I’m about to test my skill at making hand soap. This is something I have wanted to do for some time now but, to be honest, have been scared to death to get anywhere near the one substance you cannot make hand soap without: lye. Lye is sodium hydroxide. In case you don’t know anything about sodium hydroxide allow me to enlighten you. This stuff is a corrosive alkaline substance that will eat your skin. I hear it is very painful as your skin dissolves away.
It is used in food preparation (as a curing agent), soap making, biodiesel production, as an oven cleaner and a drain opener.
Now that the harsh scary stuff is covered, let’s find out where you can buy it.
We used to be able to buy lye in every hardware store across the country under the product name: Red Devil Lye, a very powerful drain opener, but the product has been discontinued. It is my guess that a few people were misusing it and the government got the ‘smart’ idea to take it completely away from the rest of us instead of educating us.
Anyway, there are still a few places remaining where you can purchase lye, and they are mainly online, such as:
I verified all of these links today and they will all take you directly to the order page.
The only place I know of where you can walk in and buy it today is Loew’s Home Improvement Centers under the brand name Roebic Crystal Drain Opener.
Oddly enough, there is a web site that shows you how to make lye, but seriously, why go through all the trouble when you can buy it?
I already make my own laundry detergent so the logical next step is t make my own hand soap. The process is very simple and while it is somewhat cheaper, that is not the reason I chose to make my own. I wanted to get away from the ‘extras’ that every commercial laundry soap maker is adding . . . the fragrances . . . the ‘power boosters’ . . . the chemicals. I suppose they each have to do something to make their ‘recipe’ unique, but all basic laundry soaps consist of the exact same stuff. I have not regretted my decision once. The clothes come out with that ‘clean’ smell and when I toss a couple of tennis balls in every dryer load they are soft even without the fabric softeners.
Hand Soap
The variety of hand soap you can make is seemingly endless. Essential oils provide any fragrance you can think of from coconut to lavender to pine to citrus. You can make layered soaps, swirled soaps, pressed flower soaps, I even saw a recipe for 3D rock soap, whatever that is. And the shapes you can make soap into is limited only by your imagination.
Once you get the recipe down pat you can make bath fizzies, lip balms, lotions, and lots more.
Many of the websites I have found so far have tutorials so there really is no reason not to jump right in. Go on and check it out for yourself, I can’t recommend any sites in particular because I haven’t tried it yet. But when I do I’ll let you know how it turns out.
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