How Is Handmade Soap Made? Inside Our Argyll Workshop
How is handmade soap actually made?
I've been making cold process soap since 2008, and while every batch is slightly different, the basic process has stayed much the same.
In the workshop here in Tarbert, Argyll, I start with three simple ingredients: olive oil, coconut oil and shea butter. They're carefully weighed and combined with a lye solution before essential oils are added and the soap is poured into moulds.
The making takes a matter of hours.
The waiting takes considerably longer.
Every bar spends around six weeks curing on the workshop shelves before it's ready to use.
What is cold process soap?
Cold process is a traditional method of soap making where oils and butters are combined with a solution of sodium hydroxide and water.
This begins a chemical reaction called saponification, which turns the oils and sodium hydroxide into soap and naturally occurring glycerine.
The words sodium hydroxide can sound a little alarming if you've never come across soap making before. It's an essential part of the process, but when a soap recipe is correctly formulated and the saponification process is complete, the sodium hydroxide has reacted with the oils to make soap.
It's a simple process on paper.
In practice, there's a fair bit of weighing, mixing, timing — and occasionally remembering that the essential oils are still sitting on the bench after you've poured the soap into the mould.
Weighing and melting the butters
Every batch starts with weighing the ingredients carefully.
For our Signature soaps, I use olive oil, coconut oil and shea butter. The coconut oil and shea butter are gently melted first, before the olive oil is weighed and added.
I usually make either a 6kg or 9kg batch at a time. Large enough to fill the moulds, but still small enough for me to make and handle each batch myself.
Each ingredient has a purpose in the finished bar. Olive oil contributes to a gentle soap, coconut oil helps create a good lather and a harder bar, while shea butter adds richness to the recipe.
Making the lye solution
While the oils and butters are being prepared, I make the lye solution by carefully combining sodium hydroxide with water.
This part of soap making needs accuracy and care. Everything is weighed precisely rather than measured by volume.
The lye solution heats up naturally when it's made, so it needs time to cool before I combine it with the oils and butters.
Bringing everything together
Once everything is ready, the melted butters and olive oil are combined, followed by the lye solution.
Then comes the blending.
I blend the mixture until it reaches what's known in soap making as trace. This is the point where the oils and lye solution have emulsified and the mixture begins to thicken.
You can actually see the change happening in the pot. What started as separate oils gradually becomes a smooth soap batter, ready for the essential oils to be added.
Adding the essential oils
The essential oil blend goes in once the soap has reached the right stage.
This is the point when the workshop really begins to smell like whatever I'm making that day — perhaps patchouli, mandarin and lime for Argyll Citrus Mist, or rose geranium and lemongrass for Westcoast Wildflower.
And yes, there has been a batch where I poured the soap into the moulds, looked across the bench and realised the essential oils were still sitting there.
It was a rather quiet moment in the workshop.
Pouring and texturing the soap
Once the essential oils are thoroughly mixed through, the soap is poured into the moulds.
This is one of my favourite parts of the process. Before the soap begins to set, I texture the tops by hand, giving the finished bars their characteristic uneven surface.
No two batches turn out completely identical. Small differences in the tops, colours and patterns are simply part of making soap by hand.
Then the moulds are left undisturbed for around 24 hours while the soap begins to harden.
Cutting the bars
The following day, the soap is firm enough to come out of the moulds.
Each batch goes through my multi-bar cutter, which cuts the large block into individual bars.
This is the first time it really starts to look like the soap you'll eventually receive. The colours and patterns inside the loaf are revealed, and the bars are ready for the longest part of the process.
Waiting.
Six weeks on the curing shelves
Freshly cut soap isn't ready to leave the workshop.
The bars are placed on shelves here in Tarbert and left to cure for around six weeks.
During that time, excess water gradually evaporates from the bars. The soap becomes harder, which helps it last well once you start using it.
It's not a stage I rush. Proper curing is simply part of making a good bar of cold process soap.
For six weeks, the shelves gradually fill with rows of different batches — and the workshop carries a mixture of whatever essential oil blends happen to be curing at the time.
From oils and butters to a finished bar
The ingredients are simple.
Olive oil. Coconut oil. Shea butter. Water. Sodium hydroxide. Essential oils.
But turning them into a finished bar takes careful weighing, a bit of chemistry, plenty of hands-on work and, most of all, time.
I've been making soap this way since 2008. Some things have changed over the years, but the basic process hasn't needed to.
Small batches of 6kg or 9kg.
Poured and cut in the workshop in Tarbert, Argyll.
Six weeks on the curing shelves.
Then, finally, they're ready.