| Vegan laundry pretreat bar | | | | until fully incorporated. |
| Ingredients: | | | | 10. Pour traced mixture into wooden mold and |
| Coconut Oil 32 ounces | | | | place in the oven and wait 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 |
| Vegetable shortening 32 ounces | | | | hours. The soap should gell after 45 minutes. |
| Vegetable Stearic acid 0.5 ounces | | | | After an hour and a half or two turn off oven |
| Sodium Hydroxide 10.3 ounces | | | | but leave soap closed in oven and go to bed or |
| Water 24.32 ounces | | | | leave for a minimum of 6 hours. |
| 20 Mule Team Borax | | | | 11. Remove hard soap from wood mold next day |
| Instructions: | | | | and cut into bars and let harden a week in open |
| 1. Preheat oven to just under 200 degrees | | | | air. |
| Fahrenheit. | | | | Why, you ask, is my soap decidedly superior to |
| 2. Separate 3 ounces of the water and set it | | | | those bars on the market previously mentioned? |
| aside for later. | | | | Well there are a number of reasons. First, the |
| 3. Dissolve the lye(sodium hydroxide) in the | | | | cost, if you buy your coconut in bulk and the |
| remainder of the water with GREAT CAUTION | | | | considering the only other oil is shortening, You |
| as it will heat up to nearly 180 degrees F. | | | | can make soap for 75 cents are bar or even less. |
| 4. Weigh and melt coconut oil and vegetable | | | | Secondly, the borax. It is an additive that serves |
| shortening in stainless pot on stove set to low | | | | three purposes: water softener, pH buffer, and |
| heat. | | | | deodorizer. And thirdly, because of the pH |
| 5. Melt the stearic acid in a small heat resistant | | | | buffering ability of borax, the soap is gentler than |
| container | | | | the market bars. My wife informed me that the |
| 6. Heat the 3 ounces of the water set aside in | | | | Zote dried out her skin but my soap was more |
| microwave to boiling. Dissolve ounces of borax in | | | | gentle and nondrying. |
| the hot water. | | | | The relatively small amount of stearic acid is a |
| 7. When both the lye solution and oil mixture are | | | | hardness booster and possibly twice as much |
| below 120 degrees F and withing 10 degrees of | | | | could be added with little adverse affect. This |
| each other, blend thoroughly to prevent more | | | | produced a firm bar because of the straightness |
| dense lye solution from sinking to the bottom. A | | | | of the molecule yet it does not produce the |
| stick blender is optimal here. | | | | brittleness experienced in 100% coconut oil soaps. |
| 8. Stir mixture until a light trace is achieved. Add | | | | The soap was produced in the Cold Process Oven |
| the liquefied stearic acid and continue stirring until | | | | Process method which reduces curing time to |
| a more defined trace is reached. | | | | practically a week or less. For all practicality, the |
| 9. When a a good trace is reached (dripping hold | | | | soap could be used once it cools down it just is |
| form on surface) add the borax solution and stir | | | | harder if it is cut into bar and left to sit in open air. |