soft oil bar soap

[urbaninnovate13]

Hello everyone!
I have used this site for informational purposes before, but otherwise am new to the site. I have not made soap before but know a bit about it, the closest to making it I have come is dissolving my castile soap bar in distilled water to get liquid soap since pure liquid dr. B soap is very runny and expencive.
I am now ready to try my hand at soaponification, but I'm wondering about oils.
I am starting a garden / green house and would like to use oils I can obtain myself eventually.
I live in zone 5 so I can not grow any hard soap oils, but I would like to make a bar soap.
I know olive oil is a soft soap oil but will become a bar after a long patient cure.
which of these soft soap oils has a harder quality to mix in to speed up the cure to maybe 3 months or 4?
in this area i can try to Obtain:
olive oil
almond oil
chestnut oil
peanut oil
hempseed oil
carrot seed oil
plum kernel oil

These are all that I can think of which produce good oils and I might be blessed to grow hardy variety of. a few of the oils are off the list like sunflower because of the low shelf life.

One more question,
if I were to eventually want to create my own wood ash lye, potassium hydroxide, how would this effect the soap
I have heard that this type of lye makes only soft soaps, so will that make for more cure time?
i have only used one "potash" soap which was made from castor oil and coconut oil, nd that was a pretty sturdy bar, but they did use coconut which is a hard soap oil to thicken it.

Also, i hope to some time have a bee box or many to help pollinate my plants and obtain beeswax from, so maybe I can include that in the recipe to stiffen things up.

 

[cmzaha]

FYI, hempseed oil has a very short shelf life. I have to wonder how you are ever going to press enough oil to make soap. As for potash soap, there are some homesteading sites that tell how to make and use it. Lots of luck, I will buy what I know will make a quality soap. Not All that our great grandparents made was wonderful and this is why there is still a generation of folks that will not use lye soap, they still remember grandmothers harsh lye soap. This is why we use calculators and purchased NaOH and KOH is is controlled. Olive oil actually makes a very hard bar of soap, and the long cure time is mainly to help cut the slimey aspect of pure olive oil soap. Olive oil soap only stays very soft for a long time if what is considered full water is used which is about 38% of your oil weight.

 

[snappyllama]

Welcome to the forum!

If you're not opposed to animal fats, they are great in soap, widely available and you can render your own from fats that would otherwise be wasted. I love lard in soap and have heard great things about beef tallow too. Soapcalc was SAP values for a bunch of animals you might raise or hunt like deer, bear, goats, etc.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Are you sure it was potash, or was it commercial potassium?

Apart from the 'that was interesting' aspect of using home made lye, I don't see that it brings anything but negatives to the process - you can't use a calculator and so have to make sure your soap is not lye heavy in the old fashioned ways, which weren't so good

 

[urbaninnovate13]

I also still have to look into how much crop seed yield, I knew I would need a decent size crop, I can devote acres to it if it is worth it. Especially olive trees, would these give decent yield, I would like something which was a by product of preparing food such as pitting and canning olives. I live in zone 5 so I plan to get a small cold hardy tree and put up a removable green house for the winters.
I know all bout how to obtain the lye naturally, and it's variable concentrations, I have looked into testing ph with vegetables (yes lol you read right) seems this color change is more reliable than a dissolving chicken feather.
Thanks for the tip on hemp oil. I am in a recreational state with industrial hemp research privileges so I figured I would give it a shot, but may not be worth it.

I mainly want to be blessed to sell atleast one product that I can say, I really made this, everything in it, from beginning to end

If I could trim my Plum trees nd use the branches to make plum potash to mix with olive oil and plum kernel oil, I think that alone would be worthwhile, to raise them with intent and love.

 

[shunt2011]

I'm a little confused. How do you plan to make your own oils? Do you have the equipment to press/extract them? I would think it would be a really expensive endeavor. I would also think it would take years of to grow and get enough crop too.

 

[hud]

The olive tree takes five years to give fruits, I love olive trees as well, and the most I love about them that they live as long as 3000 years, they are my symbol of peace and love.
I am a member of Olive Grove, they have a mail list if you like to join, and they help a lot if you are growing your own trees.
Olive Grove Mail List <[email protected]
For the equipments, the mother earth website and magazines have tons of information about pressing one's own oil.They make everything look really easy for those who are insane like me.

 

[ariella42]

I mainly want to be blessed to sell atleast one product that I can say, I really made this, everything in it, from beginning to end

I think that's a truly laudable goal, but given the nature of some of the oils you intend to use (unless you already have the trees planted) it's clearly going to be a few years before you can even begin experimenting with them. I think that you should start learning how to make soaps with store-bought products to get experience with making soap in the meantime. It will give you a better idea of what oils you like and how they act, plus you'll know what's normal and what's not as you continue experimenting.

Especially olive trees, would these give decent yield, I would like something which was a by product of preparing food such as pitting and canning olives.

The entire olive is used in making olive oil, so it won't just be something you make with leftovers. It also takes a lot of olives to make oil - I read that it takes 800 lbs of olives to make 20 gallons of olive oil. Granted, depending on your goals, you might not need that much, but believe me that oils start going fast when you're making soap.

I do agree with the idea of using animal fats if you aren't opposed to that. Honestly, tallow and lard are both a lot easier to render into a significant amount for soapmaking than the other oils you listed. They're also great, hard oils. I'm rendering my own tallow from leftover fat that would otherwise be thrown out. If you hunt or want to raise meat animals, then it's even better.

 

[urbaninnovate13]

Ok, I didn't check out how to make a cold press extractor or anything yet, didnt think it would be that hard to make something to press oils out. I had also heard you can crush and cook the oils to the surface of water, but that might take a while. And I know it take a while to produce fruits on any tree, but olives seem like ghey would pack a decent amount of oils in the yeild. That's why I was asking about which oils I can get now which later on I may be able to aquire myself, the plan is to make soap soon but i was looking into things such as this anyway for later on down the road. We are getting land next month and starting to prep to grow food, starting the next year I want to start expanding, growing and making things that will be useful for myself. I'm just beginning to look into the specifics of most of this.

 

[urbaninnovate13]

I've used refined bacon fat and beeswax to make candles before, but I don't like the idea of the animal fat, I've used castile soap for years, heck I dont eat butter or gravy for the most part haha, nothing to do with animal fat, just not into consuming high fat things.

 

[Dorymae]

I would break your goal into steps.


First buy your land and plant the trees! Even if you don't press the oil the olives will be welcome once you brine them.

If you are thinking of homesteading then try saving your bacon fat and pork fat. Learn to clean it and store it for making soap. Buy some olive oil and some lye and make your soap from lard, olive oil and lye. (You can also use tallow from beef or wild game. Tallow makes wonderful soap!)

Next try your hand at making potash. You seem like you have already done some research. Once you have usable potash try your hand at making soap again with the lard and olive oil.

Now you would need to get some unprocessed olives, hopefully you know someone else who grows some olives. Now try to extract the oil.

Each step will bring you challenges to overcome, but if you have a goal you can get there, one step at a time.

 

[urbaninnovate13]

Finally some one who realizes the plan. Even though it's my goal, I know the steps, the question was not "how should I go bout doing this" it was about good oil combinations using the oils I listed... seems simple, but you posting that helps me with all these negative people who seem to give up when presented with simple obstacles

I don't plan to use tallow but you steps you listed are my plan for this, I just wanted to know which oils would be best. most people just want to be nay sayers, but if I'm planning to grow plants and would like to make this my hobby, why would you try to stop me. Yes fruits take years to produce. Yes I know it takes a field to produce a gallon or two of oils, yes I know the oils have to be extracted. But plans take time and dedication I'm not looking for quick fix hobbies, I want something involved I can enjoy over my life time.

 

[true blue]

... all these negative people who seem to give up when presented with simple obstacles

If all the things people have said so far are just 'simple obstacles', then good for you!

That being said ... I think you're coming at this from the wrong direction. You shouldn't be asking us which of the oils you listed are best for soaping (you can use about any oil) ... you should be getting samples of those things, somehow, someway, and get to pressing them. YOU need to figure out which of those oils you listed will give you the best yields. Considering you're approaching this from the 'do it ALL yourself' angle, I'll assume you'll be using nothing but a press ... and not an industrial press, at that.

 

[snappyllama]

This got me thinking about hemp... I do live in Colorado after all...

Some quick looking into... an acre of hemp can yield up to 8000 pounds of seed which translates into 300 gallons of hemp seed oil and 6000 pounds of hemp flour after the oil is extracted. It's a very fast growing, rotational crop that grows like umm weeds. So it's easy to stay organic. The plants themselves are suited to all sorts of wood or cloth replacement and bio-diesel uses.

Hemp makes a nice soap addition, though the oil goes rancid quickly.

 

[hmlove1218]

When asked if you have a permit (or whatever is required to grow it in large quantities) "No officer, really. I'm only growing it for soap."