Providing you use some basic soap-making safety equipment and exercise some common sense, even though you will be using chemicals (caustic soda) to make your soap, making soap from scratch is perfectly safe.
The main dangers of both the hot and cold process soap-making methods are the normal dangers of working with hot materials in the kitchen. Then there are the dangers of working with caustic soda. When you mix your caustic soda into your water, the mixture gets very hot and will have a burning or corrosive effect if spilled. The mixture will also let off mildly toxic fumes, so you must work in an area with good ventilation!
Very Important Soap Making Safety Equipment – Eye Protection!
Even if you buy nothing else in the way of soap-making safety equipment, you must get yourself some good quality safety glasses. You do not want to be in the position of not realizing how important your eyes are until they are gone!
Safety Glasses can be purchased from most hardware stores or trade stores (i.e. plumbing supplies, electrical supplies, or stores that sell power tools). Spend a bit more and get a pair that fit well and are well constructed, it will save you money in the long run. This is especially important if you wear glasses. Go and find a pair of safety glasses that fit over your normal glasses. They will protect your eyes and those expensive pieces of glass that help you see!
Skin Protection
Rubber gloves, you will definitely need some rubber gloves!
The ones I use are the standard kitchen variety – latex, not rubber. I buy them in boxes of fifty from the local supermarket. They are single-use gloves, I usually toss them when I have finished making the batch of soap. You might prefer to buy a pair of gloves that can be used more than once.
Before putting your gloves on, make sure there are no holes in them, even a small amount of your caustic soda and water mixture on your skin will cause burns. It is also a good idea to wear a top with long sleeves, might not offer a lot of protection but some protection is better than none. I also recommend that before you begin, you read the information on your caustic soda container, and be prepared to follow the manufacturers’ recommendations in case of spills.
Then there is Soap Making Safety Equipment for Protecting Your Clothes
When I am making soap, I wear a leather apron – the same one I use for doing steelwork in the shed (yes, I have a MIG welder and I know how to use it – but that’s a whole other craft story).
You could probably just use a normal kitchen apron, but if you prefer a higher level of protection for your clothes, you can usually buy a leather apron anywhere they sell welding equipment.
Protecting Your Kitchen Surfaces
Unless your kitchen benchtop is stainless steel, it might pay to get yourself a cover for your work surface. I use a heavy-duty plastic drop sheet to cover my benchtop.
It probably wouldn’t provide complete protection should the worst happen, but it would minimize the damage. It also helps to eliminate problems of cross-contamination as any spills happen on the drop sheet and not the kitchen surfaces that I use to prepare food for my family. Drop sheets like the one I use can be bought quite cheaply at any painting or hardware store.
