How is soap made? It all starts at home. First you must find fatty acids, these can be found in animal fats (which i never use in my products), or oils or butters extracted from plants. When a fatty acid is mixed with a strong alkali, magic happens. Most people prefer to use sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide (for liquid soaps), but the ancient way would be to use water strained though white ash from wood, preferably apple. I do not use ash, for it is dirty and its strength changes with every use. You will also need to gather any botanicals, scents, or colors you wish to add to your soap. Now that we have everything, mix your alkali with a liquid that’s water soluble, like water, milk, tea, etc. Remember: always mix you alkali with your water, and not your water with you alkali, or serious injury may result. The alkali solution will now heat up, due to the chemical reaction taking place, while this is happening start melting your fatty acids in a separate container made of stainless steel, glass, or plastic. Do not use any aluminum when making soap. After the fatty acids are liquefied, bring the temperature down to about 120 degrees. Keep and eye on your alkali solution, when it also reaches 120 degrees and they are both the same temperature, mix the alkali solution into your fatty acids. Mix, and mix well. You will notice that the two liquids which were clear before have now become cloudy. You have just mixed water with oil, as everyone knows, water and oil separate, so you will need to continue to mix until it "traces". Tracing is when you notice that the solution is becoming more of a solid then a liquid and can hold its own weight upon itself, simply take your mixing device and pour some of the solution upon itself, and see it if sits on top, creating an uneven surface. While you mix your water and oil, you it will slowly turn into soap, molecule by molecule. It will speed up this process if u add some already made soap, because soap helps make soap, I never do this in my soap. Now that its tracing you need to add your botanicals, like flower pedals, oatmeal, or pumice. Any dried and crushed plant matter will make a great botanical. Also, add any scent you wish to use, you can use essential oils or fragrance oils. Fragrance oils are artificially created scents like cucumber melon for example, i never use fragrance oils in my soap. Essential oils are naturally extracted from plants, usually by distillation. Essential oils are used in aromatheraphy and contain natural healing properties, each one unique and special. All of my soaps contain essential oils. Also you need to add any liquid coloring at this point, if your coloring was a solid, perhaps incased in wax, you should of added it to your melting fatty acids, since it is of such a small quantity it will not hurt the production of soap, but usually u should add everything at trace. Mix in your botanicals, scent, and color well. Pour into your previously prepared mold which can be just about anything, a shoebox works good for beginners. Line your shoebox with plastic, perhaps a plastic garbage liner. I use a large wooden mold with no liner myself, because liners will create unevenly shaped soap, especially the corner pieces. Plastic or stainless steel would make the best molds. Cover your mold after its had the soap poured into it with a blanket to keep the heat in. You can use molds shaped like animals or even the empire state building, they are more fun for the children. Now you must wait, the question is however, how long. As you wait the solution turns completely into soap, and solidifies. The rate at which this occurs will vary depending on many things, mostly on what oils you used. The more solid the oils u used the faster this process will go. Solid oils include coconut oil, palm kernel oil, etc. Soft oils are those such as olive oil or palm oil or any oil that is a liquid at room temperature. The best animal fat to use is beef fat, also known as tallow after its been processed. The soaps i make range from 7 hours (evergreen mountain) of waiting for it to solidify, to 7 days (aromatic aloe). Check on your soap by feeling the top for firmness. Be careful not to open the mold to early when its still a liquid, and be careful not to wait to long either, or it will become to hard to cut. Know that the surface of the soap loaf will solidify faster then the center as the water evaporates. If u were using a single soap mold, like those shaped like hippo, lions, or penguins, you may just pop the soap out with your thumb by pushing on the indented portion of the mold. If you were making a "loaf" of soap its time to cut it now that its hard. Plop your soap onto a cutting board and get a very long knife. cut into any shape desired, have fun with it. Now place your soap bars and soap hippos onto a drying rack, this can be anything that allows air to get to all 6 sides of your soap. I use stainless steel shelving racks, where the shelves are made from wire, not plate. Allow your soap to "cure" for about 1 month, during which your soap will lose all of its excess water, shrinking it some and making it more stable. You may even stamp a symbol or verbiage on the side of your soap. Your soap is beautiful, good job, now why don’t u go wash up.