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Captmike's Candles & Soap
This tutorial page is a "work in progress", so please be patient. I will be updating each tutorial often and adding photos when possible. Please feel free to email me with any spelling or gramatical errors you find. Thanks, Mike
HOW TO MAKE A BATCH OF HOME MADE SOAP So you have decided that you want to make home made soap. The following tutorial will teach you how to make basic soap. You can use either lard (I like Lard) or vegetable oil and you should be able to find everything else you need in your home. If you follow these instructions, you will end up with a nice, hard, white soap that will be great for most skin. Here is what you will need: Ingredients: 16 ounces of Lard or Vegetable oil *this recipe is for a non-scented soap, but if you want, you can
add fragrance at 1 ounce per pound of oil. You need to use fragrance
recommended for soap. If you use anything that has alcohol in it,
it will cause your soap to set up before you can get it in the mold
(we call this “soap on a stick”!) Equipment: Glass or plastic measuring cup. It should be large
enough to hold 24 ounces with room to stir. Step 1 Using a glass, stainless steel or plastic container, slowly pour the lye into the water and stir. WARNING!, never pour water into powdered lye. It will blow back on you causing lye burns. When you add the powdered lye to the water, the solution will heat up. Let the lye solution cool down before you add it to the melted lard. Step 2 Using a glass or stainless steel container, warm the lard up until it is melted (do not over heat!). Step 3 When the lye has cooled down, slowly pour it into the melted (warm not hot) lard and begin stirring. At first the soap base will be very thin. If you have convinced yourself that your first batch of soap HAS to be scented, now is the time to add the scent to the base. Continue to stir it until it starts to thicken to about the consistency of pancake batter. At this point, pour the soap base into your mold and set it aside to cure. It should solidify and be soap in about 24 hours. Remove the soap from the mold and cut into the size you want. You can use it then, but to be at its best, you should let the soap cure for about 2 to 3 weeks. WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING 1. NEVER pour water into dry lye! That will cause a reaction which can splash back on you causing injury. 2. Use only glass, stainless steel, wood or plastic for the containers, molds and stirring implements. Aluminum is not acceptable as the lye will react with the metal causing rapid corrosion. 3. Latex gloves (I use the cheap disposable ones like the doctors use) and eyeglasses are highly recommended. If raw soap splashes on your skin while it is being stirred, it will burn. Get some in your eyes and well, it is MOST unpleasant!
HOW TO MAKE SOY CONTAINER CANDLES Making your own container candles can be enjoyable and save you a few bucks at the same time. HOWEVER, unless you have lots of time and are willing to invest a few bucks, purchasing ready made candles from a good source might be your best bet. “Pouring your own” can prove to be a daunting task and most certainly will require much testing. If you plan to sell your candles, you can rest assured that you will be testing from now on! Here is why: 1. All Soy is not the same. Heck, even atmospheric conditions and temperature will affect your melt pool and scent throw. If you are still insistent on making your own container candles, I will outline the basic steps for you. Understand that I am not going to tell you exactly how I make mine, that is a trade secret and required many hours to perfect. However, if you want a starting point, read on. You will need the following supplies: 1. Glass containers. Old candle jars or jelly jars work great. STEP1 Start with a clean container and glue a tabbed wick into the bottom. This can be accomplished best using a glue gun. You do have a glue gun don’t you? Here is where I am going to share a trade secret with you, so don’t say I didn’t help you much. Find an old (or new) ballpoint pen and remove the innards. The longer the pen body the better. Also a straw cut to about 5 inches will work. Insert the tabbed wick into the “wick setter” (ball point pen body or straw for those of you who didn’t figure that one out) and put a dab of glue on the tab. Now quickly position the tab over the center of the bottom or your container and push down lightly. When you pull the wick setter out, the wick should stay glued to the bottom of the container. STEP 2 Let’s say you are using an 8 ounce jelly jar for a container. Those hold about 7 ounces of wax. Now put your wax into your MELTING pot, hopefully one of those swell flexible plastic measuring cups from WalMart, and put the wax and cup into your microwave. On a regular setting, your wax should melt in about 4 minutes. Zap the wax in 2 minute intervals. You do not want to over heat the Soy wax. Usually Soy wax starts to melt at about 100 degrees. NOTE** Make sure there is no metal in the wax, such as old wick tabs if you are re-melting old candle wax. Your microwave won’t blow up, but you will get some interesting fireworks. TIP** It is always easier to melt wax for more than one candle at one time, especially when it comes to adding the scent. Aim for about 18 ounces of wax at a time. That will make about 3 candles in 8 oz jars STEP 3 OK, you have managed to melt, say 18 ounces of wax without burning it or melting the plastic melting pot. Now you need to add the fragrance. As a rule, you will add 1 ounce of FO or EO to 16 ounces of wax. 18 ounces is close enough to 1 lb, so add 1 oz of scent to your hot wax. Just pour it in and stir. I use a bamboo skewer to stir with, but anything thin will do. I’m not going to tell you not to experiment, but you should use fragrances that are designed for candles. Works better in the long run. Now, set the melting pot aside and wait for the wax to cool. You want to pour when the wax just starts to cloud, say about 100/110 degrees. You can pour the wax hot, but it will need to be 150/170 degrees. You can pour hot or you can pour cold, but not in between. Just pour one at 130 degrees and see what happens. I’m not even going to tell you. It should be a surprise. STEP 4 Once you have decided the wax is cool enough to pour into you container, give it a quick stir again and pour. Once you are through pouring the wax into your containers (you did prepare 3 jars like I suggested didn’t you?) you will need to place a popsicle stick on top of each jar, with the wick sticking up through the hole drilled in the center. Pull the wick up firmly and bend it over the top of the stick. It will stay just fine. Now check and make sure the wick is center in the jar. This comes with experience, so just do the best you can. All you have to do now is wait for your wax to cool. It is standard to wait 24 hours before lighting your candle, but you be the judge of that. OBSERVATION** Most likely you noticed the top of your candle looks like crap, all flakey and such. Either ignore it or take a heat gun/hair dryer and re-melt the top. For personal use I would just ignore it. Now, after all your trouble, you might (and most likely) will end up with a candle that does not form a full melt pool (melted wax across the surface of the container) or the candle makes a lots of smoke/soot or the scent is not very strong (throw). Well, this is where the testing comes in. Keep changing the wick/wax/scent/color combination until you get it right, and good luck. Oh, you could always buy your candles from me and be assured that
they will be great! Watch your step!! This page is currently under construction. Here are a few of the topics I hope to develop. How to make a simple wooden mold How to make Confetti soap If you have something you would like to see explained or demonstrated here, please email me here and let me know.
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