#shea soap

[mx-incognito]

Shea Butter Soaps -> Eclectic Alchemy Lab

[iveghanatoghana]

Soap: The important part

So here's where the moringa-and-shea-soap-making magic happens.  I waited until the evening to do this, because, well, it's been effing hot here and making it demands that I go into the kitchen with the stove on, which is even more effing hot.  I now have all of the material, including having the caustic soda already mixed with water and left overnight.  The rest of the materials: shea butter and palm oil.  When I make the soap with the groups, I'll be including dried moringa and perfume, but I still haven't figured out how to get those yet, so we're just making a very basic soap for now.  However, I did include the fancy ingredients (moringa and perfume) in the directions for future use. 

Soap science- it's just lye (caustic soda and water) mixed... usually using heat... with an oil or fat.  And then you can add fancy stuff.  So this evening, I started with the oil-part of the soap. 

1.       I took out the two bags (2 cedis worth, or ~1USD) of palm oil I had bought.  I measured four cups, and poured it into a metal pot.  It turns out that I only had three cups, so I replaced it with an extra cup of shea butter.  (The most important ratio is the one of caustic soda, water, and oil, so you have some freedom with the oils you use.)

Debrief= 3 cups palm oil --> metal pot

2.       The shea butter I had bought was more than enough, and I again measured out four + one cups of butter into the same metal pot.  I thought the shea butter would be difficult to get into the cup, but if you squish it down, I think it was actually pretty accurate. 

Debrief= 5 cups shea butter --> same metal pot

3.       Then I put it on the stove and stirred with a wooden spoon just long enough for all of the shea butter to melt.  I haven’t read anywhere about it having to boil, but I have read on some specialty-do-it-yourself soap making sites that the temperature does matter, so maybe this is something to play with at a later date.  Once it was heated, I poured the oil back into a plastic bucket.  It was sort of tempting, but don’t just pour it straight into the bucket that’s been sitting with the caustic soda in it overnight.  You’ll need a different bucket.  The caustic soda is still sitting in the corner your room you left it in.

Debreif= Heat the butter and oil until smooth.  Pour into plastic bucket #2.

4.       Ghost step for this round of soap making [it's subset because I didn't actually do it this time, but will for future times].  At this point, you would add perfume.  As the resource person said during our training, “you add it to taste”.   It looked like maybe around three cups of perfume for a large batch of soap.  You would also add the moringa powder here (either buy the powder, or just pick the leaves, dry them, and mash them with the pistol and mortar- the women will know how to do this).  Emily, another PCV a year ahead of me, said that the women put it in the oil and then sieve it out (option A).  But the soap expert at the shea conference said that you can leave it in and the powdered leaves will be a good exfoliator (option B).

5.       So at this point, you have Bucket #1 with water and caustic soda (in soap-jargon this is the lye), and in Bucket #2, you have shea/palm oil (and if you’re classy, it has moringa and perfume in it).  Pour Bucket #1 into Bucket #2, and stir with a wooden spoon.  It’s important that Bucket #2 be plastic because caustic soda and metal is a no go.  And wear your rubber gloves whenever you’re dealing with the caustic soda, and ideally eyewear (and by that I’m referring to plastic safety goggles, but in my case, I wore my ren bens, ray bows… ray bans?…). 

6.       For my first trial, I literally stirred for about a minute until it became the consistency I remembered seeing in training.  Because I used shea butter instead of two oils that are liquid at room temperature (you can substitute coconut oil for shea), I was a little worried that it would start to harden in the plastic bucket I was stirring it in, so within about a minute of stirring, I poured it into the basin I’m going to let it sit in. 

a.       Debrief= Pour bucket #1 into Bucket #2, stir, and pour into where you will let it sit. 

7.       I’m putting it in a bucket for now, but it should be in a wooden box (more like just a wood frame set on a sheet of plastic), and I’ll report back tomorrow.