Safe way to clean up after soap making?

[AutumnBreezeSoaps]

I know I said the last ? would be the last one for tonight but...Wondering how everyone else goes about their clean up process of the bowls etc when you used them for Lye? Hubby used a mixture of vinegar and soap solution to clean everything and then rinsed it well. Of course we will ONLY use these items for making soap and not for food prep. Is there anything else we should be doing for clean up?

 

[Obsidian]

For my lye containers, I just rinse with cold water then wash with dish soap. Anything that has soap batter on it gets sat on the porch until the next day so the batter can turn into soap. I then soak everything and wash with dish soap.

You really don't need to use vinegar unless you have a lye spill, then you'd want to neutralize it. Never use vinegar on your skin if you get lye on it, it will burn even worse. Always, always rinse lye of you with plain cold water.

 

[AutumnBreezeSoaps]

Thanks for letting me know that, I had thought I read TO use vinegar if you got lye on yourself to neutralize it. I would have used it if I had spilled it on myself. Very good to know!

 

[CanaDawn]

Same here. Rinse well (after all, drain cleaner is lye...), wash as normal with dish soap. Soapy stuff gets scraped as clean as possible into the mold, then sits overnight and then....it's soap, so it gets mixed with hot water and washed/rinsed.

The vinegar advice is also good. Lye solution on your skin should be rinsed off with cold water only. Lye solution elsewhere can be neutralised first.

I'm also not terribly worried about keeping soap equipment separate. Lye rinses off everything I use, and it all gets washed. Soapy stuff is soapy, so I treat it like any other soapy thing, and make sure it's well rinsed. If you use fragrance or essential oils, they can taint plastic and wood with a scent/taste, so in that case it does make sense to keep those items apart. Some people feel uncomfortable with that, and keep all their soaping stuff as separate equipment.

 

[Carty812]

You know i have always been told if you spill lye on your skin to pour vinegar on it as well. I thought it was neutralize with vinegar and then rinse with cold water. Interesting!

 

[LunaSkye]

I generally like to wait until the next day to clean my equipment. By then I find that the soap saponified enough to not bother me when I clean it. I also find it easier to make soap balls from the residuals.

 

[Susie]

I use a spatula to get every last bit possible into the mold(I paid for it, I am going to use every drop possible.) Then wipe with a paper towel. Then into the sink to wash with dish soap. There is nothing left after the wipe down to worry about.

 

[cmzaha]

Msds sheets for lye say to flush with copious amounts of cold water. Since I am a person that even cleans up between batches I just wipe all I can with a paper towel add in some degreaser and clean my buckets and utensils. Then my huge amount of bamboo outside gets a good washing! I simply cannot deal with dirty buckets, dishes etc until the next day. The paper towel companies must love me!! :smile:

 

[jules92207]

I use to use a vinegar solution but found just soapy cool water is just fine. I have to clean everything right away as my kids are too darn nosey so a good dish soap and water gets the job done just fine!

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I also just rinse the lye pots out a lot while I do other things, then wash normally with the other pot when finished. I also find that wiping some washing up liquid around the oily pots before any water is added just helps cut it right through. Uses a bit more, I think, but works.

 

[pamielynn]

I agree with LunaSkye - wipe everything down as much as possible and let it all sit over night. Now, it's soap and with addition of water, everything pretty much cleans itself. Bowls and utensils used for lye aren't your problem, it's items with fragrance oils that you should keep dedicated to soap. Once an FO comes into contact with anything plastic, it will taste like "soap" forever

 

[shunt2011]

Another one the papertowel companies love, I can't stand having my things dirty overnight so I scrape as much as possible out and then use a papertowel to wipe any extra then give it a good wash with dish soap and hot water.

 

[rogue]

I was using the rinse well and ( sometimes soak in soapy water) and wash or dish wash for my lazy butt the next day. That was until making transparent soap came into my life. Using so much stearic acid leaves this lovely white coating on EVERYTHING that the soap water touches. I was so excited because the soapy stuff just slid right off, swoosh! until I had to vinegar wipe off everything in my sink, dishwasher, moulds... Not loving the transparent soap so much now.