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 The hardest part of making homemade soap is mixing the lye and not getting hurt! You need room to put things out of the way and room to put things close and handy...with one of your themometers check the temperature of the lye. If not between 106 and 120 degrees F... let it cool...

Mean while you should be heating your fat. It of course should be between 106 and 120 also... Beleive it or not, when the two items are close in tmeperature ...like one is 115 and the other is 110, you're good to go, the closer the better....

Slowly mix the lye solution into the warm fat... Here is when the mystisism disapears...Just stir it until it gets thick...Once it's thickened some (looks grainy like corn meal mush)...You'll know!

Stir too long and It'll be a humongous bar of soap...Here Caution:the lye will still be active... If you are not making glycerin, you may add your steric acid before your soap gets too hard. Be pre-warned and prepared, if your soap has thickened even a little, once the steric acid is added you have 30 to 60 seconds (mabe 2 minutes, relative to how thick when it is added) to get it poured before it gets to thick to spoon and pour!

On with the glycerin.

 I now get the make shift double boiler ready, start to heat the steric acid and heat the sugar... This is a lot of sugar you'll need a fair sized pan... But think how cheap this will make your pretty glycerin soap....

You should leave your soap harden, and let the lye react for a few hours....To save a little time I leave it in the double boiler to heat up... Once it has set for a while, smoosh it up... Potato masher, heavy wooden spoon... I use 2 cups of the alcohol to thin it chop as much up into it as you can...It will start to thin...

Your water should be boiling, every 20 minutes or so check to see how thin it is getting, add -OH as needed. This lid and keep the -OH in thing, wow. I've read some dusies. I've mentioned the ice thing above. The best and clearest batch I've made, I looked when I wanted, I stired when I wanted, and wasn't particuliarly concerned about the -OH evaporating, got extra I just added some.. I was so clear it even surprised me! And I was expecting miricals.
...It's the wtaer that makes glycering soap cloudy, so adding water isn't a great idea, though if you are smart you are using rubber molds...As I can make you some... I'm jumping ahead a bit, but I like to do this in one shot... No remelt the next day to get rid of water... If you pour into polyurathane or silicon molds your soap can be removed as soon as it cools... Cool=hard, hard enough to set on a rack and let Mother Nature remove  any excess water...Going to need to let your soap age for 5-6 days any way....

Lets pretend you have gotten the major portion of the -OH added and the soap is relatively thin (should look like a pot full of hot ginger ale, thin, fairly clear, and pretty hot)... You are going to need some real room for the rest of the glycerin and sugar...Especially if the sugar is still hot...your soap will bubble up furiously as you add hot sugar to it....... So lets pretend you have the large container, the sugar is ready , make sure your steric acid is melting or is melted, you have the glycerin measured and sitting there...Add the glycerin, the rest of the -OH, stirring, then after mixing that slowly-slowly add the hot sugar I usually stir the dickens out of it...But keep a lot of -OH in a spritz bottle handy... You are almost done!

 By now you are seeing all of these little chips, get another pan or extra molds and skim them off and pour into molds. Just spoon it out and dump it into a strainer held over your soap, drain as much good glycerin as necessary and dump the chips... It actually makes a decent looking bar of soap...

Got your glycerin soap cleaned up?  Your rubber molds ready (this makes about 50, 2-3 ounce bars), or cookie sheets lined with saran wrap (still no aluminum, though by now all of the work the lye is supposed to do may be done, and won't hurt your pans, if they are your good ones why risk it)... You can use those hard plastic things (molds) but figure on freezing them solid to get your soap out, this soap will be fairly sticky. Figure on beating the dickens out of them too. You of course can remelt it a couple of times,

seems a waste to me, I like the silicon and polyurathane molds, pour, take them out an hour later, place them on a rack to dry and age. I'm a happy camper!...

Your steric acid is melted, right?... Slowly add it to the soap...Let it simmer a while... Cool (you may add your dye and scent now (let the soap cool to below the flash point of your scent, it will burn off if you don't), pour it into your molds...

In a couple of days you have some real pretty gifts to give!

Now are you ready to clean your soap pan? Just add some water, scrape the cold soap off and let it stand in the water over nite...Next day you'll have some dandy shower gel!... Or you can save it for your next batch of glycerin soap.