A few of my favorite toys for making soap!

A few of my favorite soap-making pieces of equipment – not complete!

I love nice equipment!  Some of this collection is quite old, but I have a few new additions too.

The mats that the equipment is sitting on are heating mats. They gently melt butters and solid oils overnight to just the right temperature.  Batches of soap in their molds are sometimes placed on the mats with a quilt on top to give a bit of a boost in heat. This helps the process of becoming soap a little faster and makes for easier unmolding.

The large stainless steel pots are used for melting solid oils and butters on the stove top. Soap is also made in them.  I have great HDPE buckets with pouring lips that are not pictured. These are lighter in weight then the stainless steel pots. The smaller stainless pot with a great lip for pouring is my favorite container for making up my lye solution. Care should be given when picking out your equipment. You want something nonreactive that will hold up. Pyrex is no longer the best choice for mixing lye; it won’t hold up. I do use Pyrex measuring cups for essential oil measuring.  The essential oils are weighed and not measured; Pyrex will hold up to essential oils. The plastic (one pint) measuring cups are for making the swirl colors you see in so many of my soaps.

In the middle, at the back, you see little squeeze containers with dual tipped tops.  I love these for top swirls.  If you look around you can see a tiny brush that cleans out the little tops.

I have lots of small frothers to mix clay and mineral pigments with distilled water before adding to my soap.  Both oxides and ultramarine mix quite well in water with these little guys.  You do need to make them up fresh for each batch.   I use whisks for larger jobs.

Above the little frothers is one of my gadgets for draining one bottle into another. Saves a lot of waste!

A commercial stick blender reaches to the very bottom of my soap making pots and holds up to a of lot abuse. It is very old. I do feel the invention of the stick blender or immersion blender has been the best thing that has happened in soap-making. I remember hand stirring for long periods of time!

My spoons are large and won’t fall down in the pot. They are made of silicone. I love the bright colors too!

The far right bottom is my Swirl Wand made by Rich Bartko.

To the right of the blue spoon are two different tools to bevel the edges of my soap.   Beveling gives my bars a more finished feel in the shower. I’ll be glad to post where I found them if you ask!

Let me know if you wish me to do more posts on the topic of equipment!

As always ~ Magellan’s Gift ~ Adventure & Discovery in Fine Soap ~ Lori Curry