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What kind of lye is best for soap making?
Lye (sodium hydroxide) is an essential ingredient when making homemade soap from scratch using either cold process or hot process methods. As long as you double-check the label to ensure it contains only sodium hydroxide, you’re good to go.
Where do I get lye?
Craft stores carry lye for soapmaking. There is also food-grade sodium hydroxide, sold in some specialty cooking stores. You can find sodium hydroxide online. You can purchase it at Amazon as sodium hydroxide or lye, pure lye drain opener, caustic soda, and pure or food-grade sodium hydroxide.
Can you make your own lye for soap?
To make lye in the kitchen, boil the ashes from a hardwood fire (soft woods are too resinous to mix with fat) in a little soft water, rainwater is best, for about half an hour. Allow the ashes to settle to the bottom of the pan and then skim the liquid lye off the top.
What can you substitute for lye in soap making?
Here are some good choices: Goat’s Milk Soap Base. Shea Butter Soap Base. Glycerin Soap Base. Cocoa Butter Soap Base.
What is another name for lye?
What is another word for lye? sodium hydroxide caustic soda soda lye sooji-mooji.
How much lye do you need for soap?
The Pallas Athene Soap company formulated a quick and easy cold process soap recipe that requires exactly 20 ounces of lye (the size of 1 canister from Certified Lye™) and yields a superior bar of natural soap.
Is lye the same as baking soda?
Originally Answered: Is baking soda same as lye? No. baking soda is sodium (hence the “soda” in the name) bicarbonate (NaHCO3), while lye (also known as “caustic soda”) is sodium hydroxide (NaOH).
Is lye good for your skin?
Lye is a caustic substance that can certainly damage your skin if you’re exposed to it. It can cause a number of problems, such as burns, blindness, and even death when consumed. But, and this is a big but, soap that is created with lye (which is all real soap) will do absolutely no harm to your skin.
Why do they put lye in soap?
Without lye, the oils in your recipe would stay oils. Nothing would happen to them. A chemical change involving lye must happen in order to create soap.
Can soap be made without lye?
Soap is an alkali (like sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide) combined with fats. Together they go through a reaction called “saponification”, and in the end you are left with soap. So, by the very definition of “soap”, you cannot make soap without lye.
Does all soap have lye?
All REAL soap is made with lye (sodium hydroxide mixed with liquid). Any skin or hair cleansing product made without sodium hydroxide is not soap, it is detergent.
What does lye soap smell like?
Lye soap is made from potassium hydroxide (from wood ashes or sodium hydroxide) and animal fat. So it is a “smelly” process that leaves the end product with a slight “basic” or biting odor a little like ammonia.
Where does lye come from naturally?
Whatever meat scraps and drippings you have on hand will supply the fat and the lye comes from wood ashes and water. To make lye in the kitchen, boil the ashes from a hardwood fire (soft woods are too resinous to mix with fat) in a little soft water, rain water is best, for about half an hour.
Can you use baking soda instead of lye to make soap?
It is certainly possible to make an acceptable cold process soap using baking soda or washing soda, but lather performance suffers compared to the same soap formula without them. This supports the conventional wisdom that they are better used in a hot process soap (after the cook) or in a rebatched soap.
Does Castile soap have lye in it?
Castile soap is a mild soap made from vegetable oils. Although Castile soap requires lye (potassium hydroxide) as an ingredient in its creation, a process called saponification converts the lye and vegetable oils into a new compound, resulting in a lye-free end product.
What is lye made of?
Lye, or sodium hydroxide, is a chemical made from salt. Yep, ordinary salt. A system similar to electroplating is used to change the salt to lye.
What is the difference between sodium hydroxide and lye?
Lye, or caustic soda, is a mixture of sodium hydroxide and water. This strong alkaline compound is used sparingly in baking due its dominate properties. While stronger solutions of lye have been made famous for making soap and other cleaners, food-grade lye is a much milder solution.
What’s the difference between lie and lye?
Lie or lye: Lie and lye are only differentiated with one alphabet between them; however, that makes the meaning completely different as lie is both a noun and a verb that means either to being false or to lay down on some flat surface. Lye on the other hand is a metal hydroxide that is a strong alkali.
What happens if you put too much lye in soap?
There are two common issues people run into when making soap: not enough lye or too much lye used. Too much lye will result in a bar whose pH is too high and can cause skin irritation and burning. Not enough lye can result in oils going rancid, causing discoloration and bad odors.
Does lye soap lighten skin?
All natural handmade Lye soap, use it as a full body soap or use it as a face and neck soap. Guaranteed to lighten and or remove blemishes and dark spots. Lye soap is great for dry and oily skin.
What is Superfat in soap making?
Superfatting is the process of using less lye (or more fat) than industry standards so that there’s some leftover oil in the soap that’s not bound to lye. This leaves behind more unsaponified fat, providing more moisture in the soap.
