Teach Soap

Adding vinegar or lemon juice to a lye burn will make it worse. You would need lots and lots of water instead.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
Like us: http://www.facebook.com/AvitalsApiaries

Adding an acid... to an alkali burn... would make it worse?

Um. How come all the websites and books and videos I've seen recommend keeping a vinegar sprayer handy, then? I am very confused.

Also, if soap is chemically cured (albeit not really ready for use) within 3 days, why do we say "Don't use it for at least a month!"? I thought that was so that even the very last of the lye would have its chance to saponify all the oils it wanted.

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The Soapinatrix! *whip-crack*
- Posting the trials and tribulations of my Soaping Journey!

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Genny

I can tell you from another soaper whose's child got some lye water on him. She put vinegar on it. It created an exothermic reaction and made the lye burn much worse then it should have been. I saw the pics. When I first started soapmaking many, many moons ago, I tried vinegar on my arm where I got some lye on it. It hurt like hell and burned. I have a small scar to prove it. When I got some lye on my foot, I used lots and lots of water. No burn and no scar. I only use vinegar for cooking. It's nowhere near my soap room.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

There's nothing like teaching to help you learn something!

No acid on lye: it creates an exothermic reaction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exothermic_reaction That's why soap gels: the acid fats meet the alkaline lye, and react, producing heat.

In the beginning, I used vinegar to neutralize things like my lye container or the soap pot, but now I just either wash them, or wait 24 hours and wash. (Oh yeah, talk about washing up afterwards!)

Curing is mostly getting rid of water so that the bar lasts longer. I don't even notice the "harshness" that many do after a few days, and my skin isn't particularly hardy. My week old bar doesn't seem harsher than my 2 month old bar--but the week old bar will certainly melt faster in the shower. Your milage may vary. In any case, best to cure in a dry place for 4 weeks.

Teach people to do a zap test.

And tell them--as any teacher ought to--to doubt everything you say, to check with numerous sources, read lots of books, watch lots of videos, and be experimentalists. The first book I read on soap making was incorrect on a number of topics. Not fatally incorrect, but wrong nonetheless. You don't have to be an expert--whatever that is--to teach. You just have to be realistic with your students about your level of knowledge.

I've taught a lot of things, including university level language and linguistics classes, computer classes, and beekeeping classes. (Obviously, I've had a somewhat odd career trajectory...) If you level with the class about what you know, what you've been told, and what you need to look up, they'll respect it, and everyone has a chance to learn something.

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
Like us: http://www.facebook.com/AvitalsApiaries

Huh. Good to know. Corrected practices in 3... 2... 1...

So, yeah, I knew that "curing" was to get the moisture out, but somehow I thought that "With Castile, it should take a couple of weeks to be safely usable but a few months to be fully cured" meant that the couple of weeks was for the lye to fully react. Shows the difference, I suppose, between a saponiere with no background in chemistry, and a chemist. My dad's a chemist, so I guess when I go from "usable" to "cured" I automatically think of "usable" as meaning "the chemical reaction has finished taking place." Now I know differently! Thanks, all.

When I teach Beginning CP 101 classes, they go like this:

I talk for an hour and cover the science, fragrance oils vs essential oils, colorant options, mold options, safety considerations, herbal additives etc...

Then, I demo a batch.

Finally, I have all the students weigh out ingredients, suit up for safety, and they make the batch of soap with my help. What this usually looks like is everyone takes a turn at the stick blender and I do the finishing to make sure trace is gorgeous. Then, I give each student 8 ounces of soap and let them customize their individual bars (with full safety equipment on, using their own individual spoons and additives). We use the soap molds with lids but little tupperware would work beautifully for the same thing.

Then, I hand out labels and ensure everyone writes the date that the soap will be ready on them, answer any last minute questions and send everyone on their happy way.

The entire class takes about 3 hours from start to finish. We give out handouts with everything that I talk about (because 1 hour of talking is a LOT of talking for people to remember).

I hope this helps =)

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Happy Soaping!

Anne-Marie
blog: www.soap-queen.blogspot.com
supplies: www.brambleberry.com

Hi, Soap Queen! Thank you so much. This is remarkably close to what I'd sort of halfway decided to do, based on the advice of others so far. It's good to know from a very experienced soaper and teacher that I'm kind of on the right track with my thoughts. Would it be okay if I also show them one or two of your basics videos, since you've doubtless streamlined the teaching and aren't saying "Um..." as much as I would be?

Anne-Marie, I'm curious, how long had you been making CP soap before you began teaching? Had you had first hand experience with colours, fragrances and the different behaviours that each can bring (ricing, soap on a stick, slowing trace, quickening trace, etc). Your teaching surely came from trial and error and learning first, yes?

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The Soapinatrix! *whip-crack*
- Posting the trials and tribulations of my Soaping Journey!

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Happy Soaping!

Anne-Marie
blog: www.soap-queen.blogspot.com
supplies: www.brambleberry.com

Awesome! Thanks for sharing, Anne-Marie! I find your story very inspiring!