subject: Try Soap Making As A Practical New Hobby [print this page] One hobby that is worth trying out is soap making. It is an easy hobby to learn but rather hard to perfect. This is why you are guaranteed to spend a lot of time in this easy but very enjoyable hobby. Your mind will be stimulated in to making different and creative designs that you can use to decorate your own bathroom with, and make showering a lot more fun.
There are only two things that you need to make the basic soap, fats and lye. When these two are combined, they will undergo a process called saponification which will produce a soap that can be modified in any way you want. By using different types and amounts of fat, you can manipulate the final properties of your soap such as hardness, mildness or lathering properties.
In addition to these basic ingredients, you will also need other materials to help you design the soap in a way that you want. Using molds, dyes and fragrance oils will help you shape, color and give your soap your desired smell. Aside from these, be sure to wear protective equipment when handling lye as this is a very corrosive substance.
There are two methods of soap making; a hot process and a cold process and each has its own advantages. The hot process is usually used if the lye used is impure and the exact measurement is not known. This is also faster as saponification occurs faster at a higher temperature. The cold process on the other hand is a longer process but it does not require any heat. But you will need exact measurements for this process as soap can become too greasy or lye may not completely undergo saponification.
As you can see, soap making is easy to learn but implementing it into practice is not as easy. The best way to learn is by first perfecting the techniques needed in making the basic soaps. After you have perfected these techniques, you can then move on to creating soaps with different designs and forms.
The more advanced designs such as those found in hotel bathrooms and specialty shops would require you to use a combination of techniques. You can use multiple molds in making just one soap. Different dyes can also be combined to make a soap that has several colors. A special technique will also be needed if you want to create soap with a tie dye effect. You can research on the many methods and techniques on how to make even more impressive deigns with soap.
You can find different uses for the final product. You can use soaps to design your bathroom or bedroom. You can also give these away as a gift to your friends. You can even sell these soaps if you are able to come up with really good designs. Lastly, if you are not satisfied with the final product, or you are already tired of seeing a design, you can always use your soap for washing your hands or when taking a shower.
Soap making has a lot of practical applications so it is really a hobby that is worth trying. It is not only a way of passing the time, but the finished product has a lot of various uses. You can even use all of the rejected soaps to wash your hands or when taking a shower.
