Washing soap materials question?

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Jen74

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Hey everyone,

I was just wondering, is it safe to just wash your soap making materials( silicone molds, spoons, containers, etc..) in regular dish washing soap? Also, is it okay to wash molds and dry them with paper towels? I know there is a lot of issues with contamination which can cause a soap to go rancid and worry about cross contaminated materials. I just wanted to know how you all wash your materials? Is it okay to just dry them off with paper towels or do you have to air dry them??
 
Hey everyone,

I was just wondering, is it safe to just wash your soap making materials( silicone molds, spoons, containers, etc..) in regular dish washing soap?
In a word, yes. They could benefit from soaking in soapy dish water too.

Also, is it okay to wash molds and dry them with paper towels? I know there is a lot of issues with contamination which can cause a soap to go rancid and worry about cross contaminated materials.
If you're using silicone molds, washing them and drying with a paper towel is fine. If anything, a poorly planned soap session, especially if food was used to make the soap, can lead to soap issues.

I just wanted to know how you all wash your materials? Is it okay to just dry them off with paper towels or do you have to air dry them??
I do a little of both because I rather use paper towels for other things.
 
I wait at least 24 hours to wash my stuff, after it's turned into soap. It might be overly compulsive but I wash everything in my dishwasher on the 'heavy duty' cycle, and then let air dry. We just got our first machine dishwasher 2 years ago. Prior to that our dishwashers were the human kind. I'd towel-dry or air dry my things. I've soaped for years and never worried about contamination. Hobbyist here.
 
As I have the space and time (as in, I don't need my soaping equipment daily or even weekly!) I also leave it to saponify and then just wash it with water as there is soap enough. My lye pots get rinsed out very well as I carry on soaping and then washed with washing up liquid.

Confession time - after the batch before last, I left my soapy pot for a month or so before I got around to washing it
 
I almost always wash my molds right before using them to make soap. Either they have been sitting and I want to make sure there's no dust in them, or I just washed them from soaping the night before...

While I am making soap, I just turn the oven on low (since I will be cpop anyway later), then toss the silicone mold in the oven to dry out for a few minutes. That way I know it's completely dry.
 
Hmm ... I've never worried about soap making dishes too much. I've always just washed in regular dish soap and let them air dry. I guess I assume that the lye will pretty much destroy any bacteria left behind.
If I'm making something other than soap and I need to sterilize utensils, I'll squirt some bleach into my wash water and let the utensils soak for 10 minutes before washing. Before using the utensils for things other than soap, I spray with rubbing alcohol and wipe with a paper towel.
 
I'm hand-cleaning everything with hot tap water and dishwashing soap (boooo! commercial syndet stuff), usually right after usage (safety goggles still on). I've found that my dishwashing machine has, for whatever reason, a hard time to remove soap residues. And soap batter/oils can soak into silicone (to some degree PP too!) and give it an oily cover that is hard to remove if left too long to soak – not so great if it's red palm oil, and anything you touch with become yellow… not to speak of fragrances!

I've heard that residual soap batter (not properly cleaned stick-blender blades!) can considerably accelerate trace. Another good reason to be pedantic about cleaning.
 
hi. i'm new to soap making. just started. have only made 3 batches. first batch went into the garbage, it curdled and seperated, second batch did fine, and i forgot to add one of my oils to the 3rd batch. how do i fix the 3rd batch? and i clean my equipment with vinegar then soap and water is that fine
 
All used soaping tools go into a bucket after soaping. When the bucket is full everything gets a good rinse and run through the dishwasher. Before using anything it is sprayed with isopropyl alcohol. We just got a new dishwasher and our old one will be installed in my soap cave to be used exclusively for washing soapy things.
 
I use Vinegar to spray everything has been used after I have wiped off excess soap with microfiber cloth that I wash w towels after 3 days because it is now soap. I then add Seventh Generation dish soap and very hot water to clean utensils & equipment. I use Baking Soda for Stains, Micas, etc… or to remove scents from F. O. or E. O. I then Air Dry. I spray all equipment with Alcohol prior to use. Everyone does it a little differently. Blessings!
 
I use Vinegar to spray everything has been used after I have wiped off excess soap with microfiber cloth that I wash w towels after 3 days because it is now soap. I then add Seventh Generation dish soap and very hot water to clean utensils & equipment. I use Baking Soda for Stains, Micas, etc… or to remove scents from F. O. or E. O. I then Air Dry. I spray all equipment with Alcohol prior to use. Everyone does it a little differently. Blessings!

This sounds like what I do, except I use Dawn dish soap. I do baking soda alone, then make a solution of it and vinegar. Even so after all I do the soaping bowl (a thick plastic thing from Oxo) seems to have a teeny bit of oil film. It's not bothersome but just curious, does that happen to you?
 
Also: how long does it take for the lye to dissipate? I measure my lye crystals into a plastic container and then salt that into the water. The two containers I take immediately to a bathroom sink & fill them slowly with cold water. Then I leave that until I'm finished w/soaping; then I put rinse them carefully & stack them into the bathtub with my saponifying utensils.

I've read that as dangerous as lye is, it evaporates quickly.
 
Also: how long does it take for the lye to dissipate? I measure my lye crystals into a plastic container and then salt that into the water. The two containers I take immediately to a bathroom sink & fill them slowly with cold water. Then I leave that until I'm finished w/soaping; then I put rinse them carefully & stack them into the bathtub with my saponifying utensils.

I've read that as dangerous as lye is, it evaporates quickly.
Are you asking about the small amount of lye that remains in the measuring cup you used for the lye and the container you used for your lye-liquid? When I empty those 2 containers, I fill them with soapy water. After my soaping session, I wash those two containers. For all the items that touched soap batter, I wait for 1-2 days to wash.
 
This sounds like what I do, except I use Dawn dish soap. I do baking soda alone, then make a solution of it and vinegar. Even so after all I do the soaping bowl (a thick plastic thing from Oxo) seems to have a teeny bit of oil film. It's not bothersome but just curious, does that happen to you?
Hi! I have had a slightly oily film after washing. If it is light, I spray with Alcohol and it’s squeaky clean. If it is a thicker film, I will rewatch in very hot, soapy water, then air dry. Hope this helps! Blessings!
 
Are you asking about the small amount of lye that remains in the measuring cup you used for the lye and the container you used for your lye-liquid?

Yes. I don't wash them with soapy water. I just rinse them thoroughly with lots of cold water several times & let air dry.

I read somewhere, I can't remember where, that lye dissipates (or oxidizes?) rather quickly.
 
I rarely get an oily film on my soaping utensils since reducing SF to 0-3% in most of my recipes. When I was new to soapmaking, I used the default setting of 5%, but sometimes higher and my soaping vessels, utensils & so forth were always overly greasy. I hated washing and re-washing those things, which never seemed to de-grease. In fact, I had to toss some of them out because they began to smell like rancid oil after awhile! It didn't matter how much pre-wiping I did or how hot the water I used was or how much additional soap or detergent I used, it was a huge PITA doing the washing up. Alcohol, vinegar, Simple Green, bleach (not all together of course)... nothing helped as much as altering my recipes.

As far as handling the stick blender, I have a plastic cup that my soapy SB shaft sits in between uses during soaping. Once my soap is in the mold(s) & setting up, I wipe off the excess soap from the SB Shaft & run water into the cup with the shaft & sit in my sink so I won't forget to clean it asap. I also wipe all the utensils & bowls out, using either paper or old rags or the towels I cover my workspace with while soaping. The fabrics get set aside to dry out, then get washed when an appropriate load of laundry is next washed. No matter what, the SB shaft gets washed immediately because the lye can and does eat away at the gasket near the blade (yes, it happened to my first soaping stick blender). I may or may not wash the utensils immediately, depending on what's on my agenda. The bowls & other vessels (for multi-color soap mixing) get stacked together & placed in an out of the way safe area to await washing after any residue, of which there is usually very little, has a chance to saponify further.

All my dishes get air-dried. I rarely use a dishwasher, although I do have one and should use it more regularly so the gaskets don't go brittle, but I prefer hand-washing dishes. I'd really just as soon remove it from the kitchen & get the additional storage space.

When I make soap while traveling, however, which I often do, then everything gets washed up right away because I don't usually have a lot of spare stuff along for the ride, nor the space to keep soap-dirty dishes.
 
The only thing I wash during soaping multiple batches is my SB stick. Everything else gets stacked in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid. The next day (once it has saponified), I pour hot water in the bucket, let it sit until I can stand to put my hand in, then the soap gets scraped off (dough scraper that I also use while soaping) and everything gets plunked into the dishwasher. Then I take the scraped soap scraps and water out to pour in the storm drain. That keeps those soap bits out of my plumbing.
 

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