Surprising Things About Soap

In our Western culture of mass-production, many of us have lost the skill and satisfaction of making everyday items by hand. Here in Africa, folks have not. Just recently when we needed a screen door for our new home, we couldn’t run down to Home Depot and pick one out. Instead we called a man who does metal work. He came, measured the door opening, and returned to his workshop where he cut out metal bars and welded them together. I was impressed, but I don’t envision myself using a blowtorch anytime soon. I’m a bit of a “burn-a-phobic.”

Imagine my delight, though, when a new friend invited me to make something less dangerous the old-fashioned way—soap. We made the soap using West African shea butter, essential oils, and leaves from the local Neem tree—one of the few trees that will grow in this desert country.

When Neem leaves are macerated, they have medicinal value. Neem’s natural antihistamine properties together with its active antibacterial, anti-fungal, and antiviral compounds combat topical inflammation and infections while soothing irritation. I joined my friend in her kitchen on a Saturday morning, where we assembled the ingredients she had previously purchased at the market.

My first challenge in learning to make soap was reading the recipe. Coming from the land of pints and gallons—America never embraced the metric system for everyday usage—I had to think in terms of grams. For our big move across the pond, I had happily packed a super cute set of multi-colored measuring cups and spoons. Alas, here these were useless. My friend dug out a small metal scale. We were going to weigh the ingredients, and we were going to weigh them precisely.

We started with the lye. Little did I know how dangerous a little lye could be! It burns like fire! (Hmm…I think there’s a sermon topic here.)

Lye is so hazardous that my friend reserves separate pots, utensils, and even dishcloths just for soap-making. Even though every item is thoroughly cleaned after each batch, she doesn’t want to risk contaminating her regular kitchen equipment that she uses to prepare food.

Before we began, my friend set out a bottle of white vinegar. She stressed that if I happened to get any of the soap mixture on me, I was to wash my skin immediately with water and then drench it with vinegar. But the odds of that happening were minimal. I was suited up like a HazMat worker with eye goggles, facemask, long sleeves, and rubber gloves.

Carefully we measured out the lye, which looked like white shavings, and set it aside. Then we divided the water called for in the recipe between two tall glass milk bottles. With a funnel, we added half of the lye to the water in one bottle and half to the other. It is very important, my friend said, to add the lye to the water. You never add the water to the lye because that will cause an explosion. (Wow, now I remember why I dodged advanced chemistry in high school! And I thought a blowtorch was scary.)

As soon as the lye hit the water, it started to heat up and nearly boiled. We let it cool. Once it reached the desired temperature, we poured it all into a big pot on the stove and mixed it with the other ingredients. For about 15 minutes, one of us kept stirring the soap “soup.” At the end, we added one final ingredient—rosemary essential oil—to give the soap a nice natural fragrance.

Meanwhile my friend prepared the “molds” for the soap. She took three tall metal cylinders and plugged one end of each with a removable rubber stopper. Then she needed to oil the inside of the cylinders so the hardened soap could eventually be pushed out easily. I applauded her resourcefulness. Not having a kitchen tool long enough to reach inside a cylinder, she used a long stick and wrapped one end with a rag to apply the oil.

Then we needed to secure the oiled cylinders to keep them upright during the pouring and setting process. Once again, my friend had rigged up a clever solution. She had turned a wooden stool upside-down and nailed on top of it a board that had three circular cutouts. The cylinders could be inserted down through the holes and then braced inside the upturned legs and crossbars of the stool. Genius! I love my friend’s can-do attitude!

Once the cylinders were secured, we poured in the soap. Together we carefully carried the cylinder-stool contraption into another room and set it all inside a large cardboard box to keep the soap mixture warm. Apparently if the mixture cools too quickly, then the soap hardens near the edges of the cylinder but stays soft in the middle.

At this point, I finished my contribution to the soap-making effort. The cylinders needed to cool down overnight before the soap could be pushed out and cut. My friend texted me Sunday evening that she had cut the soap and spread the bars out on a wire frame to “cure” for several weeks. Apparently, the lye undergoes a chemical transformation during that time so that it can clean you without harming you. But, if you don’t allow the soap to cure long enough, then it will burn your skin. Ouch!

So, I marked my calendar. On December 18, my soaps will be ready, and my friend and I can wrap them up for Christmas. Surprise!

 

 

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