Dec. 19-21

Brise de Mer company logo

This week, I learned how to make soap. It was a fun educational experience where we could make our own soap in a hypothetical situation where we own our own company and had a logo.

During the soap making experiment, I learned that the most effective way to work is to split up the work evenly so that everyone can contribute without one person doing everything. For example, two members took pictures of the soap-making steps and the soap. Next, I assigned one other group member to get the supplies and choose the ingredients to use and to make our company logo, which is Brise de Mer. Lastly, I decided to collaborate all the photos and the research on soap into Evernote to make a Soap Project Notebook and share it with the class.

To make the soap, we decided to use, for essential oils, olive oil, and for colors, pink, some white, purple, and orange. We decided that we would use holiday wrapping and packaging and molds.

These are the steps used to make the soap:

•         Materials needed are glycerin, knife, beaker, hot plate, thermometer, essential oils, coloring, fragrances, rubbing alcohol, soap molds, gift wrapping materials.

Packaging, glycerin, essential oils, colorings, and molds.

•         Chop glycerin into 4-8 blocks.

•         Then put the glycerin blocks in the beaker.

•         Then, put the beaker on a hot plate. Adjust at medium heat (5-6). Change adjustments accordingly, but avoid boiling if you can. In order to determine if it boils, notice the condensation on the glass. If the glass appears cloudy, then the soap solution is over boiling. If it does boil, turn down the heat for about a minute and then gradually increase from 0-5.

•         Next, watch glycerin melt. As it turns from a solid to a liquid, add essential oils, colors, and fragrances.

How soap bars came out in the end.

•         Then, stir the solution with a spoon or straw.

•         When the temperature of the solution is around 54 degrees Celsius, pour solution into soap molds.

•         Once you pour the solution into soap molds, bubbles will appear. To avoid excess bubbles and to keep the soap layers sticking together, spritz a bit of rubbing alcohol.

•         Then, let the soap solutions in the molds cool for 24 hours so that they solidify. Then, the next day, each solution should look like a typical bar of soap one uses in the bathroom ready to wrap!

•         Lastly, package them.

The soap changed different states. When melting the glycerin, it changed from a solid to a liquid around  54ºC. Then, once the soap solution, after adding colors, essential oils, and fragrances, is poured into the soap molds, the soap solution changes from liquid to solid as it cools over 24 hours. The particles became more and more structured and crystalline as the temperature dropped, causing the particles to move slower.

In the melt and pour method, what occurs is glycerin is melted on a heat melter or large double boiler. Then, fragrance, essential oils, moisturizing agents, dyes, or exfoliating agents are added. While hot, the soap can be poured into molds where cooling will occur.

Particle motion of soap during melt
and pour method.

When making soaps, it is important to consider what fats are added in the soap. This is important because fats have different crystalline structures and chemical bonds. So, chemical bonds can occur at different rates at different temperatures and at different rates. For example, if a fat with a very crystalline structure is used to make soap, it will be difficult making soap at low-moderate temperatures because it will require a higher temperature to melt this in order to change its state of matter, or a longer period of time for energy configuration to increase to make the particles move farther apart. Different fats, thus, affect the outcome of the soap.

Thus, the soap with the crystalline-structured fat has the highest density yet the lowest energy configuration since the particles are closest together and move the slowest, and the soap with the less crystalline-structured fat has the least density yet the highest energy configuration since the particles are farther apart and move faster.

Lastly, temperature is an important factor in the melt and pour process. The higher the temperature of the soap is, the more gel-like your soap will become since chemical bonds and attractions between particles are being broken and there is enough energy in the phase account to make the soap change state. But, if the temperature is lower, then the chemical bonds and attractions between particles won't be broken as much, and there may not be enough energy in the thermal or phase energy accounts to make the soap change state.