hi everyone I'm in the garden again today and the reason why I'm in the garden is that I've
got this massive big aloe vera plant here that's been here for a couple of years it's only been
fed and watered by what we get from the rainfall here and we've had a very wet spring in summer
um but this plant is in such a good spot it's very happy and it's massive the leaves are like
that wide some of them anyway I've got all this wonderful aloe vera in my garden so I
was really inspired to make some aloe vera soap make some more and make another batch showing you
a different method so today I'm going to make hot processed aloe vera soap I'm going to make
it in my slow cooker up inside in the kitchen I'm going to take some of this fresh aloe gel
and instead of putting the aloe gel through the process to make the lye solution like I did for
my other cold process aloe vera soap recipe in this one I'm going to blend up the gel and I'm
just going to add it to the soap batter so it's going to show you an alternative way to make
aloe vera soap so I'm just going to select one of these leaves they are really massive
well more than I'm ever going to need I'm going to see if I can take one from the bottom here
didn't bring a knife with me oh
here we go so this is not even one of the biggest leaves but look how big and thick
that is oh my goodness that's amazing I only need 50 grams of aloe vera for this recipe
and I'm going to have well and truly enough in that one leaf some of these other leaves are
at least another half size as big as that again amazing love it all right see you in the kitchen
so to get this recipe started I get my fats and my oils ready and get them melting this
starts off with 75 grams of cocoa butter this is a really easy recipe this would be a perfect hot
processed soap recipe for beginners if you've want to start out and this this would be a great recipe
to try next I'm adding some olive oil 300 grams in total I'm using up to two different types of
olive oil here but they will both work as long as they're 100 olive oil it doesn't matter if they're
slightly refined or if they're extra virgin as long as it's olive oil next 225 grams of rice bran
oil this is a basic recipe as I said it's um I'm just using up some of the the oil common oils that
I have lying around next is 150 grams of coconut oil that will give this a really nice leather
um straightforward recipe but really nourishing simple to make and fairly well balanced given
its simplicity so I add the liquid oils into the cocoa butter and then turn the slow cooker
or the crock pot up to high you don't have to start on high but I like to make my processes
as quick and efficient as I possibly can with my soap making so I turn it on high just just
for a little while just to give it all a kick start because I want that cocoa butter to melt
and while I'm doing that I get my aloe ready check out the size of this Leaf it is so juicy
this is my method for getting the gel out of the aloe leaf I take a sharp knife and slice the spiny
parts off the side of the leaf just start at the top and just cut all the way down to take those
spiky edges off and then with the spoon don't use a knife because you'll cut the leaf it's
a lot easier with the spoon just face the spoon with the cup sort of side facing up as you would
normally use it and then push along the leaf in between the leaf and the gel pressing up against
the leaf and the spoon will separate the leaf from the gel perfectly for you and then turn your spoon
around and do the same thing on the other side push down and you'll end up with this amazing
fillet of aloe vera gel it's a really good method for taking the aloe gel out of the leaf I love it
because if if you use a knife it ends up cutting the leaves but the um the spoon just works every
time and it looks a bit like a fish it reminds me of filleting fish so much so once you've got your
aloe gel just chop that up make sure you're using everything nice and clean chop that up
and put it into a jug something that you can use to blend it because we want to liquefy this gel
so this is my trusty old stick blender that has seen better days if I'm honest
it sounds a little bit sad in this video I do have a backup one ready for when it
dies on me but it's still going so I'm still using it so just blend your aloe
until it gets as smooth as you possibly can like give it a really really good blending you
want to completely break down all the fiber in the gel in the plant and once you've got
it really liquefied just measure out 50 grams that's all you need for this aloe soap recipe
I accidentally over poured it and then I this was a bad decision but I ended up putting 70
grams in and this is a jar of aloe liquid that I actually had in the fridge from the day before
and you can see how the fiber all went to the top so that's a neat way to sort of treat it as well
you can get the Liquid out that way if you mix it up the day before and then let it sit all the all
the fibrous part will float to the top anyway 50 grams of aloe gel that's basically what you need
quick little interlude here just to let you all know about my membership group if you're not aware
of it it's really affordable it's really fun and if you like podcasts and soap making and sourdough
bread making you might really enjoy it head to buymeacoffee.com/ellyseveryday/membership if you'd
like to check that out now back to the recipe so now we're going to make the lye solution for the
soap recipe you need your safety gear for this so I've got my goggles that go over my glasses and
I've got gloves and now I'm ready to measure out my sodium hydroxide so for this lye solution we're
using 100 grams of sodium hydroxide otherwise known as caustic soda make sure you see my life
safety video if you're new to soap making it's really important that you know what you're doing
when you're handling this material cover that up straight away and put it somewhere safe now I get
the water ready I'm using 200 grams of water for this lye solution and half of that I'm using ice
and that's because it was a really hot day outside and had the air conditioning on in the house so I
had all the windows shut and if you use half ice for your lye solution it doesn't give off any
fumes or very very minimal so that's a really good trick so when you're ready just slowly pour the
sodium hydroxide into the water ice solution never the other way around always pour the caustic soda
into the water that's really really important and just give it a mix you'll find that if you use ice
in the mixture it'll stay so cool and you won't get any horrible gas that comes off it so that's a
good trick as I said next I get my Essential Oils ready for this recipe I'm using very simple lovely
Australian native oils tea tree and Eucalyptus 20 grams of tea tree and 10 grams of eucalyptus I
find that they just I don't know they just really suited the aesthetic of this soap um I'm using I
used three teaspoons of french green clay and that made this soap a lovely nice pale natural
green color you could probably use four teaspoons if you wanted to make it a little bit more vibrant
um darker green but three teaspoons was good enough for me just play around with the clay
you can add a little bit more or a bit less depending on your taste all right so the fats
you can see the cocoa butter was all melted there and I blended the clay in with my stick
blender into the oils and then I've poured the lye solution in and I'm starting to mix the soap
my poor old stick blender it does make some terrible sounds I think
I I probably start need to use the use the backup one that I've got in
my videos but basically you just want to blend this batter until it thickens
it doesn't take long um probably less than a minute but you just want to blend it make sure
the mixture is fully mixed and then once you've blended it a little bit you can add your aloe
vera so this is fresh aloe vera that I blended that morning it's just going straight into the
soap butter you'll notice here that once the aloe goes in the soap batter thickens up quite quickly
and I think that's because aloe vera naturally is going to have some sugars in it
and sugars do speed up saponification or they do accelerate the trace or the chemical reaction
that happens when oils and fats mix with the lye solution turn into soap so you can see
it goes really thick and glossy it almost looks a bit like guacamole at this point
um but it thickens up super quick once you put the yellow in so once you've got that all mixed and
it's nice and homogeneous and it's too thick to stick blend anymore just give it a good stir with
your spoon scrape down the sides of your crock pot so there's no bits that can get dried out
and crusty on the edges smooth it all out turn your crock pot down to low I just checked the
temperature here it's fairly low still it's only 54c which is about 120 and that's between 50 and
80 Celsius is a good temperature to cook your hot processed soap any higher than that is is too high
so cover it up and leave it on low for about 15 to 20 minutes until the soap starts to gel so you
can see here it's a darker color it has started to transform and turn into soap so you can see
me just gently having a little look at it there you can see it's a little bit frothy it looks a
little bit like maybe mashed potatoes and there's all sorts of different phases that hot processed
soap goes through when you're cooking it this soap definitely went through that pudding phase
that Thick phase at the beginning and and this mashed potato phase but eventually we're looking
for it to go kind of glossy and Vaseline and nice and gelled and translucent I just spray a bit of
water on top of my soap I love to do that with my hot process soap recipes because it prevents them
drying out you don't want crusty bits in your hot process so I'm not a big fan of that anyway
so the temperature's really up nice and high now it was close to 77 degrees Celsius there which
is perfect so I left it for another 10 minutes or so turned the temperature off and now I did test
this soap with pH strips and by this stage it was done it was ready to go and as long as it's under
80 degrees Celsius it's cool enough to put your essential oils in you can let it sit a little bit
longer and let it cool down a little bit taking it out of the cooker like I've done that helps to
um cool it down a little bit but once it's cool enough pour the essential oils in mix
them through thoroughly and then it's ready to go in the mold it's as simple as that hot processed
soap making is so satisfying and so fun a lot of people think that it's a really quick made way to
make soap though and that you can use it straight away kind of technically you can because it has
it should be completely saponified by the time it's finished being cooked as this recipe was but
really you should leave it for at least a month to really get nice and mild and to let it Harden
properly this is a reasonably High liquid soap amount which keeps the hot processed soap nice
and fluid and easy to handle so it does it does benefit from a good couple of weeks to dry out
and cleaning up after hot processed soap making is an absolute Breeze you just put your crock pot in
your sink and fill it with water and let it soak for a little bit and it all just comes off there's
no oil because it's all turned to soap so I I love that part about hot processed soap making it's
really cool and here's the soap couple of days later I left it in the mold for a couple of days
partly because I was just really busy you can see it got some lines from the draining the rack that
I had it sitting on because it is a little bit soft but it will harden beautifully especially
if you only use 50 grams of aloe vera and not 70 grams like I did but anyway so I I cut it
um it's gorgeous soap hear all those birds in the background I love the color it's it's just
subtle it's green it just says to me aloe vera and with the tea tree and Eucalyptus essential
oil it's really fresh and I think they really complement the fact that this ingredient came
out of my garden and their Australian native plants the eucalyptus and the Melaleuca so
that was really nice but you can fragrance it with your own favorite essential oil if you want to or
a fragrance oil you could add other colors you could even leave the aloe vera out of this and
just make this as a plain hot processed soap recipe and there you have it I hope that was
helpful for all of you and if you're a beginner to hot process soap making I think this would
be a really great one to start with I'll put a link to everything that's relevant to this in
the description box below the video thanks for watching everyone see you again next time bye