Making Soap Out of Guava

Guava leaves contain phytochemicals that are astringent, allowing them to tone and tighten your
skin. Guava leaves can also protect against ultraviolet radiation, a "major environmental factor" in
"skin wrinkle formation and hyperpigmentation." The American Journal of Chinese Medicine even
found that guava leaves' anti-inflammatory properties can be helpful in treating acne.

Safety First!
This experiment will involve working with both sodium hydroxide and extremely high
temperatures, so it will require safety precautions and definitely adult supervision. This guide will
cover the important safety measures, but you can also read more about sodium hydroxide safety.

What You'll Need

If the below information seems a little intimidating to you, you can try making hard soap instead
of liquid soap. It's a little less involved, requires fewer ingredients and equipment, and is just as
good as a science investigatory project. For details on that, check our full guide.
Ingredients:
• about 50 guava leaves
• 16 oz. water
• 4 oz. sodium hydroxide (NaOH), also known as lye or caustic soda
• 20 oz. olive oil
• 8 oz. coconut oil
• a few spoonfuls of lavender-scented oil (or any other scent you prefer)
• a few drops of food coloring, any color you like
• vinegar (in case the lye comes in contact with skin)

Equipment:
• stove or other strong heat source, preferably an outdoor stove
• large pot
• three small containers (make sure they can all withstand boiling water!)
• gloves
• safety mask
• safety goggles
• whisk or stick blender
• strainer
• kitchen scale
• funnel
• empty bottle or soap dispenser
Make sure that none of the equipment you use contains aluminum, tin, or zinc because lye will
corrode all of those metals — and potentially produce highly flammable (read: dangerous)
hydrogen gas. Stainless steel would be ideal. The sodium hydroxide may also produce fumes, so
as much as possible, this experiment should take place outdoors or under a fume hood. If that isn't
an option, make sure the room you use is well-ventilated (switch on the kitchen fan and open every
window you can).
The following guide will make enough soap to fill a bottle of hand soap, so adjust your proportions
accordingly if you want to make more.

Step 1: Extract Guava Leaf Essence

Bring approximately 8 oz. of water (weigh it out using your scale) to a boil in your pot, then add
about 50 guava leaves. Keep the water at boiling temperature, and stir occasionally.

Step 2: Strain Out Guava Leaves

After half an hour, take your pot off the stove, strain out the guava leaves, and transfer the guava
leaf extract to a container. You can use a sieve or a pair of utensils.

Step 3: Prepare Your Flavors

At this stage, you're going to prepare a mixture of water, oil, and your chosen scent and food
coloring (you're going to add the sodium hydroxide to this later, making your soap).

They Say Oil & Water Don't Mix

It's true. Oil and water don't mix — they're immiscible together. Heck, most definitions of
"immiscible" even use oil and water as their illustration. That's why you usually need a chemical
emulsifying agent to completely combine oil and water, but heating your oil-water mixture, which
is our next step, will achieve a similar effect.

Add about 8 oz. of coconut oil and 20 oz. of olive oil to 8 oz. of water in your pot. For soap-
making, measure all your reagents by weight, and not volume, because the density of different oils
can vary significantly. The mixture should immediately begin to form micelles, bubble-like
concentrations of oil, especially at the surface.

Cover and bring the mixture to a boil, removing the lid to stir occasionally. Your oil-water mixture
should be bubbling from the heat, but better combined than before.

Stir, then add the guava extract. Stir again, and add scented oil, and then the food coloring. We
suggest adding the food coloring in small doses while stirring, as it takes a while for the coloring
to disperse and arrive at a settled color. Throughout this process, keep your mixture at a boil. Boil
for 30 more minutes.
Step 4: Saponification
Saponification is a chemical reaction between an ester and an alkali, producing a carboxylate ion
and an alcohol. It's also what we're about to do next! That's because saponification, in less
scientific terms, is soap-making (the linguistic root of "saponification" is sapo, the Latin word for
soap). The coconut and olive oil we're using contain esters, and the sodium hydroxide is an
alkali. These react to form a carboxylate salt compound — soap!

Ready, Set, Saponify

Put on your goggles, gloves, and mask. Adding the sodium hydroxide to the mixture will cause
the temperature of your mixture to skyrocket to temperatures of up to 200º F.

It's not just the sheer heat of your mixture that's now dangerous. That spike in temperature means
some water particles are going to reach boiling temperature, and that rising steam will carry with
it trace amounts of unreacted sodium hydroxide, which is poisonous. If any sodium hydroxide
makes contact with skin, pour vinegar over the affected area to neutralize the burning alkali.

Using your kitchen scale, weigh out 4 oz. of sodium hydroxide. Slowly and carefully add it to your
mixture in very small amounts. Keep your face away from the mouth of the pot as you add the
sodium hydroxide to avoid inhaling the fumes.

Step 5: Stir
When the mixture is no longer producing steam, turn off the stove and remove the pot from the
heat. Allow it to cool slightly, then stir with your electric blender. Stir for fifteen minutes if
stirring by hand. The mixture will behave somewhat like egg whites, foaming up and thickening
as your stir.
Voilà! You have your very own homemade soap.

Source
Also, Check:
Inorganic Chemistry Seminar and Powerpoint Presentation Topics
Organic Chemistry Seminar Presentation Topics
Chemistry Project Ideas For High School and College Students
Interesting Chemistry Project Ideas and Presentation Topics