Hi from PA

[Carl]

Hi,

We're from PA here. My 10 year old daughter wants to start making soap. She even thinks about setting up at craft shows some day. She has the business spirit in her. She's made soap many times before with the melt and pour kits that you get.

Now, it's time for her to get serious and make the soap from scratch. Unfortunately she needs someone to teach her. This is where dad comes in! But dad has to learn first, so here I am.

For now though, it's just a cool hobby and we're hoping we can get several batches together in time and give them out as holiday gifts (about 8-10 weeks yet until holidays).

Thanks for reading.

 

[lsg]

Welcome to the forum. Carl, may I suggest starting your young daughter out making M&P soaps. There is no danger of an accident with lye using M&P base. She can use color and scent with layering and swirling techinques to make beautiful soap. Soap Queen TV has a lot of tutorials featuring M&P.

 

[shunt2011]

Hi Carl and welcome! I second lsg....I would never have my young child making soap. My granddaughter would love to help me but I don't allow it. We play with MP sometimes or I make lip balm or bath bombs with her. Lye is too much for a young kid.

 

[Carl]

Thanks for all the good advice. For now, it is only me doing the work, lol. She will eventually learn though. Last weekend she was an observer while I did the work and this weekend I'm home alone!

 

[Nan D.]

 

[mx5inpenn]

Welcome from PA!

 

[amd]

Welcome!

My daughter has "helped" me make soap, she just turned 11. Here are the things I let her do:
Design soaps (picking out colors and fragrances)
Making embeds with soap dough or M&P
Measuring out oils with guidance - she measure, I double check before she adds it to the soap pot
Placing embeds on top of soap after it has been mixed and poured into the mold (she still has to wear gloves and goggles, my rules)
Mica painting soap

While there are quite a few things she can help with, at her age it is not recommended for her to make the soap herself. I don't even let my daughter in the room when I am mixing lye - her lungs are so much smaller [than mine] I worry about the fumes affecting her more. Even if she is watching me make soap, she isn't allowed to be right by my elbow. She has to stand back so that if I make sudden movements I don't get "hung up" on her and cause an accident, or should I get clumsy and spill (random gravity checks happen to me alot), she is out of the way. And she still has to wear goggles. I've been known to sling soap batter a time or two.

 

[earlene]

Welcome to the Forum, Carl and Carlita.

I have had my granddaughter help me make soap many times. I almost exclusively make CP soap, but she has helped with HP as well and also MP. I don't let her handle lye, of course. But I have been able to teach her the basic safety precautions, the use of Personal Protective Equipment, how to zap test (didn't actually have her do a zap test, but got a great photo of her pretending) and as a helper she has always been great. We worked on a project together a few months back in which she did the design concept and then a lot of the work to build a Yellow Submarine soap that was a combination of MP & CP. By using soap dough (CP) that has saponified fully but kept pliable (in air-tight containers) she was able to manipulate the soap dough and add the embellishments to soap with no danger of lye contact.

So the potential to teach her without actual hands-on danger is really there and I commend you for diving into this for your daughter!

Only you will know when it is safe to let her handle the risks of lye. My granddaughter is 17 now, but even now I wouldn't let her actually use lye. Other 17-year-olds would probably be safe handling lye, but I don't feel that she is as yet and have discussed this with her mom, too, who agrees with me on this point. But only you can make that determination for your own child. Just make sure she has no tendencies to self-harm and has really good focus, follow-through skills and is well co-ordinated (not too klutzy) before you start letting her handle lye (supervised, at first of course.)

Maybe she can start small with the craft booth idea at her school if they do any kind of fairs or something like that. AND for a science fair, she'll be all set with a soapmaking demo of some sort. What a great learning opportunity and a head start in chemistry for her!