Read the ENTIRE project before starting.

Equipment:

Eye Protection

Rubber Gloves

2 Plastic or Glass Containers *I'm using Pitchers* (NO ALUMINUM!!!!)

2 Plastic stirring spoons (NO ALUMINUM!!!!)

Large Enameled or Stainless Steel pot (NO ALUMINUM!!!!)

2 plastic or glass Candy Thermometers (NO ALUMINUM!!!!)

Old Blanket or Thermal Wrap. (I'm using a Pizza Hut Delivery Bag and old towels)

A mold of some type. (I line a 9" by 13" cake pan with a garbage bag)

Plastic wrap.

An Egg Timer is useful.

A little bit of luck

Molds:
	Almost anything can be a mold for soap, as long as the surface that touches the soap contains no aluminum. buy individual or divided soap molds at a craft store or take the cheap way out, and cover an old square or rectangular pan with plastic. Lay the mold on the floor on top of the blanket, for easier wrapping
	Your life will be much easier if you use petroleum jelly or a non-stick (non-flavored) cooking spray to grease the mold. Regular oil won't work for this. It just becomes part of the soap.
	Ready the mold before you start mixing or heating anything, on your first time through this process. After that, find your own groove. There are pauses in this process that you learn to use. Otherwise you end up doing dishes or housework or something icky like that during those breaks.

Mixing the lye and water:
	Put on Gloves and Protective Eyewear. Make sure the room is well ventilated!!! Measure Lye into plastic container, and place it in the sink.
	Slowly add water to the Lye. Mixture will get VERY hot. (170º - 180º)
	Stir for 3-5 minutes to ensure complete solution of Lye and water. Attatch a candy thermometer to the side of the container and let the solution sit in the sink for about 40 mins.

Melting the Fats:
	Stir all the oils together over low heat in an Enameled or Stainless Steel pot until liquified. Hook other Candy thermometer onto pot and set it aside to cool.
	Cool until within 5 degrees of the current temperature of the Lye/H2O solution. (We're shooting for anywhere between 100º and 115º here for both of them)

Putting it all together:
	Once both the Oils and the Lye/H2O mix are within the temperature range of 100º - 115º, gently pour the Lye/H2O mix into the pot with the oils. It's important not to splash any of this on yourself. Make sure to use your safety equipment.
	Stir for 10 minutes by hand.
	Now, this is the hard part. Turn on your heel, strip off your gloves and walk away. We do this on the premise that a watched pot never boils. Put the gloves back on and come back to stir every 5-15 minutes. (This is when I like to get my molds ready for pouring.)
	While you stir, pull a little of the mixture out of the pot with the spoon and dribble it back on top. if the little dribble stays visible on the surface of the mixture, then this is called a "Trace". This usually occurs within the first hour for me, but don't give up, it may take as much as 2 hours for the mixture to thicken enough to trace.
	After the mixture has reached trace and is a custard-like consistancy, then you can stir in the extras. Fragrances, Herbs, whatever. I would experiment with this until you find a fragrance amount that you like. * I use 2 tablespoons of more delicate fragrances (ex. Rose, Freesia, Powder Scent), or 1 tablespoon of the stronger ones (ex. Clove, Mint, Opium).*
	Some fragrances cause soap to harden quickly, so as soon as you have stirred any fragrance into the pot, pour the mixture quickly into a mold.
	cover the mold with a sheet of plastic wrap, so that the plastic touches the surface of the soap without any wrinkles or bubbles. (If you can do this on the first try, you're better than I am.)
	Now, carefully wrap the mold in the blanket. In order to saponify, turn into soap, the molded mixture must stay fairly warm over the next 24 hours. Put the wrapped mold somewhere where it won't be disturbed, and keep little hands away from it. The soap still stings if it gets on you during this stage.
	A day or so later, when the soap has hardened, pull off the plastic wrap using gloves, and unmold your soap. If you use the garbage-bag lined molds, all you have to do is pull the plastic out of the mold, and peel it off the soap.
	Now, cut the soap into bars, and put them someplace to cure for 3 weeks. A good way to tell if the soap has cured long enough is to touch a bit to your tongue. If it has a noticeable "zing" then it's not done yet. Remember, the longer soap cures, the better it is. Use and Enjoy!!!!

Precautions::
The reason that you can't handle lye with anything aluminum is that the lye has a chemical reaction with aluminum, negating the reaction with the oils. Also, it eats the metal away. Wooden utensils and molds work the first few times, but eventually get eaten away as well. Lye is a caustic substance. That's why it makes such a wonderful drain opener. It can burn your skin. If Lye gets on you in its dry form, just brush it off and rinse with water. If it splatters on you after you have mixed it with water, flush the area with water immediately, and check for chemical burns. If it gets in your eyes, it can blind you. Flush with water and get to the emergency room. If it is swallowed, it can be deadly. Call poison control. Do NOT induce vomiting, and get to the hospital. Did I make it very clear that Lye is dangerous stuff to work with? This is to emphasize again that you should always wear safety equipment and keep children out of the way when dealing with it.

Hints and Ideas:
I haven't tried it, but I am told that you can speed up the trace by using a hand-held blender for 10 minutes after mixing the oils and lye/water. If you want a design on your soapbars, try pressing a wooden stamp (Which you can special-order online) or antique luggage tags or buttons or stamps or anything else that appeals to you into the soapbars after cutting.

I hope you have fun with this craft and let me know how it turns out. If you're having any trouble with it, let me know and I'll be glad to help you.