Family soap

My sister in law came over yesterday so we could begin our soap experiments :)
( bwhahaha....)


I made my first batch of home made soap using the cold process about two weeks ago

It is drying (curing). It makes for a longer lasting, milder soap

I love it! It is so pure and natural, even my husband will use it. He has struggled with eczema and psoriasis all his life, so that's a pretty good endorsement.


I LOVE making it. The process does not take very long. And besides the lye is easy peasy. Be careful when you use lye, it is pretty noxious stuff(no small children or pets around, and I would recommend adding the lye to the water outside).

The pure soap above is great for all sorts of uses. I plan on using a bar for home made laundry detergent soon....

The soap contains glycerin, which naturally occurs during the saponification process. Glycerin is great for skin and hair.  Why make soap when you can buy it so inexpensively (my last commercial soap was actually free) ?
Because in commercial soap they extract the glycerin to sell separate (they make more money that way) and replace it with chemicals to make it sudsy. I'd prefer the natural, valuable stuff thank you very much. Besides, it is really not very expensive to make.

 I was supposed to make the first batch with my SIL, but the I want it now kid came out in me and I couldn't wait!  So instead we got together yesterday and made some with different ingredients.  We made some with honey which turned it a much darker golden color then I was expecting!!!!

See? Looks kinda yummy though

I have some jasmine green tea around, so we got it into our heads to make some with it. I think it would have been pretty cool, except we were almost an ounce short of lye for this batch. We ran to the store, but alas, they were all sold out. So we thought we could dump a little bit of the oil and make it work. And it did, sort of....

When we finally reached the trace stage (where it looks a bit like pudding and is ready to be poured into a mold) we added the green tea. It mad it this neat speckled light tan color.
We then secured it to sit over night, all cozy under some blankets so it would cool slowly.

This is what I saw when I woke up this morning

 Weird.

I am going to un-mold it and see if the oil can be drawn out.... maybe, maybe not. I'll let you know how it goes.

**** UPDATE****
I cut the soap and have set it to cure. Hoping it would dry out properly and become usable. It is!!! It still has a while before it has cured properly, but it is looking good. My niece told me it looks like granite. Kinda cool :)