I applied for a bunch of research-centred PhD programmes/positions that aren't directly tied to universities. There are surprisingly many of those posted by various governmental agencies looking for physicists, definitely more than what I saw last year, which is one of few good surprises I had over the last few months. This weekend I'll start working on submissions to the Polish Academy of Sciences and similar institutes, which is painstaking, but hopefully worth all the years of effort. That's where I'd like to end up working anyway, but it's best to cover as many bases as possible. Had to double my hours at the carwash to make sure I'll have enough money for this summer, which is starting to take its toll. I'm fairly certain that I developed some sort of skin allergy to the crap we handle, but it's not like I'm in a position to look for something better. At least this time I planned things in such a way that I might catch some break around August, so that's nice. Also, Organic Chemistry is the only course I ever took where my grade from labs is significantly better from theory. Feels weird.
I can respect that. I don’t think I would want to make it myself, I think it smells weird and is probably really weird while being made, and I will gladly pay the nice folks at the soap place to handle that for me. They also make other nice smells that I buy for the bathroom sink.
Making basic soap is fairly easy, and ingredients are widely accessible: lye (sodium hydroxide), oil (olive, coconut, any will do but will affect hardness) and water (distilled/deionized). 80g lye, 200g water (distilled/deionized <- this is very important for boring chemistry reasons), 100g of coconut oil, 500g of olive oil are great as a starting base because it's close to most of the store-bought soaps while having an excess of oil (meaning you don't need to worry too much about pH or purify it further). Add lye to water, mix with oils until you'll get a consistency of thick batter (this is when you can put dyes or essential oils or other optional additives, like salt, poppy seeds or antibacterial compounds based on silver), drop into moulds and wait about a day or two. Afterwards, remove from moulds and put somewhere to dry, flip sides about once a week. Waiting time varies and depends on humidity and bar sizes, but it tends to be around five weeks. The smell during production isn't too much of a concern or problem, though I might be desensitised to odd chemical odours. I wouldn't fuss with making my own soaps if it wasn't oddly fun, though. There's still about a fifth left from the batch I made in autumn, which is kinda comforting: no matter what, there's some soap left. ;)
I'm glad you found it interesting, though real wisdom manifests as at least double-checking any chemistry you'll find on the net, common sense, and staying on the side of caution. In the case of soap-making, it basically boils down to watching out for splashes, having some eye protection and keeping it away from aluminium (reacts to produce hydrogen gas). Lye will also affect wood, so it's best to do the entire process in/with glass, ceramic or resistant plastic implements and containers, aim for sturdy. Also, here's one lesson I learned three minutes too late a few years ago: dissolving lye can make your solution hot enough to significantly deform PET bottles, up to the point of making small cracks, even though it doesn't react chemically with it. That said, if you have questions or would like to know more, feel free to ask here or via private message. It's a fun project with plenty of room for experimentation, so I hope I didn't discourage anyone.