Making soap without lye- is that possible?
Because more people are becoming aware of the chemical content that is in everyday products that we use; there is an increasing number of people who are turning to organically grown and natural products in order to avoid chemicals such as pesticides. A lot of people are even going as far as organically sourced clothing fabrics and personal hygiene products.
Due to the change in consumer behaviour more people are interested in making soap at home.
The thing is; it’s not really possible to make soap from scratch without lye.
When you buy soapmaking kits to use at home or use the melt and pour method, that means that the person using the kit or following the recipe is not handling the lye themselves. You can also use the rebatching method whereas you use soap noodles or soap flakes as a base to create other soaps.
That is NOT because there is no lye in the soap, only that that has already been taken care of when the glycerin soap bars or flakes were made.
Our recipes available on this website for making soap will state the correct lye calculations. It is always a good idea to double-check the calculations prior to starting. There are some lye calculators that can be used online and these are free to use. These calculators will allow you to make calculations on a range of different mixtures and you just need to be aware of how percentages work.
Using lye when making soap at home really isn’t all that difficult if you follow the instructions and take the precautions advised.