Hot process vs Cold process Soap Making- Q&A with Uncle Jon! 

Awesome! Yeah.. I hate when people try to scare new soap makers...lol. Have fun with it and remember to breathe 😁

I learned that the hard way. Do your own experiments and have fun with it. It's Art and John Knows what he's talking about..

That is awesome!

🤣👍

Whoa you blew my mind. Thanks!

This was such a timely revelation for me. I started making hp due to the time factor fallacy. I love both methods. Recently made a beautiful cp and used it the following day, still somewhat soft but did not melt my skin off😱 Anyway, thank you!💦

I use my cp from day of cutting to the last bar. I like it better fresh actually ☺️

😁

Thanks!

Excellent! Just gotta take it one step at a time and have fun with it 😁👍

Hi Rhonda, How did you soap turn out? It is that first step that is scary. I really enjoy making soap and would like to sell but don't know how to handle the "sue crazy" people who may show up. I just left a comment for Jon asking him how he deals with that. I hope he will be able to find time to answer. Have fun with the soap.

@@icecreamladydriver1606 , I actually am going to do a 64 oz practice run this weekend. I waited till my hubby could be around! I will post a pic and reply as soon as it's in the mold. I decided since the soap is totally for personal use I'm not going to be fancy with "molds" I found a nice size box...:) I'm with you on selling things! Then again I know so little about it. From what I gather INS and proper labeling will help:)

@@Moondancefae Sounds good.

Hey Rhonda, I found this a year later. How did your soap turn out?

I don't mind sharing tips and hints. I don't usually give my proprietary recipes though. Gotta have something that keeps our stuff unique 😁

Ya I understand recipe protecting. My questions are typically what sources do you use for essential oil scents as I don’t use fragrance that’s synthetic. I use therapeutic grade so I’m am not putting enough to add scent but more therapeutic. I don’t know what suppliers that soapers use to make scents out of essential oils at 2-3 oz of EO per one batch of soap. Every place I e looked seems that cost would be about $15 and up to scent that soap. So I must be missing something here. Who would charge $12.50 a bar to compensate for all the ingredients and labor in the bar.

Well.. to start, therapeutic doesn't really work in soap as a rinse off product. Plus there's a lot of misinformation surrounding that whole industry when it comes to therapeutic oils. For soaps and lotions, the oils at bulk Apothecary, brambleberry, wholesale Supplies plus are all good places to start. By the way.. most of the fragrances on those same sites are just as safe (some even safer) as essential oils. Just gotta know what's in them. Too many people use the wrong amount of EO or even one that they probably shouldn't use at all. But the prices on the sites I gave are well within reason for your purposes.

I don't worry about the curing except the bars are softer and can damage in shipping. Like Jon says once it's set up you can use it. I prefer new soap and will store my personal soap in plastic containers to keep it softer longer.

I blend existing fragrances to get a unique scent😁

Thanks! Let me know when you're ready and I'll get you a coupon code 😁

@@unclejonssoap holy scha-moly, Uncle Jon - thank you! :-D

You got it 😁

The lye is actually neutral after the first 25 hours. It needs time to harden and there are some molecular changes that do make the soap a better product overall. But, it's safe after 24 hours. Maybe just not as good as it could be if left alone for a few weeks. 😁

I understand the feeling as I stop losing weight after 10 days too. LOL. Love your name as my sister was named Eva.

@@icecreamladydriver1606 Awh! Thank you ~ Not a lot of folk with my name. I noticed you said 'was' regarding your Sis. Sorry if you no longer have her. I am glad the name Eva is a nice memory for you. :)

@@evaedmonds3498 Yes, she passed away about 10 years ago. I do miss her.

Thanks!

Lol

Thanks!

It could have been from mixing. Many mixers introduce sure into the mixture.

Nope. Cold process is just like hot process except not adding any external heat during mixing. Just letting the chemical reaction basically do it's thing 😁

Sure! Inside dimensions are width -3.25", height-2.5", length -21". I cut my bars at 7/8" thick so this works out well with the 21" length I can get 24 even bars. Also, I don't pour quite all the way to the top so I have room to flatten the top off if the batch is at thick trace. Hope that helps.

Uncle Jon's, thank you so much for the help!!! Looking forward to having some bigger molds!!!😊

@@unclejonssoap 👍🏾😊💜

Yep! We each put our own spin and personality into our craft 😁

My customers never expressed a preference. I like cold process better as far as production is concerned. It's easier to get more batches done in less time. There doesn't seem to be any difference in the final product quality.

I also have a couyyoutube channels where I narrate Reddit stories of various subjects. "Story Time With Uncle Reddit"

Aww.. Thanks! I don't at the moment. I'm going to work on something this year hopefully though 😁

Yep.. I'll be working on that soon 😁👍

@@unclejonssoap My dad was a master Builder and we'd be pumping them out like crazy right now I won't buy over seas..i had a bad experience.. But I want to keep the money here in the US and support my fellow SOAP maker/ carpenter!! I can't wait. THANKS

Hi Christal, I don't have the knowledge or experience that Jon has but I do HP and Cp. Lately I have been doing the countertop hp. Really fast way to do it but not until you have been doing HP and understand it. The only thing you need different is a crock pot. Do what you do with cold process with your oils at 80 to 100 degrees. Then turn your crock pot to low and it takes about two hours. Don't turn your back on it though and you will have to stir it from time to time. Watch some of Essentialsoap's videos. That is the only kind she does and you will learn a lot from her. But all you need to do is type in hot process soap and you will get a ton of education. I think you will love the rustic look and if you do some in the pot swirls you will be hooked.

Sounds good! I'll add it to my list 😁👍

Hey there! Sorry for the confusion. I do talk about lye in some videos. Both hit and cold process use lye. Mostly sodium hydroxide. But, some parts of the world people only have access to potassium hydroxide ( potash). The only real difference between hit and cold is that cold (cp) doesn't require any additional great other than to melt the solid oils and fats. And got process allowed the bars to harden a little faster. Hope that helps some.

Thanks!

Yep! The only change would be if you want to add a little extra water before the cook. Personal choice.

Most of those oils will only come as good grade.

I know that it's a tough way to start because there's no good way to know just how strong or weak your solution is. I haven't done much with it myself.

I agree! I die a little every time I have soap seize 😩 CP is beautiful! However I stick to HP.

Yep. It's harder to get it smooth when making HP.

That is called rustic and a lot of people love it.

Nope 😁 Hot or cold is good either way. Quality mostly depends on recipe. The only thing that can make handmade soaps better is milling them. But that's rather expensive for most small companies.

@@unclejonssoap Thank you so much.

@@unclejonssoap What does "milling" the soap mean? I'm new and still trying to understand everything. Thanks!

@@kathybond181 sorry.. This is Jon. It logged me in under the other channel name..lol. But milling is a process where the soap is shredded, pressed between rollers (basically smashed into a paste), and then extruded into a long long of soap again, cut into blanks (just larger blocks of soap), and then pressed under tremendous pressure into a single cavity mold. Makes the bar super hard like commercial soap. But the equipment is very expensive and rather large.

@@Uncle_Jon THANKS SO MUCH FOR EXPLAINING!! I've been BINGE WATCHING your videos. They are SUPER HELPFUL!!

For supplies you can start with Bulk Apothacary. I don't think I spelled that right but you can type it in the search and it will come up. Bramble Berry is another. I buy my olive oil from Sam's Club, coconut oil from Big Lots', pure lye from Ace Hardware and most of the other stuff from ebay and thrift stores. There are many soapers of both cold and hot process here on youtube and most are wonderful to help you learn. That is where I learned. Good luck and have fun with it.

Honestly it's never come up. As long as you have your ingredients on the label and don't make medical claims you should be good.

@@unclejonssoap Thanks for the quick response. So you don't really need insurance? I have been so worried about law suites that I haven't dared jump in and sell but if you don't have insurance and have had no problem then that makes me feel much better. Thanks.

Oh.. I misunderstood. So, I would still get product insurance. If you join the Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetic guild, then you get member benefits and a good insurance policy for about $550 per year.

@@unclejonssoap OK thanks.

Thought about it. But I'm afraid it would never come out 🤣

🤣👍

General rule of thumb is 4-6 weeks. For me, it's fine as long as saponification is complete. So a few days to a couple weeks is fine 😁 But you will never know exactly when the soap is finished curing.

It can be a little darker. Sometimes it's a fine line between burning and not...lol

@@unclejonssoap i have accidentally gone more then 200 degrees, i hear this is bad. This is when i found out my laser temp was actually +8 degrees more then shown. So for a fast temp i use the laser and for a accurate temp i use my candy making thermometer or do fast mental math: temp = temp +8; The physical difference i find with cold process is the soap is smoother, while the hot process is almost you could say rustic. I did have a batch where i kept the temp in the range(170-180) and it came out no different then if it was done by cold process. The batch produced a smooth extremely dense white soap with a ph in limits and this was with lard via the hot process. The vegetable based soap that did wonders was 40% olive oil / coconut 20% / canola 20% / grape seed oil 20%. If i had made it cold process it would have a smooth finish on the top vs hot that is the real difference im seeing. The lard soap actually damaged my skin, even when it had an very nice appearance to it much like pears. It left the skin dry so it might work fine if i had acne but i dont, but the effect is too drying for daily use. I checked online and dove soap seem to be made from animal fat like the batch i made but with stabilizers and chemicals to increase suds with perfumes. After all these years using store bought soap homemade high quality, with precision manufacturing using all vegetable oils seems it cannot be beaten. I was thinking about using tallow no more then 20% to harden a vegetable based hot process soap but it seems excessive. I could just let the soap age for a year. I did find this link here to add in a bit of lard to harden basicsoapmaking.com/why-use-lard-in-soapmaking/ but i dont see the real use as people want all veg based not hybrid. I find it odd how simple it is to manufacturer soaps yet almost no one does it almost like the barrier of entry seems too high. I did a quick search and it seems day to day we put thousands of different chemicals topically on our skin and few have been tested on its long term effects on the human body.

That was actually a question that I have about the difference in the result of the soap. If you could elaborate a bit that would be great.

@Panevino Well, I'm still learning so I can't give you the chemical reason for the difference but I believe its all about the cook. We know that heat is the cause of the chemical reactions in soap. What temperature soap is cooked at and how long its cooked, sets the result of your soap. My best example is with Cold process oven process; with some of my soaps I like the "glycerin rivers" to achieve this I do the cold process, place it in the oven at temp and bake for a time period and the result is the formation of glycerin rivers. Heat releases and combine the elements that create glycerin, glycerin creates a more luxurious lather and gentle moisturizing soap. Of course the recipe will dictate this as well because of the different properties of the oils, (yes, the deeper you get into making soap the more like a chemistry class it becomes). there are great website for the properties of the oils, research them and cross reference how the chemical compounds interact with each other. Sorry I don't have more information, but I hope this helps some.

Thanks so much for taking the Time for this kind and instructive answer @@christiroseify

I think ultimately both types of soap last the same amount of time. But HP soap definitely gets to the cured stage faster.

@@unclejonssoap I agree, I think how long a cured soap lasts is more about the oils used then the process, but I believe the process affects the over-all quality, but again, I'm still learning and it seems the more I learn, the more I know I have to learn... lol.. As I said, I love your videos, especially the "Don't be a jerk" kind of videos. Thank you for giving us your time and expertise, those of us learning thrive on the videos of those who know.