Blithering Knitiot

Tired of Soap Yet??

Ok, so I cut the second batch of soap I made yesterday, and here it is:

In total, I have 60 square bars and several "roses".  On the left tray, olive oil soap with lemongrass, oatmeal and French green clay (tangerine/evergreen scent), and on the center tray, basic recipe soap with rose petals and oatmeal (rose/tangerine scent).

I think I'm done making soap for a while.   I need to get back to knitting.

More Soap

So, today was spent doing very little.  The highlights for the day were getting a haircut and making another batch of soap.  The haircut went very well - a little shorter in the back than I normally get, but it's a good cut, so I'll live and it will grow. 

And then the soap.  It's a basic soap - lye, tallow and cocoa butter (no olive oil), then I added oatmeal and rose petals, and scented it with rose and tangerine scents.  It's very aromatic and pretty, I think:

I decided to try the silicone molds again, since the soap will only be staying in them 24 hours this time instead of 48, so hopefully they won't get the color from the molds like they did last time (the soaps in the glass dish).  The last batch of soap has one more week to harden, and you see them on the baking sheet next to the red molds.  So, that was my day.  I hope you had a good one!

Finishing the Soap

So, the soap has been sitting for 48 hours in their molds, and it's time to cut them and let them cure. 

The soap still in the pan:

The first cuts - into strips.  I eyeball the widths:

Then, each strip is cut to make the bars:

The bars are then stacked to cure.  They will sit out for 2 weeks before use:

These are the silicone molds I used.  I had never used silicone before, so I wasn't sure what they'd do.  The shape came out pretty well.  What is odd is that some color came off onto the soap.  I'm thinking maybe the lye had something to do with that (?).  I'm not sure, but maybe I'll be keeping those instead of giving them as gifts:

So there you have it.  Homemade Soap.  I hope you had a great time.  ;-)

Questions...

Good morning!  Thanks for your kind words and questions about the soap tutorial. 

For Dave and Ruth:
The lye MUST be mixed initially outside because of the fumes.  Once the liquid turns clear, you may then take it inside to let it cool and mix with the tallow.  And you MUST wear gloves.  Should you get any of the soap mixture on your skin while you are mixing it, yes, it will burn a little, but some vinegar will neutralize the soap mixture and relieve any itching or redness.  It's no big deal.

And now, for Susan:
You may use the stainless steel pans and pots for other things, not just soap.  After you've been mixing, just completely wash them out and they're ready to use (make sure you continue to use your rubber gloves while you wash out your pots because of the lye).  And it's amazing how clean your pots are after making soap, cause the lye will take out any discoloration (if there was any), and your pots look brand new!  If you use aluminum pans for your molds, make sure they are completely covered with plactic wrap.  If I recall, it may have an unpleasant reaction which turns it black.

Maggie and I get our tallow and cocoa butter from a local woman (who actually taught the classes we took last year), and if you do some research on the internet, I'm sure you can find a supplier local to you.  I also discovered (yesterday on my way to Maggie's house) that a health food store in my town carries a lot of the herbs and clays that we can use in our soaps (at a less expensive price than we paid our soap supplier).  The store owner also makes soap, so we're in the process of seeing where she gets her supplies.

The olive oil IS food grade, and right off the grocery store shelf.   According to the classes we took, any animal or vegetable fat (Crisco) can be used to make soap - it's just the correct percentage of lye to fat that makes the chemical reaction to make the soap.

There are many books out there for soap making.  Maggie and I just use the basic recipe and techniques we were taught at the two classes we took last year.  The most time consuming thing is the mixing of the soap till you get "trace".  Once that happens, the addition of the herbs and scent takes no time at all.  Then, of course, the waiting for the soap to cure to cut up and use.  Our time for the "event" took about 3 hours from start to finishing cleaning up.

And yes, even Lizzie enjoyed watching:

There ya go!  Again, thanks for the kind words, and have a great day!

Makin' Soap...

My friend Maggie and I got together today to make a batch of soap.  Some of you wanted to see the process, so here we go....

This is a very basic soap recipe which includes tallow (animal fat), cocoa butter, olive oil and lye.  Yes, lye, the stuff that also opens clogged drains.  The process is basically a chemical reaction, and this is how it happens:

You'll need 2 stainless steel pots (MUST be stainless steel.  The Lye will do some very nasty things to you and your home if you do not use stainless steel), one small (2 or 3 qt), and one large (8 qt or larger).  In the small pot, combine 4.5 cups of cold water and 1 cup and 3 teaspoons of lye.  (REMEMBER: RUBBER GLOVES for protection from the lye!!!)  The water will become very hot, sometimes up to 200 degrees (Do this step OUTDOORS!!!):

Stir until the lye is disolved:

Let this cool.

In the large pot, combine the tallow (8 cups), cocoa butter (3 cups) and olive oil (2 cups).  Raise the temperature till this mixture is between 90 and 110 degrees:

When the lye has cooled down to 80 to 90 degress, add it to the tallow mixture:

And then you stir.  And stir, and stir, and stir.  Use a wooden or plastic spoon, preferable one with holes or slats, so the mixture can aerate (I used a plastic spatula).  Stir by hand in intervals of ten minutes, then you may use a stick blender for one minute to speed up the process:

Keep stirring, alternating by hand and by stick blender.  After lots of stirring, the mixture will become whiter, and will begin to "trace", or leave little lines when you lift the spoon out and make little trails in the mixture.  Kinda like when a good bartender will make a little shamrock in the head of your Guiness at a good Irish pub.

Once you have obtained a good trace, it's time to add stuff.  I added French Green Clay (a natural anitoxidant), Lemongrass (another antioxidant), and uncooked, whole Oatmeal (which exfolliates and moisturizes the skin).  Fold these into the mixture, and when you have achieved trace again, add your essential oils.  I added tangering/evergreen oil, which smells YUMMY!

This is Maggie's mixture, to which she added French Green Clay, Oatmeal and Calendula Petals.  She used Eucalyptus as her scent:

Once eveything has been added, pour into molds:

These will later be turned out and cut into bars.  I had a little left over in the pot, so I filled a few silicone molds in the shape of roses.  I hope they turn out well:

The soap needs to sit for about 48 hours, then you turn the soap out of the molds, and cut into bars.  Once they are cut, they need to sit and cure for about two weeks.  I'll share pics of the bars of soap in a couple of days.

That's it in a nutshell.  The whole process today took about 3 hours.  Maggie and I took beginner and advanced soap making classes together about a year ago, and we had homemade soap for almost a year (I think I had about 60 bars of soap before I started to give it away as gifts).  This was our first time doing it by ourselves, and I think it worked very well.  It's the only soap I used in the past year, and it's really awesome for your skin.  When the soap gets too small to use, don't throw it out!  You can put it in a blender with a little water and some liquid vitamin E and make hand lotion, which is really good as well. 

Now it's time to put my feet up, have a beer, and do a little knitting on Mom's scarf.  Have a great night!