As you will be working with chemicals, your soap-making equipment should be made of stainless steel, glass (pyrex) or unchipped enamel, or you might just experience some unexpected results from your soap-making efforts.
The first thing you will need is a good-sized stockpot for melting your oils and fats. I use a stainless steel pot that holds around six litres of liquids – more than enough capacity for a good-sized batch of soap.
For mixing my caustic soda and water I use a two-litre stainless steel bowl, you could also use an enamel or glass bowl for this task, but if you do use enamel, make sure that the bowl has not been chipped.
Some soap makers transfer their oils and fats into a bucket after they have cooled and before adding the caustic soda and water mixture, but I usually bring my soap to trace in the stockpot.
One of the methods I use for colouring my soap is melting a wax crayon with a small amount of almond or sesame oil and adding the mixture to my batch after I have achieved a trace. To melt the crayon I usually put the crayon and oil into a small Pyrex jug, and then I put the jug into a small pot over low heat with an inch or two of water in the bottom.
The other piece of soap-making equipment I couldn’t do without is my stick blender!
If you decide to stir your batch to trace by hand, you can expect to be at it for hours – quite literally. Whereas if you use a stick blender, the stirring to trace only takes a minute or so.
Basic Soap Making Equipment Shopping List
So to summarise, at the very least you will probably need to add these items to your shopping list:
- A stockpot
- A stainless steel or glass bowl
- A stick blender
