Metaphysical Farms

When making homemade soap it is essential to find out how much lye you need by weight. Using volume could lead to too little lye--a very oily soap--or too much lye--a harsh drying soap. You can use this calculator to determine the quality of soaps as well how much lye and liquid you will need for your soap batch.

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In a lot of my soap making videos, I simply show myself adding a particular fragrance to the soap without explaining much about the different options there are to making your soap smell like it just came out of a designer spa but at a far cheaper price. In this article I hope to explain some of the basics to adding fragrance to your soap so that you can feel more confident to experiment with your own scents as you join the wonderful community of soapmakers.

There are basically two chances you will have to add fragrance to your soap. The most common way is to add either a fragrance oil or a pure essential oil to your soap. The second way in which to add scent to your soap is to use various aromatic liquids like tea or coffee. There is a third way that is sometimes suggested by adding herbs or flowers to your soap but I have never had much luck with this method and if the cuttings are not heat safe, you will find most of the time they end up being burned by the saponification process.

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I guess wanting to put information about the structure and function of the liver and gallbladder comes from my high school AP biology teacher. We always learned the--in this order--structure, function, malfunction, disease and treatment of any type of organ or system in the body. I'm not going to go into too much detail but if you want to skip to the liver flush just click here.

Getting to know your hepatic-biliary system

The liver is essential to the function of the human body. Its primary functions are detoxification, protein synthesis, production of biochemicals necessary for digestion, namely bile, and a host of other functions. An adult liver is a little smaller than a bicycle helmet making it the largest internal organ in the human body. The liver is also special in that it gets its blood from 2 different locations in the body. There is a direct path from the intestines to the liver as well as branched artery from the aorta. This direct path from the intestines allows the liver to be the first to filter through all the nutrients or toxins that have made it to the intestines.

The liver is also directly connected to the small intestine via the common hepatic duct. This tube makes a stop off along the way to a small pear shape sac called the gallbladder. The gallbladder's main function in humans is to store up bile until a meal with fat or protein is consumed and pushed into the small intestine after the stomach is finished with it. The bile is a very alkaline and not only used to help break down oils but also used to neutralize your stomach acid when it enters the duodenum (the first part of your small intestine. You can remember the parts of the small intestine by remembering the phrase "[D]igestive [J]uices [I]nside" which stands for Duodenum, Jejunum, Ileum). The gallbladder can store almost 2 oz of bile when it and the liver are functioning properly.

Problems that can occur

With all systems of the body, balance is the key to health. If something becomes out of balance--like eating too much fat or consuming too many toxins--the flawless functioning of the system breaks down. Many diseases that involve a slowing or breakdown of liver function are accompanied by jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes) because the liver is unable to flush out a byproduct of breaking down old red blood cell. Another problem that can occur is gallstones which is closely associated with a thickening of bile into biliary sludge. This thickening of bile is caused by particles precipitating out in the bile itself. Most often these precipitates are cholesterol crystals and calcium salts though the make-up is unique to each individual and cause of the problem. You can have biliary sludge and not even know it as this condition is often asymptotic. This sludge and the gallstones are what we are attempting to flush.

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If you want to figure out--on your own--the amount of lye to use in your soap, you will want to use the SAP a values. A much easier way is to use the Lye Calculator.

To calculate the SAP value for a combination of oils first you need to convert all your measurements into a single unit of measure. For example. A mixture of oils consisting of 2 Lb Olive Oil, 1Lb 4oz Coconut Oil, 12oz Palm Oil will be: 32oz Olive Oil, 20oz Coconut Oil, 12oz Palm Oil.

Next you multiply each weight by the Value in the table for each oil and add them all together. This will be: 32 (0.134) + 20 (0.183) + 12 (0.144) = 9.676

Because SAP values are for sodium hydroxide in this sap table we have to make an adjustment if we are using potassuim hydroxide. To convert simply multiply the figure by 1.4.

Therefore, to produce a fully saponified soap using 2Lb (32oz) Olive Oil: 1Lb 4oz (20oz) Coconut Oil and 12oz of Palm Oil you will need 9.68oz of Sodium Hydroxide.

To superfat your soap, simply discount this figure. To create a 5% discount you multiply the amount of lye by 0.95 (95%).

For most batches of soap you will want to have between 27% and 38% of the total weight as the figure you use to determine the amount of water you are adding. So, in the above case we would figure that the minimum amount of water we want to add would be 64oz * 0.27 = 17.28 oz of water.

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Soap Making Instructions

Since I was a kid I have been playing with chemicals. It started with a chemistry set that was used daily when I was growing up. It morphed into a wonderful baking and cooking career and has landed itself in the world of soap making. I can tell you soap making is easier than baking. So, if you can make a creame-puff rise (or even if you've never set foot in a kitchen) you'll have no problem making your own homemade soap.

The first thing you will want to do is gather all of your equipment. A standard set of soap making tools include:

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This is a two part video (because of size restrictions not time) in this first part I go over the different types of molds and things to set them up.
Part 1:

Part 2:

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To Follow is a step-by-step guide for making your own homemade soap. You can find full written instructions on my metaphysicalfarms.com website. Because of the 10minute restrictions on youtube.com I've had to break the video up into two parts. Enjoy making your own homemade soap!

Part 1


Part 2

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