Soap making process

 Outline of tonight class

👉 Introduction to soap

👉 Chemicals for making 

We start now

 Soap is one of the end product of chemical reactions between potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide with oil or fat.

We can literally say that mixing together of sodium or potassium hydroxide with either oil or fat will always result to soap as one of the by products. 

When we mixed potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide with either oil or fat we will get two products which are:

👉 Soap

👉 Glycerine

 When we use potassium hydroxide with either oil or fat we will get liquid soap.

When we use sodium hydroxide with either oil and fat we will get hard soap

The type of reaction that takes place when ever potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide mixed together with either oil or fat to form soap and glycerin is called

👉 SAPONIFICATION REACTION

 Saponification reaction is similar to neutralization reaction where acid and base mix together to form salt

In reality, acid is dangerous to skin as well as base but when the two is mixed in the right proportion, they will form product that is not harmful

The same thing happen when we mix potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide with either oil or fat 

Potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide are dangerous to the skin but when you mix them in the right ratio with oil or fat, it will give a product that is friendly to our body.

The key and most important fact is the ratio of the two mixture

When the ratio is not the same the result will not be what we desire and it can cause a damage to our skin

Another key fact is the saponification reaction

If the saponification reaction did not complete then the result will also be different

For example if a brick layer did not mix cement and sand very well, the 🧱 (bricks) will not be strong and it can result to collapse of building.

If all the molecules of potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide did not react with all the molecules of oil or fat, there will be a left over or   unreacted sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide

This left over is effective as the raw sodium or potassium hydroxide which is dangerous to the skin.

KEY FACTS

👉 Make sure that both potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide is in the same ratio with the oil or fat.

The best way to know is by using soap calculator.

👉 Make sure that the saponification reaction is coming .

If you get this two facts correctly then you will have a great 🧼 (soap)

We have different types of soap but the funniest thing is that all of them followed the same process. 

The only thing that differentiate a soap from another are:

👉 Type of oil and fats used 

👉 Number of oil and fats used 

👉 Other additional addictive added

👉 Type of perfume used

👉 Type of color used

The bottom line is that any soap is formed as a result of mixing potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide with either oil or fat.

 

For what I have said so far, do you have any question?

I will talk about oils for soap making

All oils are good. It depends on what you want to get from the soap and the type of soap you are making

I don't know what you people use over there but

I will use Nigeria as a case study.

Here we have varieties of soap for different purposes

Examples

Laundry soap

Bathing soap

Herbal soap

Organic soap

For laundry soap we need oil that will make the soap to be hard and leather well. In this case we find palm kernel oil as the best alternative.

For bathing soap, we look for oil that will improve our skin and we find coconut oil, olive oil, Shea butter, carrot oil, sunflower oil,  etc 

I will teach you in our next class the oils we have and the properties of each of them. Some have similar properties and is not economical wise to use two oils with similar properties especially when one is costlier than the other.Thanks