It can be a great hobby, a nice present that you can give to people, and just an enjoyable thing. Soap making is a fun thing to do, and it's not really that hard, just as long as you follow the right process. And as with anything your safe when you do it. Soap is made from animal fat or sometimes vegetable oils, lye, and water.

There is a process that you will have to do that is called saponification. But with soaps that you make at home you will not need to have the chemicals that can be found in store bought soap. Plus you will be able to add so many things to it, and create your own soaps.

Following are directions on how to make a basic soap. They are simple enough to follow. So read on and enjoy a new hobby that you may find you love.

First off you need to read the directions for the recipes that you are making. Ensure that you have everything that is required, and you also have your gear. Make sure that you have safety gloves and safety glasses that you can wear.

Using distilled water will give you the best quality of soap, so weigh the right amount that you need, placing it into a pitcher. It's easiest to have two pitchers, one that is empty and placed on the scale, have the scale set to zero. Now add the amount of water that is required for your recipe.

Now you will need to add in the lye that is needed for your recipe, place that into the second pitcher. Be careful when you go to pour the lye into the water, you don't want it to splash up. And make sure you add the lye to the water, not the opposite way.

Stir the solution together very gently, using a wooden spoon. Once you see the lye has dissolved it's good. Make sure that your doing this in a room where you have plenty of ventilation. Don't lean over that pitcher to look into the water, you don't want to breathe any of this solution.

As the lye is cooling down you will need to melt the fat that is required. Both the lye and the fat will need to be 100 degrees, so don't let the lye cool down too much. Check the temperatures of both the fat and the lye before you move on.

As you continue to stir the fat, you should pour the lye into it, do this slowly so as not to splash any. Continue stirring the whole time that way you are sure the lye has mixed into the fat fully. This will begin to get thicker, and you will be able to see that with lines that appear. It may take anywhere from twenty minutes or up to an hour.

Do not use a hand mixer in this process. Now once it's mixed up completely you need to pour the mixture into a mold. Place a lid on the mold and wrap it up with a towel. Placing in a warm place you need to now let it set for 48 hours.

Once it's been 48 hours you can now unwrap that mold. The soap will most likely still be warm, if the surface is soft still, leave the lid off for a day before you continue. Once it is firmed up you will need to remove it from the mold. To do this pull the plastic away a bit from each side of the soap. Turning the mold over you can use either needle point material or plastic to place the soap on.

Now all you need is to score the surface of the soap where you are going to want to cut it. Warm up your knife a bit under water first. Drying the knife and than cutting your soap into blocks as big as you want.

You will still need to cure these bars, and they will become a bit lighter and even a little smaller. This process will take three weeks to complete. That is your first and hopefully not your last batch of soap.