My first soap is done!

Last night I made my first batch of soap from scratch. Well technically my second, but the one I made before was over 20 years ago. The new soap is a version of Castile Soap with 75% olive oil and 25% Coconut oil.

I used a cold process, oven process (CPOP) method. This just means that after I made the soap I put it in a low-temp oven for an hour then turned off the heat and let it cool naturally overnight. It helps to speed up the saponification process and reduce cure time. In layman's terms the soap can be used right away and will be fully ready 2-3 weeks earlier than conventional cold process soap.

Here are some of the notes I took while making my soap last night...
1) The canning pot I purchase just for making soap is too big. The stick blender was barely submerged and there was some splattering.
2) I used filtered tap water chilled in the refrigerator. The ambient room temperature was about 75° so the coconut oil was slushy.
3) Using the stick blender, it took about 5 minutes to get to light trace (the point where the sodium hydroxide and the oils have emulsified and will no longer separate). The soap was poured into the molds at light trace.
4) Soap was unmolded and cut at about 16 hours. The soap was firm, but still very easy to cut. I could definitely use a mitre box to make more uniform cuts.

There are more photos at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Seashore-Crafts/127584157282519.