Soap Making Equipment

As you will be working with chemicals, your soap making equipment should be made of stainless steel, glass (pyrex) or unchipped enamel, or you might just experience some unexpected results from your soap making efforts!

The first thing you will need is a good sized stock pot for melting your oils and fats. I use a stainless steel pot which holds around six litres of liquids - more than enough capacity for a good sized batch of soap.

For mixing my caustic soda and water I use a two litre stainless steel bowl, you could also use an enamel or glass bowl for this task, but if you do use enamel, make sure that the bowl has not been chipped.

Some soap makers transfer their oils and fats into a bucket after they have cooled and before adding the caustic soda and water mixture, but I usually bring my soap to trace in the stock pot.

One of the methods I use for coloring my soap is melting a wax crayon with a small amount of almond or sesame oil and adding the mixture to my batch after I have achieved trace. To melt the crayon I usually put the crayon and oil into a small pyrex jug, and then I put the jug into a small pot over a low heat with an inch or two of water in the bottom.

The other piece of soap making equipment I couldn't do without is my stick blender!

If you decided to stir your batch to trace by hand, you can expect to be at it for hours - quite literally! Whereas if you use a stick blender, the stirring to trace only takes a minute or so.

So to summarise, at the very least you will probably need to add these items to your shopping list:

• A stock pot
• A stainless steel or glass bowl
• A stick blender

Soap Making Utensils

As a soap maker it is advisable to keep your soap making utensils separate from the utensils you normally use in your kitchen, particularly if you are making your soap from scratch.

The most important tool in your soap making equipment inventory is a good quality kitchen scale. If you don't already have one, I suggest you get on that will measure in both grams and ounces so that you do not have to convert recipes from one measuring system to another.

Some of the utensils and soap making equipment you will need are common kitchen tools and utensils, like wooden spoons, or a grater (for grating bars of soap for rebatching), and can be purchased quite cheaply from any supermarket.

• Long handled wooden spoons x 2
• Measuring cups and or spoons
• Medium sized paring knife
• A grater

The long handled spoons are used for stirring your fats and oils and your caustic soda and water mix. I recommend that you have at least two and that you mark them in some way so that you use the one for each task during the soak making process. That way you can avoid any issues cross contamination.

The measuring cups and spoons are handy for measuring out any additional ingredients you plan to add to your batch after trace, and you never know when you could use a good sharp knife!

The grater is optional, as you are only likely to use it if you want to rebatch your soap or if you need to grate any of your other ingredients before adding to the batch.

Then there are some utensils and tools you will need are not so common, and include:

• Candy thermometer x 2
• Soap Knife

The candy thermometers are used to measure the temperatures of your fats and oils and your casutic soda and water mix prior to mixing as you need to have both at about the same temperature. The casutic soda and water mix can get very hot, as can the fats and oils, candy thermometers are made to withstand very high temperatures which makes them suitable for soap making.

Again, I recommend that you have at least two and that you mark them in some way and use the same one for each task every time you make a batch of soap.

Soap knives are wide blades that are used for cutting a tray of soap into bars. To get one of these, you will have to buy one from a soap making supplies store.

The soap making equipment and utensils mentioned above could probably just be considered as the basics. There are many more that you could buy and would probably use, but the utensils on this page are enough to get you started.

Safety Equipment

Making soap from scratch is perfectly safe, providing you handle your chemicals carefully and take a few safety precautions, like using some basic soap making safety equipment.