soap

Soap Recipes

Here are recipes for various kinds of soaps that can be made for home use for family health, or made and sold for income generation.
When making soap, you will be working with soda (lye). When water and lye mix, the resulting solution can cause sever chemical burns. When mixing the solution, always add the lye to the water, never water to the lye, as the solution can splash onto your skin and burn you. Vinegar is easily found in most areas, and will neutralize the lye if a spill does occur. If you can, you might also try to get some rubber gloves for added protection.
Soda (lye) can be purchased locally, or made from wood ash.

Simple Laundry Soap
Source: O'kelly, Elizabeth, Simple Techniques for Rural Women in Bangledesh

Ingredients:
        13 cups vegetable oil or animal fat
        13 oz. Caustic soda or lye
        5 cups water
Also:
        Non-aluminum cooking pot
        Wooden spoon
        Large headpan
        Soap mold (flat pan)

1. Begin by slowly adding the soda to the water. Do not add the water to the soda.
2. Heat the oil in the cooking pot or, if using fat, melt the fat in the cooking pot
3. Pour the oil/fat into the headpan
4. Carefully mix the water and lye with the oil. Keep stirring until the mixture thickens (this should take about 45-50 minutes)
5. Pour the mixture into the mold and let the soap cool for 2 days. Then cut into bars and use or sell.

Groundnut/Nebedayo Soap

    This is the traditional groundnut (peanuts) soap recipe. It can also be followed to make an antibacterial soap made from Nebedayo (Moringa olifera) seeds. When using the Nebedayo seeds, you will need to remove the inner white seed from the outer papery husk.
Ingredients:
        1 large tomato paste can full of roasted groundnuts or shelled and roasted Nebedayo seeds
        4 cups water
        3 (1/2 cup) bags of lye
        1 cup of vegetable oil (optional)
        1 pounder (or any device that will pound or grind the seeds)
        1 headpan (a wide-mouthed plastic bucket)
        1 wooden spoon
        soap molds (flat pans)

1. Thoroughly pound the groundnut or Nebedayo seeds.
2. Add water to the pounded seeds and transfer the mixture to the headpan. At this point you may also add the optional oil.
3. Slowly and carefully add the lye while stirring
4. Keep stirring until the mixture thickens
5. When the mixture is thick, pour into a mold or form into balls by hand

Soap Variations

Antiseptic Neem Soap
Source: Weybright, Teague, "Antiseptic Neem Soap," Natural Resources, April/May 2000.

Adding the oil from the leaves of the Neem tree to normal soap will make a soap that has antiseptic properties and is reportedly good for acne.

Ingredients:
        3 handfuls of fresh neem leaves
        4 liters of water
        1 3-Dalasi bag of lye (1/2 cup each)
        8 bars of local soap shaven into chips
        1 cooking pot
        1 large headpan
        1 wooden spoon
        soap molds (flat pans)

1. First, boil the neem leaves in the water. The leaves should be boiled until a green oil forms on top. This should take about 15-20 minutes.
2. Next, strain out the leaves. Use the wooden spoon or a metal or plastic screen. Do not use cloth, as it might absorb the oil.
3. Dissolve the local soda into the water slowly
4. Dissolve the soap in the boiling water.
5. After the soap is dissolved, move the mixture from the cooking pot into the headpan. Continue to stir until the mixture thickens.
6. When the solution is thick, pour it into the molds. Let is sit in the mold until it is cool and hard.