I had to make some soap today to see if I had anything worth sharing. I'm actually quite neurotic. As if I didn't already know that... All dishes and the normal kitchen clutter has to be washed, dried and put away before the soaping can begin. Then there has to be a dishpan full of hot soapy (Dawn) water in one of the double sinks. The other must be empty. Every oil gets its own measuring bowl and spatula so I don't cross-contaminate. I melt the lard first and weigh it into the mixing bowl, remove bowl from scale and make sure it goes back to zero, then replace bowl on scale to reweigh again (a few times). The bowl is put to the side as a "receiver of all things fatty to come." Next I grab the Shea butter container, melt that down, weigh the appropriate amount into a bowl, lift the bowl to see the scale go to zero, replace bowl to verify weight (do this twice more) then scrape the contents into the lard and return empty bowl to scale to make sure it weighs "0" grams. Bowl and spatula go into hot water for cleaning. Coconut oil into microwave for melting and follow exact same procedure as Shea butter. (Wash Shea butter bowl & spatula while coconut oil melts.). Next comes the olive oil and the exact same procedure (except for the melting part) - new bowl, new spatula. Finally comes the castor oil and I get to clean up the all of the oily dishes and spatulas. If I use a FO, that is weighed (and double checked a couple of times) before getting dumped into the oils and that dish is washed. Oils are all SBd to mix well. (Any additives that have to be measured and added in get done the same way, too. Weigh, reweigh a few times, dump, weigh empty container, wash.) Once the lye solution is poured into the oils, that container is put in the sink under running water while I hand stir the batter for a few minutes. Then the water gets turned off, the container goes in the soapy water and I actually make soap. After the mold(s) are full and doing their gel thing, all of the bowls and pitchers and utensils that have batter on them get scraped as clean as possible and wiped out with paper towels. I dump the cold water out of the dishpan and put the scraped dishes and utensils in the empty pan until the next day. Because by that time, I'm exhausted, really sick of washing dishes, and I want to get the heck out of the hazmat suit I'm wearing. Now I know why I am only able to make one -- maybe two -- batches of soap in a day. I don't have enough dishes & spatulas, hours in the day or energy to do more than that!
