Soap Making Supplies

Finding soap making supplies at a reasonable price and deciphering between all the different options was probably my biggest struggle when I first started out making soap.

There are so many different "styles of that" and "types of this" that it becomes increasingly hard to find the right equipment and locate the best place to buy.

I'm here to help you out! In this section, my goal is to highlight each essential soap making tool, explain how it's used, and let you know what equipment I use myself. Just click on any of the blue links below to learn more about a particular soap tool.

Hopefully, I'll help you eliminate some of the guess work, and avoid the confusion and pitfalls that I ran into while first learning how to make soap.

Below, is a list of basic soap making supplies that you'll need:

1. Safety equipment - You must have rubber gloves and goggles to protect yourself from the hazardous chemicals. Out of all the soap making supplies, this one is the most important! You can buy most soap safety equipment at your local hardware store.
2. soap scale - make sure that the scale measures in both grams and ounces or have one scale that displays in grams and the other that displays in ounces.
3. 3 quart heat safe container - make sure that you don't use just any form of plastic as some will melt with the heat of the reaction. Use a container made out of heat resistant material only when making soap!
4. Large stainless steel pot - this is where the actual soap making will take place as lye is combined with the oils or fats
5. Large 3 Quart stainless steel Sauce Pan - this is usually used for heating your solid oils, fats and additives
6. Wooden or silicone utensils - I personally use silicone utensils for mixing my soap solutions. One drawback of using wood: After enough contact with lye, the wood will start to corrode and flake off into your soap solution; so you will need to buy new utensils often. Many soap makers swear by heavy duty rubber or silicone utensils that never ware.
7. 2 soap making thermometers - you must have two accurate thermometers to measure the temperature of your lye and oils.
8. Your choice of soap making molds - you can use individual mold shapes, or a traditional wooden soap mold.
9. Wax paper - this needs to be placed within the wooden mold in order to remove the cured soap. Just go to your local supermarket and pick up any brand.
10. Tape - I usually use masking tape to secure the wax paper on the wooden soap mold.
11. Soap Cutter - a soap cutter is used to cut the soap into bars if you're not using individual molds.

Now that you know about each of the soap making supplies that you'll be using, gather your equipment, get your work space organized and start making soap from scratch. You're going to have an absolute blast!