  This time I let it get a little too thick.  Here's another photo:

 I didn't know it was too thick until I looked underneath the mold and saw it didn't flow into all parts of the mold well.  It's still good soap and will work!

It's in the mold.  I level it like icing on a cake.  It will stay in the mold for 48 hours, then I cut it into bars and put it on a rack to dry.  It should dry for about 3 weeks, so make it a long time before you need to have it.