Soap
Soap is a salt of a fatty acid. Mix sodium hydroxide (lye) with a fatty oil and the molecules rearrange — saponification — into a long-chain salt that's soluble at one end and oily at the other. That's why soap lifts dirt off your hands. Hemp seed oil saponifies clean, giving a soft, well-lathering bar.
Pour and trace
The cold-process method: warm the hemp oil to 40 °C, slowly stir in a 30% lye solution, blend until the mixture thickens to 'trace' (a pudding-like consistency). Pour into a wooden mould lined with parchment. Insulate with a towel and leave overnight. The saponification reaction continues in the mould.
The kitchen-table tradition
Four to six weeks
Cut the loaf into bars after 24–48 hours. Stack the bars on a wooden rack with airflow. Over four to six weeks the pH drops from caustic 12 to a skin-friendly 8.5, the bar hardens, and excess water evaporates. Most artisanal hemp soap is sold no younger than six weeks from pour.
Patience · oxidation · pH drop
The brands
Dr. Bronner's Pure-Castile is the loudest American hemp soap — David Bronner led the 2004 legal fight that kept hemp seed oil in US personal care. Lush hides hemp in Marilyn and Soak and Float. Pacha Soap Co. in Nebraska does fair-trade hemp bars. Australian Natural Soap distributes through Woolworths.
Dr. Bronner's · Lush · Pacha · Australian Natural
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