A lot of homesteading in general is self sufficiency. We can gain a lot of confidence in knowing that we can make do if we didn't have all the nice amenities of the grocery store nearby. Most of us will never divorce ourselves completely from consumables, but it can sure be neat to know how to.

I've been making my own soap for about a year now. It's a world easier than it seems like it should be and you can tailor the final product to suit your needs. I've already posted a few links in this sub to kick things off, but I encourage you to add some more.

I reached out to the wonderful people over at /r/soapmaking to chime in on this thread, so that people more experienced than myself can help answer our questions.

First let's make sure we know what soap actually is. Soap is a molecule with two different ends. One end is hydrophillic (loves water) and one is hydrophobic (hates water). When you later up, the hydrophillic end bonds with the water you use and the hydrophobic end bonds with whatever else it can form a bond with. When you rinse, the water then washes the soap and whatever is attached to it away. Interestingly, this mean soap needs some time to work to form those bonds. When they say to wash your hands for at least 20-30 seconds, this is why. Otherwise, you're just passing soap over the dirty bits, not giving it time to make the bond. It's also easy to see how if a soap is too strong it can cause dry skin.

You make soap by the saponification process which is reaction of an akali and a fat. In home soap making, we're talking oil and lye. The type of oil you use will dictate the characteristics of your soap, along with whatever additives you want to use.

If you are starting you should almost certainly use a known recipe and keep it simple. You can also use a soap calculator such as SoapCalc to design your own recipe. The process after knowing your recipe is to then bring the oil to temerature, carefully mix and add your lye solution (this can be dangerous if done improperly, read all the steps before starting) and blend or mix until the soap reaches 'trace'. Trace is when a utensil dragged through the soap leaves a visible trail. Then you can add whatever your additives are and mold the soap. At this point you can 'hot process' the soap - keeping it at a higher temperature to speed the saponification, or 'cold process' - leave it sit at room temperature until it saponifies over time. For either process you'll want to cut the bars from the block when the soap is still soft enough to cut but already quite solid.

I make a batch about once every 3 months which gives me ~16-20 bars of bath soap. I'm not that picky, so I use that for hand soap and the dishes too, but you can definitely make your own liquid soap for hand soap or harher soaps for home cleaning. Be aware that a detergent is different than a soap, particularly in that it rinses away cleaner, so you may take consideration before delving in to using it for all household cleaning.

Other things of note:

One of my focuses as an urban homesteader is waste reduction. I use used kitchen grease and rendered fat from meat in my soaps, and as long as it is properly 'washed' first I haven't had any issues. If anyone is interested I can describe that process.

You'll notice that a lot of craft soaps and homemade soaps are different than store bought. This is because store bought goes through an extra process to remove the glycerin, which is used in other industrial processes. They replace it with moisturizers, although glycerin acts quite well as a moisturizer in it's own right. This gives homemade soaps a different feel. Most agree, myself included, that these whole soaps are better for your skin overall.

Ok, I'm around to answer any questions, or help walk you through getting ready for your first homemade soap adventure. /r/soapmaking mod /user/Mythril_Zombie has helpfully offered to chime in as well! Thanks all!