Project Handmade Soap in the Crock Pot

It's Friday again and time to write about another of my crafty adventures, soap making in the crock pot.

Today I'm making Shampoo Bar soap.  Andrea has a recipe and tutorial on her blog on how to make it, I've purchased a couple of bars from her and LOVE it.  The shampoo bars are almost gone so I've decided to try out her recipe.  

Pictured above is the mess on the table after measuring everything into a stainless steel pan, melting it all together and adding it to the crock pot.  I didn't get photos of mixing the lye and water/coconut milk or the oils in the pan melting.  I guess I was kind of busy!

I picked up an old crock pot on E Bay for soap making.  I've read you should use one of the older crock pots because they don't get as hot on low temp.  After this one arrived I realized it was about the same age as the one I use to cook in, circa 1970.  

The lye solution and oils have been mixed together in the crock pot using a stick blender.  It didn't take long to reach "trace", the mixture is about the consistency of pudding.  Now it cooks on low for an hour...

Waiting for the hour to pass, I greased the "molds" with coconut oil.  You might notice my molds are loaf pans.  The soap is cooking and going through the gel stage.  It gets transparent from the outside to the center in about an hour.

At the end of the hour it's time to turn off the crock pot and stir in the essential oils of your choice.
I used Peppermint and Rosemary because my hair is dark in color and these herbs are beneficial to your hair.  As I stirred in the Peppermint essential oil, it warmed and cleared my sinuses.  Now the whole house smells like Peppermint!   When I was satisfied that all the essential oil was stirred in I spooned the soap into my molds.  I only used one loaf pan and a large mouth half pint mason jar.

The next step in the process is letting the soap set in the mold for 24 hours to cool and harden.  Then I can take it out of my molds and slice it into bars.  I've read you can use your Crock Pot hot process soap right away and I know we'll be using it soon!  After slicing I'll be storing it on wire baking racks to help it dry out and cure so it can become a hard bar of shampoo soap that will last a long time.

 Here's a photo of 24 (almost) hours later after slicing the loaf of soap into bars.

I've sampled my new shampoo bar and love it - it has great lather, a wonderful peppermint smell
and I have clean shiny hair -

I hope you enjoyed my first adventure in shampoo soap making!

I almost forgot to add a link to Andrea's blog for the recipe and tutorial I followed,
her blog is called Frugally Sustainable, enjoy.

Thanks for visiting my blog today -

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