Finding Soap Making Supplies
This page will help you find your soap making supplies locally and at the best prices you can find.
Buying Supplies On A Budget
Soap making need not be expensive. In fact you can make soap a lot cheaper than you can buy it at the grocery store.
Lye can be found in some grocery or hardware stores but it's getting more difficult to find. You will generally find it in the cleaning section with the drain clearing products. Before you buy it, read the label and insure it says, "100% lye." If you can't find Red Devil Lye, you may use one of the many suppliers we have on our soap making home page. Whatever you purchase, insure that it is 100% pure powdered or crystal sodium hydroxide. You don't want any additives in it.
Fat, the other ingredient you will need can also be purchased in the grocery store. If making soap from 100% lard it can be purchased it in 1 lb blocks. If you plan on making lots of soap, there are cheaper ways of getting lard, however. One possibility is the big boxes used by restaurant or bakery stores. Ask them where they get it and more than likely their supplier will also sell it to you. Several other oils and fats can be purchased in the grocery store as well, such as corn oil, Canola oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, olive oil and shortening. And don't forget the fully hydrolyzed vegetable oils used for deep frying foods at fast food restaurants. This fat makes excellent soap that won't go rancid even after long storage! Coconut oil can often be purchased locally as it's the same fat used in popcorn poppers used at the movies. You will have to settle for yellow soap, however, as this source only supplies yellow dyed coconut oil. Several of the exotic soap making oils have very short shelf lives. I would suggest you purchase fats and oils that have a long storage life if you are planning on putting them away for future soap making projects.
Several other ingredients can be purchased in the drug store. With any luck you will be able to find lanolin, fragrance oils, glycerin, litmus paper and a box of crayons for coloring.
The grocery store is also a good place to get Borax. Look for The 20-Mule Team box. This is 100% pure borax and is many times cheaper than purchasing a small box of some other brand from a specialty house.
Utensils: You probably already have everything at home you will need to make soap. You will need a plastic or glass mixing bowl, a large plastic or wooden spoon to mix it with, and a small food scale.. Don't try and get by without the scale as you really do need it to measure the lye, if nothing else. If you aren't sure if this soap making thing is for you, a small food scale should be enough to get you started. At around $10.00, this may very well be the most expensive item you need to buy. However, if you are going to get serious about this soap making thing, you need a good, precise scale that can accurately measure very small amounts. This is because you need to meticulously measure very small amounts of lye for small soap batches. You should not need an expensive thermometer, either. You may find a candy thermometer that starts out at 60 degrees F and goes up to 400 degrees F. For a setting tray you may want to use an oblong, flexible Tupperware container with square sides. It works great. You could use a glass cake pan and line it with plastic wrap just as well. Don't use anything aluminum as lye eats it. Look around the kitchen and see what you have. Your imagination is your only limitation. You may be able to resuse those items from the kitchen but many soap makers keep their soap making utensils separate. Especially the lye. A wooden spoon is a must for this reason.
If you decide to get fancy and make really nice soap it may be necessary to go to a soap making supplier for some of the more exotic fats, essential oils, soap molds and coloring dyes. But none of these things are necessary if all you want is a good bar of soap for personal use.
http://www.the-sage.com/ Majestic Mountain Sage Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) info, Lye Calculator, fragrance calculator, Supplies, Soap, and more. This is a top notch site.
http://www.gristle.to/markup/saponification/
http://essentialoil.com/ Essential Oils and trays for your soap making
http://www.kelseiscreations.com/
http://www.gtflabs.com/ for lye in relatively large quantities
http://www.victoriangreenhouse.com/
http://soapmaking.chatboard.org/
http://www.tlcsoaps.com/soapmaking.htm
http://www.pinemeadows.net/ supplies for making soap, lotion, bath salts,, candles, and other cosmetics.
http://www.soap-scents.com/ Handmade soaps and soap making supplies
http://www.thescentshack.com/ Essential oils, books, colorants, and other items
http://forcraftssake.com/shop/ Soap cutters, molds, crates,….
http://www.naturalselectionbathandbody.com/soap_supplies.html A full range of products including essential oils, fragrance oils, carrier oils, flavors oils, packaging, botanicals, aloe vera and lots more.