How to Make Soap Without Lye (Including a Natural Substitute)
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An introduction to how to make soap at home—both with and without lye. Many people are hesitant to make soap using lye, and this piece will take you through what it is and the part it plays in soap making. That includes a summary of the natural chemistry involved, how to use melt-and-pour soap, and a natural substitute for lye in soap making. That’s right, it’s possible to use a common kitchen ingredient to replace lye!
As a soapmaking teacher, one of the most common questions I’m asked is how to make soap without lye. It’s an understandable one since many people are worried about the dangers of using lye or are concerned about “chemicals.” Others want to make soap at home with the kids and don’t want to worry about accidents. Both are valid worries, so I’d like to give you options.
However, if you’re interested in making soap as a hobby or a business, you need to understand what natural soap is and what it’s made of. That’s why I’d like to take you through the basics of natural soap making and explain the process. I’d also like to bring you up to speed on detergents and how some soapmakers are experimenting with an alternative to lye. Even if you’re not going to make soap, I think that what I have to share will be a real eye-opener.
Different Types of Soap to Make
There are many ways to make soap and cleansers. Some begin with from-scratch ingredients, including lye, while others use pre-made soap bases or synthetics. Knowing the difference between each is important if you want to become a soapmaker. It will help you align your values and needs with what you make.
- Hot and cold-process soap is bar soap made with oils, fats, lye (sodium hydroxide), water, and optional additives. You have full control of the ingredients.
- Liquid soap is made using the hot process with oils, fats, lye (potassium hydroxide), water, and optional additives. Again, you have full control of the ingredients.
- Melt-and-pour soap is a premade soap base that can be either synthetic or natural (made with lye). You have very little control over the ingredients aside from the scent and color.
- Syndet bars are solid detergent bars that look like soap. Most commercially produced cleansers are syndet bars. You can make these at home, too, but you use synthetic ingredients.
- Shampoo, body wash, liquid hand wash, most liquid dish soap, and liquid laundry soap are detergents made from synthetic surfactants. You can make these at home, but they are not natural.
- Rebatched soap is a process of grating old soap to reform into new bars.
- Plant saponins are natural surfactants contained in plants such as horse chestnut and soapwort. They don’t usually have a long shelf-life, and the cleansing action is mild.
Make Soap Using Pre-Made Soap Bases
The main way that you can make soap without handling lye is by using a melt-and-pour soap base. It’s either a detergent or has already been through saponification (oils reacting with lye) and is safe to use and handle straight out of the package. Melt-and-pour is pre-made “soap” that you cut into blocks, melt in the microwave or double boiler, add scent and color, and then pour into soap molds. They’re quick, easy, and safe for children to work with. You can also use the bars you make with soap base immediately after they’ve cooled and hardened.
Melt-and-pour soap bases are popular with beginners because they’re a way to make soap without having to work directly with lye. It’s also common in the world of soap art since you can use soap bases to create beautifully colored and patterned soap quickly. There are also lots of different types of bases to use, such as goat milk soap base, shea butter soap base, and glycerin soap base.
You can add essential oils, herbs, and natural colorants to melt and pour, but they’re often made with synthetic ingredients, and you have little control over a premade base. Natural melt-and-pour bases are becoming more common, though. However, please know that these are made with lye. You don’t have to handle lye to use them, but lye was used in its production. That doesn’t make it dangerous, though. Melt-and-pour soap bases are very easy to use and safe on your skin, and you don’t have to cure them. Here are some recipes you can use:
The Synthetic Soap in Your Bathroom
Most people are completely unaware that most modern cleansers are not soap. Liquid body washes, shampoo, solid bar soap, liquid dish soap—almost all “soaps” sold to the public are actually detergents. Detergents are synthetic cleansers that can come in liquid and solid forms. Though they don’t use lye in their manufacture, they use artificial surfactants. These chemical compounds create lather and remove oil, dirt, and grime, but they’re not real soap.
The most well-known surfactant used to make personal care products is Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS). It creates the lather and cleansing action in most toothpaste, shampoos, hand wash, and body washes. Some people have skin reactions to it, but it’s generally considered safe and is prevalent in the personal care industry. There are dozens of other surfactants used, too, including Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate (SLES). It’s often marketed as natural or eco-friendly because some of its compounds are derived from plants.
My point is that most people use cleansers that were not created with lye. However, most mass-market cleansers are made with synthetic or artificial ingredients. Although I’m a natural soapmaker, I don’t have a problem with this. What I have a problem with is that many aren’t aware that all cleansers are made with “chemicals.” Most people also don’t understand the role of lye in soapmaking.
Syndet Bars
I think solid detergent bars used to be something manufacturers tried to hide. You can still find them hiding under terms like ‘beauty bar’ or ‘bathing bar.’ However, more and more, you’re seeing the actual term syndet on product packaging. It’s a blended form of the words synthetic detergent and I wonder just how many people see it and understand what it means.
Syndet bars aren’t altogether bad news; they’re just not real soap. Instead, they’re cheaper to make and created with artificial ingredients, some with petroleum by-products. Dove is the biggest name in syndet production, but they’re everywhere! Solid shampoo bars are the most well-known development in syndet technology these days. However, if you notice a cleanser that says it’s soap-free, it’s because it’s made with synthetic detergents.
Benefits of Soap
On the other hand, real soap made well is gentle and cleansing but leaves your skin feeling comfortable afterward. Conditioned, even. That’s because of how soap is made and what’s in the bars afterward. One of the best reasons for making soap with lye is that you get complete control over what goes into your soap recipes. You can create soaps that are 100% natural, vegetarian, vegan, kosher, or avoid ingredients you may be allergic to. For example, I’ve had several people get in touch with coconut oil or lavender allergies, and I’ve helped them to make soap without it.
However, there are only three ingredients necessary to make a basic soap recipe. They are oils and/or fats (plant or animal-based), water, and lye. Lye is a caustic ingredient that can be either sodium hydroxide to make bar soap or potassium hydroxide to make liquid soap or shaving soap. In almost all cases, soap requires lye, but the end product is safe, natural, gentle, and completely free of harmful compounds.
What is Lye?
In making bar soap, you use a type of lye called sodium hydroxide, and in liquid soap making, you use potassium hydroxide. Both are very caustic alkalis that must be stored and handled carefully. Using lye is necessary for from-scratch soapmaking, but it must be done with caution since it can cause serious injury to your skin or soft tissues. Following soapmaking safety guidelines and wearing gloves and goggles is absolutely essential. But what exactly is lye?
In the case of sodium hydroxide, it is the product of brine made of ordinary table salt (sodium chloride) and water put through the electrolytic chloralkali process. Potassium hydroxide is created using a different process using potassium carbonate and calcium hydroxide (slaked lime). Both forms of lye are strong alkalis (very high pH) necessary for making real soap. They are also considered natural ingredients.
How Lye Makes Soap
In a completely natural process, oils and fats interact with lye as we stir them, and their molecules disband and then re-bond. This natural chemical reaction is called saponification, and we’ve been harnessing this process for thousands of years. When making soap, you can see the saponification process happen as the ingredients begin to thicken. You’ll see that stage called ‘trace’ in cold-process soap recipes. It advances from that stage to being fully solid, and after forty-eight hours, all remnants of lye are gone. It’s amazing!
The water in soap recipes is only necessary to help the lye and oil interact, and most of it evaporates off as you allow the soap to cure. However, in most soap recipes, we add extra oil that won’t transform into soap. This amount is called the superfat, and it doesn’t transform because there’s not enough lye to bond with it. We may also add colorants, fragrances, and other soap additives to make the soap pleasant to use. Here are some of my favorite soap recipes to make:
What Happens to the Lye in Soap
The thing to understand is that finished soap is no longer the original oil or lye but a completely new compound. There is no lye leftover in soap bars because it transforms into soap. The easiest way to understand the process is to imagine how a baby is made. It takes a sperm and an egg to make a baby, but the baby is no longer a sperm and an egg. It’s a baby. Use the same thought process to understand that soap is no longer oil and lye—it’s soap! There’s no lye left in finished soap.
Another way to think about it is on a chemical level. Lye, in its form of sodium hydroxide, is made from one atom of sodium (salt component), one atom of oxygen, and one atom of hydrogen. In the soapmaking process, those atoms are recombined with the fatty acids in oils to form soap. That’s why soap in organic chemistry is described as a salt of a fatty acid.
Avoiding Harmful Chemicals
One major reason that people want to make lye-free soap is to avoid chemicals. If that’s you, you may feel a little worried about all this chemistry talk. Please rest assured—I’m a natural soapmaker and skincare maker, and I look into each and every ingredient I use. I do this to avoid harmful substances and choose the best product materials. I would not use substances that will cause harm when using the final product, and I’m here to help you better understand.
First, please know that everything you can touch, see, taste, and smell is made of chemicals. Chemicals are simply single elements (like oxygen) or mixtures of different compounds. Water is a chemical (H2O is its chemical name), chocolate is made of chemicals, and kittens are fuzzy purring balls of chemicals. Most of these chemicals are benign or helpful, but some can harm.
Harmful Chemicals Can Become Benign
For example, the chemicals produced by some mushrooms or plants can harm or kill. They’re completely natural and even organic, but still harmful. Yet, take those same compounds and alter them in the lab, and they become life-saving medicines. For example, foxglove flowers and leaves are deadly. Yet take Digitalis heart medicine (made from foxglove compounds), and it can help you survive heart failure.
Coming back to soapmaking. Lye is a chemical, but so is olive oil, coconut oil, and each and every essential oil we use in soapmaking. It’s true that lye is a strong alkali that can harm your skin if it gets on you. However, there is no lye left in finished soap. It is transformed by the saponification process and, with oils, creates a completely benign and gentle substance—soap.
Natural Substitute for Lye in Soap Making
Now that you understand that lye is an alkali ingredient that transforms oils into soap, you might wonder if there are substitutes. Other alkalis that are more natural and aren’t as scary. Before we proceed to the substitute I know of, please know that sodium hydroxide is natural—see the section on how lye is made above. Even potassium hydroxide is natural, though making it these days is different from how it was traditionally harvested by leaching rainwater through wood ashes.
So, if you worry that lye isn’t natural, rest assured that it is. Especially food-grade lye, which is pure enough to make pretzels, chocolate, peel fruit and vegetables, and is used to balance the pH of skin creams. Did I hear your jaw drop? Yes, more lye (sodium hydroxide) can be in skin creams and lotion than in finished soap! It’s a common ingredient, although used in tiny amounts in natural skincare.
Still curious about making soap without lye? If so, know that some soapmakers are currently experimenting with a natural substitute for lye. That ingredient is baking soda (bicarbonate of soda), a common kitchen staple. Some are also experimenting with washing soda (sodium carbonate) and other bases, too. Many experienced soapmakers would scoff at the idea, and I have to take a moment to share a disclaimer: I’ve never tried it. However, there are people who are currently trying it out and succeeding!
Baking Soda as a Lye Replacement
Traditionally, we use lye, water, and oils to create soap. The full process of how that happens on a molecular level is explained here. Lye is an extremely alkali substance that is activated in water and then breaks apart oils and creates new bonds with them. Baking soda and washing soda are alkaline but not anywhere as near as caustic as lye is. However, there is a way to get them to replicate what lye does. The process has even been presented at a prestigious soapmaking event.
Kathy Davenport Gray, owner of Kx Skincare, presented it at the Handcrafted Soap & Cosmetics Guild conference in May 2023. It begins by transforming baking soda into sodium carbonate by heating it in the oven. Then she says you can use it to make soap using the hot process method, as high heat and a long cooking time (several days!) are needed to get a weak base like sodium carbonate to saponify. In a follow-up social media post, she said that she did not use any lime (calcium hydroxide) as a secondary alkali. Still, in theory, she muses that this could make the process easier. Soap made with weak alkalis, like baking soda, may also need at least two months to cure.
Break the Rules Soapmakers
In short, it is possible to use baking soda as a lye replacement, but it would take a lot of time and energy. Both your attention and the electricity needed to keep a crock pot on for days. And the result would be a soap that would be no safer than soap made relatively quickly with lye. There is no soap maker that I’ve heard of who has ever made soap this way and continued to do it. At least not commercially! I think that it’s more of just a fun experiment, but you can learn more by connecting with “Break the Rules” soapmakers.
Saponin Plants
Another way that you can make a natural cleanser without using lye is with saponin-rich plants. Though the substances you make are not truly soap, they have a gentle cleansing action, and you can use them as soap. You can use them to wash your floors, skin, hair, and clothing! You may even have saponin plants growing in your yard or neighborhood.
The most well-known one in the Western world is soapwort, and its mild suds can be released by simmering the leaves in water. I go through the process on page 143 of A Woman’s Garden. If you want to grow soapwort, it’s a bit of a thug and can take over. If you need a lot of it for cleaning, then go for it. Just don’t let it escape your garden if it’s not native to your region. There are saponin plants that grow all around the world, though. They include horse chestnut, English ivy, and soap nuts, which are becoming more widely used.
How to Make Soap Without Lye
I hope you’ve learned some new things while reading this. Food grade lye, making soap with baking soda… the world of soapmaking can be a surprise! Making your own soap is also an incredibly fun skill, but you should feel sure of yourself and choose the method that you are most comfortable with. If you’re only making a few bars of soap as a beginner, feel free to experiment with melt-and-pour soap bases. They’re fun and easy. Making soap from scratch gives you far more freedom with soap ingredients, though.
If you want to learn how and need more confidence, consider enrolling in my online soapmaking school. I teach you through videos all about soapmaking safety, setting up your kitchen to make homemade soap and give you step-by-step recipes to use. You’ll be making cold-process soap like a champ by the end 🙌
I am fascinated by what you say about baking soda. I once read about how they used to make Aleppo soap, and that they would cook it for days. This seems to me to indicate that they were using something other than lye, something milder. I wonder if we are recovering a missing element of the history of soap.
It really is fascinating! From what I’ve seen from the “Break the Rules Soapmakers,” it’s possible to make perfectly normal soap bars using baking soda. It takes a MUCH longer time, and some recipe tinkering, but it’s do-able. Humans are a very resourceful bunch so I would not be surprised to hear that people in the past used it, too.
Such an incredible information! Thank you for helping me seeing the reason I should use lye, as I thought it was super harsh on the skin. Now, I’m free and guilty free to use it :)
You’re most welcome, Julia! I’m so glad it makes sense now :)
Thank you so much for all this information and for your website in general, it’s been so useful in my journey to self-sufficiency. I was looking for a lye alternative as I was concerned about handling a dangerous substance but I realise now that I just need to be super careful and it’s the only way to create proper soap. I’m off to make some nice Castile soap, something I’ve wanted to try for year!
It’s my absolute pleasure, Yolanda :) Yes, you have to be careful when handling and making soap, but it all transforms into soap within just a couple of days. I’m glad that the explanation made how that happens clear. If you’re looking for a Castile soap recipe, I have one one the site.
Oh my goodness!! Thank you for illuminating me!!! This explanation of lye and its chemical change changed everything for me 🩷
You are so welcome! I hoped the baby analogy and basic chemistry explanation would make things easier for people to understand.
First how long does it have to cure? I have read multiple answers. Is the curing time the same for potassium hydroxide soap? What would be the best way to make potassium hydroxide from ash?
Melt and pour soap does not need to cure. However, all soap made from scratch needs at least a month (and six weeks is even better) to cure. People are often confused about this because they think curing is about saponification. That’s only one small part, and that process is finished on day one with hot process (Potassium hydroxide/KOH) soapmaking and after 48 hours for cold process (Sodium hydroxide/NaOH) soapmaking. Curing is mainly about allowing time for excess water to evaporate from the homemade soap and for them to become gentle to use. As for making KOH from ash – don’t do it. There’s no way for you to measure how strong any solution you made would be. Meaning you could seriously burn your skin with soap made from homemade KOH.
If I use food grade silicone molds to make soap, can they still be used for food? I have been told lye would be left in the mold, possibly contaminating food.
Hi Kathy, that’s incorrect. Lye doesn’t adhere to silicone or metal and the lye you use in soap recipes transforms into soap. The main contaminant from soap that does stick to silicone is fragrance. Both essential oils and fragrance oils can linger on the mold and potentially affect your food. I, personally, reserve silicone molds specifically for soapmaking but I make batch after batch using the same molds. Here’s more information on different soap molds.
Thank you for this, it has de-mystified a lot of things for me. I especially enjoyed finding out that the lye literally transforms into the actual soap and is no longer present as lye. I’ll try different recipies untill I find what works for my sensitive skin and I’m sure people will enjoy my surplus soap as I experiment. thanks again
Yes! So pleased that you understand the process now, Susan. It can be challenging for some to wrap their heads around it but it’s quite simple. Lye is an ingredient necessary to make soap – it transforms into it. Enjoy your soapmaking journey and I recommend that you try my eco-friendly soap recipe for a simple and gentle bar of soap.
Initially it may not be Tanya, but if you heat the mixture, then it will surely form a soap due to a saponification reaction between banana leaf powder or banana leaf paste and melted ghee or melted form of butter
Soap is the chemical result of the reaction between fats and an alkali. You may use ghee and banana as a “cleanser” but it is not soap.
Thank you for your information.
You’re most welcome :)
Im a beginner soap maker with a love for cleaning up my health. Id like to avoid lye completely. Is there a way?
Sorry Sam, aside from the experiments mentioned in the article, all real soap is made with and from lye and it is perfectly natural. If you don’t want to handle lye in soap making you can get pre-made soap bases that have already been created with it.
And then Google would never serve it up to people who need to understand the truth.
Thank you so much for the post!
However, question: I have heard that bar soap is alkaline, so it easily dries out the skin and disrupts the microbiome, while detergent-surfactants are usually pH balanced, so they are less irritating to the skin’s microbiome and safer to cleanse skin with. With that being said, is it possible to pH-balance (matching it with the acidic level of skin) bar soap, so that it is both safer and still effective at cleansing human skin?
Hi Gabby, it is true that soap is alkaline, but well-made soap doesn’t harm your skin or dry it out. In context, most water also affects your skin’s acid mantle. Every time you wash your skin with just water alone the skin’s pH is affected.
Still, I would like to make a liquid soap that serves the purpose of cleaning and moisturizing without having to use sodium hydroxide or any other form of Lye, and without any Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS). That would be ideal for me! Though I am not against using a good natural “real” soap.
Hi Irma, I hope that you realize from reading this that what you want is simply not possible. Soap is made with lye, and anything else that’s not real soap (shower gel, laundry soap, dish soap, and other liquid soaps) is made with detergents. Detergents such as SLS.
Incredibly informative, thank you. I just finished making my first batch and now have to wait what seems like an eternity for it to cure. :)
The month will pass much quicker after the first few days. Don’t worry :)
Thank you! Useful and informative info is easy to understand.
What is Castile soap?
Here’s what it is along with a Castile soap recipe
Thank You!!!!!
Thank you for this information I’ve been debating making my own natural soaps but reading this has convinced me to go for it. I really like the way you write, very captivating. Do you write books or novels?
Thank you :)
Very informative and you explained everything so well and easy to understand, thank you! I also like many others have been looking to make a basic soap with no chemicals and as a beginner I had no idea of all the things you explained so now I can stop looking for a soap recipe without lye, looking forward to try.. :)
Thank you for such a beautifully written, informative article! Can’t wait to get started!!!!
Thank you for your information. I enjoyed reading your article. Simply put . All soap has to have lye in it to become soap. But after the mold is cured and soap if finished all the lye has basically evaporated.
There are no substitutions for lye.
It has to be used in the process.
I want to make a creamy bubbly soft slightly oily bar soap . Any suggestions ?
Hello, Tiffany! Coconut Oil might be a good additive to make a slightly oily soap bar. I would recommend about 1tsp or so to make it slightly oily. Castor Oil would be good for making a soft soap bar. Milk Powder, Goat Milk, Buttermilk, or Coconut Milk, would be good to make your soap bar creamy. Bonus! They also increase the lather. I don’t currently know of any additives for a bubbly soap bar off the top of my head, but I’ll be sure to let you know if I come across any. I hope this helps! Good luck making your soap.
My daughter have Celiac and bad eczema also allergies to many harsh chemicals , I’m looking to make her own soap and feeling lost .
I love your page thank you ❤️
You’re very welcome :)
Soap nuts are the best for children that have super lots is allergies and eczema. 100 organic/natural and no reactions when used on them or there clothing when u wash. Another reason some children have all these issues is the water they drink and bath in is a toxic chemical soup. I know, as I moved out to the country off city water and my little one got 70% better with allergies and eczema. Best to you.
Hello!! I have done research and have seen conflicting answers about wether or lye is organic or not. I read your article and I wanted to say thank you for clarifying other things I had questions about , but I still am unsure wether or not soap can be labeled organic with lye in it. Thank you!!
Hi Mallory, and to answer your question, yes soap made with commercial lye can be labeled as organic. It’s a bit of a tricky one, and a good question! Since all real soap requires lye in its manufacture, regulatory bodies accept it in organic soap recipes.
“… everything is made of chemicals. Water is a chemical, chocolate is made of chemicals, kittens are fuzzy purring balls of chemicals.”
Thank you for this.
A while back, I was at a health food store and the owner swore that the products she sold did not contain chemicals. When I told her that water is chemicals and that the air is chemicals, she glazed over like a deer in the headlights. I don’t understand how people can get through high school and not know that the entire physical world is made of chemicals.
Hello, I want to thank you for the article that was quite informative. My question is this, So when certain natural soap companies indicate there is no lye in their soaps, there is lye in it but has gone through a chemical transition that has taken it from it’s current state of lye and with the mix of oils and fats and a molecular change occurs with new chemical bonds with creates this new compound known as “soap”. This is a new chemical compound that is no longer considered lye, and can be touted as not having lye in the mixture. Am I correct?
That’s right Kimberley. It’s not correct to put ‘olive oil’ on a soap ingredients list unless it’s part of the superfat. Most of the olive oil in a soap recipe would react with lye and change into olive oil soap, which is called sodium olivate. Coconut oil would change into sodium cocoate, and so on. There is absolutely no lye left in its raw form in (properly made) handmade soap so it is not included on the label. Lye (sodium hydroxide in cp soap) is indicated by the sodium part of sodium olivate, and the other soap made by different oils.
I honestly cannot believe how rude people can be when they are more or less anonymous.
Also rather embarrassing that they so easily go off on a rant without actually having thoroughly read your article!!
Very well explained and clear. You speak of the melt and pour option for those that are concerned about handling lye directly and explain already that it still has lye in it.
I will be following your step by step for beginners. Thank you kindly. I love your articles. We have just started bee keeping and am looking at ways to utilise the honey and wax. Thanks. You have a new follower. K-A xx
Thank you for the lay out in the misunderstanding of no lye soaps.
I’ve been looking for ingredients to make with out lye. To be getting my answers here ending my search you can’t make true soap with out it. Answers alot of my questions and ends my new researching I’ve been doing.
Explanation was awesome. Thank you dear.
I am trying to make a bar of soap but I don’t have any lye is there a substitute or a recipe I can use that doesn’t require lye?
This piece should have answered that question for you.
Hello! I am wanting to make breast milk soap from scratch and and wondering how that process would look different then regular soap making. Would the breast milk go into the solution before it’s set into soap or after the chemical reaction has fused? Thank you:) and if you know of any good breast milk soap recipes please let me know!
Hi Alyssa, adding breast milk to soap is no different from adding other mammal soap to soap. You can use my recipe for goat milk soap if you wish :)
Thank you for this article. I never fully understood what a soap base was and what lye was. I thought the two were different. Now that I know one comes from the other I feel more confident about what I’m using. I’ve been looking all over for soap bases that have the least amount of ingredients. I don’t know if you know anything about this, but Titanium Dioxide? Every soap base seems to have it in it. Is it safe and natural?
I’m glad that you understand that now, Heather :) For your question: titanium dioxide is a nature-identical mineral that tints soap white. Many natural soap makers avoid it, but it’s a standard ingredient in melt and pour soap, toothpaste, and sunblock.
What a misleading headline, I to have been making Soap & run my own workshops. Telling people that you can make soap without lye is so misleading. Yes I read your article, yes you explain melt & pour soap and how it’s made with lye and how it’s already gone through saponification so why mislead people into thinking they are making Soap without lye? You are not making Soap when you use a melt & pour pack, you are melting an already made soap bar to add a small percentage of additives. As a fellow soap maker you should know the struggles that all soap makers face around the misinformation of lye. No soap has any lye left once it’s gone through saponification & curing process but you need lye to make soap!
Hi Michelle, I wrote this because of how many people google ‘how to make soap without lye’. Loads of people still think you can make soap without lye and it’s my intent with this piece to clear up any miscommunication. Since you’ve read the article and understand that, your outrage is misplaced.
Ok Karen. Go create your own website and stop trolling on others. My gosh.
Thank you for this information its very help full
Thank you for all this information. Will these bars be safe for septic systems and gray water use?
Hi Linda, which soap recipe are you referring to?
try again that still has lye in it. just because it’s gone through “The main way that you can make soap without handling lye is by using melt-and-pour soap. It’s already been through saponification (oils reacting with lye) and is safe to use and handle straight out of the package.” does not mean there is NO lye in the soap. When people are looking for a soap with NO lye, that means NO LYE!! that means not even the whole process from the start NO LYE. As in it should not be there from the start. Try again about making soap with no lye.
I think you’ve missed the point — there’s so such thing as real soap that’s not made with lye.
“Soap” is what results after ingredients are combined, processed, and saponified. At that stage, no lye remains.
Wow, thank you for the thorough explanation of soap making and the use of lye. It was very helpful to me. I’ve made soap a few times, and wondered about the necessity of lye, so thank you for clarifying!