Soap Making

Soap making for our ancestors required rendering beef fat, combining with lye and a long, laborious process - or they did without!

Natural soap is a lovely thing to have and you can make it yourself at home.

You can use herbs or just the essential oils to perfume it to make your own handmade soap.

It's important to use glass and wood for the caustic soda mixture.

A word of caution here - some countries have very strict guidelines about selling home made soap, so you need to just look at making this for your own pleasure.

The following recipe is quite easy - it's still a long process, but a very interesting one.

Herbal Soap
300ml/1/2 pint water
4 tablespoons caustic soda
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
5 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons herbal oil

Put the water in a glass bowl - add the caustic soda and stir with a wooden spoon until it dissolves.

The soda will heat because of the chemical reaction - do be careful with it.

Set it to one side and allow it to cool to room temperature.

Heat the oils gently in a pan until they're about room temperature.

Give the caustic soda mixture a good stir to make sure it's combined then pour the oil in slowly, stirring all the time.

Add the herbal oil and continue to beat until the mixture thickens and turns opaque.

Pour it into moulds - you can use small boxes, pots, jelly moulds - whatever you like.

Allow it to set for about 24 hours.

Remove from the moulds, wrap in greaseproof paper and leave it in a cool place to harden for about 2 or 3 weeks.

You can use any oils you like - lavender, sage, jasmine - you choose.

You can make an oatmeal soap by adding 3 tablespoons of oatmeal to the mixture at the same time as the oil.

Soap making can be very complex, but this is a simple way to start by making a small quantity.

For an explanation of gardening terms that you might not understand, please check out the Growers Dictionary section.

I found that I was either skimping on explanations or giving too much information on the individual pages so I have posted all relevant terms in one section - if there's anything you need to know, please drop me an email.

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Soap Making - to Natural Cosmetics Index