FREE ESSAY ON HANDMADE SOAP LAB

HANDMADE SOAP LAB

HANDMADE SOAP LAB
Purpose: To make a basic soap and a soap with other than basic ingredients using Lye,
Olive Oil and Oatmeal and to learn about the history of soap and how the process of
saponification works.
Procedure:
A. Basic Olive oil soap
Materials
a. 1- 2 liter beaker
b. 1- 100 ml beaker
c. 2 thermometers
d. 1 container with lid
e. 1 balance
f. 1 graduated cylinder
g. 2 spoons
h. 1 stainless steel bowl
i. 1 heating plate
1. Put on safety goggles
2. Person A: Fill a container to cool the NaOH solution with cold water and make sure
someone comes in before and after school for the next 4 or 5 days 
3. Person B: Clean working area, cover immediate work area with newspaper, get plastic
container that will hold soap and mark with tape on base of container.
4. Person C: put on latex gloves 
a. Weigh 100g (3.5 oz.) of NaOH and put it in the 2 liter beaker. 
b. Measure 283.5 ml (10 oz.) of cold water.
c. Slowly add water to NaOH and stir with a spoon to dissolve NaOH. Place thermometer in
the solution and place the beaker in the cooling container.
d. Stir NaOH and cool to 38 degrees Celcius and keep this temperature constant until
person D is at 38 degrees with the oil mixture. Use heating plate or cooling container as
necessary.
e. Slowly add NaOH to the oil mixture while stirring constantly.
f. Stir for 15 minutes.
g. Pour into soap container and put lid on.
5.Person D
a. Measure 643 ml (13 oz.) of Olive oil and 175 ml of Blended oil. Add both to the
stainless steel mixing bowl and put a thermometer in it. b. Heat oil to 38 degrees
Celcius.
c. Once at 38 degrees, talk to person C and keep temperature constant 6. After a few days
remove lid and air dry 
When soap has dried put it on paper, cut into 8 pieces and dry for a few more days.
B. Oatmeal soap
Materials
a. 1 muffin container and a piece of tape
b. heating plate
c. balance
d. oatmeal
e. grater
f. graduated cylinder
1. Person A: Get a muffin container and label it.
2. Person B: Weigh out 100g of oatmeal. Grind oats in blender until 1/5 original size.
When oil and water mixture has become clear, add and mix in oatmeal.
3. Person C: Grate 340 g (12 oz.) of the soap into the metal bowl.
4. Person D: Get a heating plate, measure and add 225 ml (9 oz.) of water to grated soap.
Heat on low and stir until soap has dissolved to clear, take ot off the heat and add
Person B's oatmeal.
5. Person A: Pour the mixture into a muffin container. Place container in freezer. After
drying for a few days, pop out and let dry.
Results:
A. Olive oil Soap
The Olive oil soap turned out quite well. The only thing that was unexpected was the
awkward, and bumpy shape of the soap . But this is because of the container it was made
in. Other than this, the Olive oil soap moisturizes much better and is much gentler than
commercial brands.
B. Oatmeal Soap
Just as the Olive oil soap turned out great, the Oatmeal soap turned out even better. The
only drawback is that the oatmeal flakes weren't ground up enough. This is not very
attractive but it doesn't really do anything to the soap's performance.
Conclusion: 
A. Olive oil Soap
This was a farely error free procedure. One of the problems was getting the oil and the
NaOH to match up exactly degrees Celcius. This could be avoided in the future by using
identical hot plates and heating each liquid slowly paying very close attention to it.
One minor problem was that the top of the soap was uneven after stirring it and it dryed
that way. This could be fixed simply by smoothing it out after stirring. Another problem
that occurred was the white, hard crust that formed. The white crust could possibly be
avoided by mixing more often and mixing right up until the soap hardens.
B. Oatmeal Soap
The only problem that we encountered with the oatmeal soap was that the flakes were too
big. To avoid this in the future it would be good to have a more sophisticated grinder
and grind the flakes for a longer duration of time.
References: 
1. Hiscox, Gardner D. Henley's 20th Century Book of 10,000 Formulas, Processes and Trade
Secrets. Norman W. Henley Publishing Company: New York, 1937
2. Bakule, Paula Dreifus. Rodale's Book of Practical Formulas.
Rodale Press: Pennsylvania, 1991. 3. www.soapsuppliesplus.com/info/MeltPourTips.html
4. www.soapman.com 
5. Grandma and Grandpa Johnson
Questions:
1.
2. One of the major differences between commercial soaps and the soap made in the lab is
the ingredients. Commercial soaps are made of fats instead of oil. Most of the fat comes
from beef and pork. This cleans your skin, but it doesn't add anything. Therefore, the
fats tend to leave skin dry and tight. The oil soaps moisturize as well as clean the
skin. The reason for this is that oil is very expensive. The commercial soaps have a
totally different chemical structure due to the different chemicals added.
The commercial brand is softer, and greasier. The oil soap is harder, and smoother. The
commercial brand leaves skin feeling dry, tight and very clean. The Olive oil soap and
Oatmeal soap do not just clean, but they seem to moisturize as well. Commercial soaps
also produce lather where the soaps we made do not. This, however, has no effect on the
performance of the soap.
3. A soap-like material found in ancient Babylon is evidence that soapmaking was known as
early as 2800 BC The Egyptians, Greeks, Israelites, Japanese Germans, and Romans all are
known to have bathed at some time. The lack of personal cleanliness and related
unsanitary living conditions contributed heavily to the great plagues of the Middle Ages,
and especially to the Black Death of the 14th century. It wasn't until the 17th century
that cleanliness and bathing was practiced in much of Europe. Well into the 19th century,
soap was heavily taxed as a luxury item in several countries. When the high tax was
removed, soap became available to ordinary people, and cleanliness improved. The
scientific discoveries of Cheveul and Solvay, together with the development of power to
operate factories, made soapmaking one of America's fastest-growing industries by 1850.
At the same time, its broad availability changed soap from a luxury item to an every day
necessity.
4. During WWII my friend Andrew's grandparents lived on farms in Southern Nebraska. They
said that noone really had any soap because it wasn't available to buy. Oil to make it
was very expensive and rare and would be used for other things if they had it.
5A. Olive oil soap is $.84/bar and we made 8 bars.
B. Oatmeal soap is $.63/bar of oatmeal soap and we made 6 bars 
6. 99g/36 per mol = 2.75 mol/.283 L.
7. They are making a profit of $5.37 10 $9.37 which is a percent mark-up of 852% to
1487%
8. Soaps made of sodium are hard soaps and soaps made of potassium are sort soaps. You
can also add things like beeswax to make a soap hard.
9. Soaps are mainly made of fats or oils. They are made using triglycerides and an alkali
or base. The two then combine and produce neutral soap. Detergents are cleaning products
made from a variety of raw materials.
10. see attached sheet.
11. An emulsion is colloidal sized droplets (about 100 nm wide) of one liquid suspended
in another liquid. In oil and water the oil isn't truly dissolved because because the
molecules are still intact. The oil is just broken apart into the very small molecules
which float around in the solution. Emulsions are mainly used to break down oils, fats,
and greases.
12. Soap is an emulsifying reagent. When fat is introduced to soap, the polar part of the
fatty acid dissolves in the non polar part in the soap.
13. Boiling point change = .51 C/m x 2.475 mol NaOH x 2 ions = .51
oC/m x 8.84 x 2 ions = 109.37 C
Freezing point change = -1.86 C/m x 8.84m x 2 ions = -32.88
14A. Based on the trends in the table, at room temperature, Menhaden oil and Tung oil
would be in a liquid state because they both have more unsaturated oil then saturated oil
in them.
B. The percent distributions of fatty acids for butter would be something like this: 90%
saturated 5% mono-unsaturated 5% poly-unsaturated. This is an approximate estimate, but
no matter what the exact distribution value's are, their would always be a very high
ratio of saturated oils, and a very low ratio of unsaturated oils.
15. Percent distributions of saturated, mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated oils in our
soap, based on the amounts used in the lab:
saturated: (12 + 9)/ 2 = 10.5% saturated
mono-unsaturated: (29 + 85)/ 2 = 57% mono-unsaturated
poly-unsaturated: (59 + 6)/ 2 = 32.5% poly-unsaturated