Making Laundry Soap from Recycled Olive Oil (Castile Soap)

Bins for used oil are placed throughout town in order to stop people from pouring used oil down the drain or in the trash.  However, when the used oil is olive oil, it´s only more incentive for me to recycle it myself into laundry soap.  Olive oil is not just more expensive but the soap made from it would have a longer shelf life as compared to sunflower oil.  I decided to show a few friends how simple it can be done and hopefully get them to recycle oil in their home and save money on laundry soap as an extra benefit.  I hope this blog post reaches others interested in recycling their used oil into something as useful as laundry soap.

In order to make the soap appropriate for laundry, I didn´t want any leftover oil to hinder it´s cleansing potential in clothes.  So, I calculated (soapcalc link on the sidebar) the recipe for 0% superfat and reduced the water percentage to 20% because I plan on using liquid fabric softener as the fragrance.  At first I calculated the recipe for 1 liter (1000 gr.) of oil and then I readjust the quantity accordingly.  The final recipe is as follows:

4000 gr. olive oil
  800 gr. tap water
  544 gr. lye granules (NaOH)
  380 gr. rose-scented fabric softener

Note: I had rounded up the lye amount per liter of oil to 136 gr.  That´s how I arrived at 544 gr. lye in the recipe (136 x 4).  I don´t think this would affect the final laundry soap result.  When pouring the lye water into the oil, there is always some lye water that stays behind with the container and doesn´t get to the oil, the couple of extra grams of lye is actually a good thing when making laundry soap.

The oil, which has been previously strained to remove solid bits of food particles, is at room temperature and in the black bucket while the lye is being mixed in with the tap water in the blue bucket.  Once the lye is dissolved, carefully add it to the oil.  The lye water is hot, so handle with care and wear gloves to protect against any splashing.

The stick blender is very helpful in speeding up trace.  It turns into a beautiful yellow cream.  This is when the fabric softener is added to give it a nice scent.

Once it reaches a thicker consistency much like vanilla pudding, pour the batter into the molds.  We used empty milk cartons which have been reinforced with some masking tape to give them more stability from bulging. The plastic ice-cream containers are another great option and they have lids for easier storage once the soap is cured.

After 3 days, I unmolded one of the milk cartons. It is soft like semi-cured cheese and stuck to the carton; I was scraping and sticking the soap pieces back as I peeled off the carton.  It won´t be easy to remove the soap without deforming them, so the others will sit in their containers to cure.

I am very happy at how they came out!  It lathers nicely, pH 7-8 and smells good and clean. The way a good soap ought to be.

Making Whipping Cream Beauty Soap Bars ( Cold Process )

The same video but on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McaiutbewYE

Update:  The lather test after almost a year later (July 2013 - May 2014). 

While uploading the photos, I must have clicked on something wrong and unknowingly deleted the Youtube video that was here.  I replaced it with a link and directly uploaded the video onto Blogger.

I didn´t really care for the strong aroma as a facial soap, hence, they sat wrapped up in my box for soaps.  When I realized I didn´t do a follow up on the lather test.  I took one into the shower and I just love it! It lathers great and gives a rich and creamy feel. For some reason the strong floral scent is pleasant in the shower since it wasn´t right there in my face but rather a subtle perfumed steam.

This recipe is a keeper.  I´ll just have to keep in mind the concentration of the EO or FO used.

Making Green Tea Sea Salt Spa Soap Bars ( Cold Process )

Making HP Goat´s Milk Honey Oatmeal Soap ( Hot Process )

The look is more rustic than with cold process soaps but there´s a satisfaction in using something homemade within days of making it.  This is a great project for a cool week-end because being around the crock pot in the Summer isn´t too appealing.  Much like baking, it leaves a wonderful smell and warmth in the home.

I realized (or is it realised?) that I misspelled "celsius" in the video and I´m blaming myself for using ºC too many times.

Making HP Cream Soap with Recipe ( Hot Process )

Making cream soap is quite interesting to me because you get to see the texture changes from combining the acids and oils with the lyes go through their stages in the process of converting into this creamy soap that looks good enough to eat.  I am including the recipe, the video of the process and the follow-up photos.  I hope someone out there finds it helpful.  I wished I had something like this when I was in search of information on cream soap without having to sign up or register in order to get access to tried recipes. So here is my tried recipe; it might not be up to par to some but it´s good enough for me and for anyone looking to start.

 

Day 8 of  "rotting"

Day 16 of  "rotting" (in container shot)

Day 16 of  "rotting"

Day 23 of "rotting"

Day 32 of "rotting"

Making Whipped Shea Butter Soap

What better way to dress up a plain looking piece of soap from a silicone cupcake mold than to top it off with some whipped soap.  I really do need to look into making a video instead; between remembering to include all of the ingredients, taking off the gloves to grab a camera and proceeding, all the while fearing the batter would harden on me, resulted with only a few photos to show for.

My recipe is approximately:
44% palm oil in solid form
30% shea butter in solid form
19% coconut oil in solid form
 5% castor oil
 2% olive oil

After dissolving the lye (calculated with 5% superfat) into the water, I left it in the fridge to chill.  Then I proceeded to whip up all of the solid oils together until it resembled whipped cream.

(If I stopped at this point, it could be a fantastic body butter!  Alas, I couldn´t save any aside since I already had the lye measured out for the entire batch of oils.)

Continuing on...
Drizzled in the cold lye solution while slowly whipping.  Once incorporated, I drizzled in the liquid oils.  The batter wasn´t as fluffy but glossier.  It looked good enough to eat because it resembles a lot like cream cheese frosting.  Some cream fragrance oil was added, calculated to about 1/5 ml per cupcake.

I scooped out the batter into a prepared disposable piping bag and piped the cupcake soaps.

(A product side note:  the Rubbermaid Spoontula is a must-have fabulous tool in the kitchen!  I´m using my older one for soaping and I have another one for foods.  Make sure it´s the version with the deep red colored handle.)

I think next time I will use a wider opening tip for piping.  It was difficult towards the end squeezing out the batter.