I've always had a hankering to make soap. I wanted to know how long would it take, was is worthwhile and did it work. I purchased a video called "Homestead Blessings" by the West sisters who explained how to make a simple soap. The video had tips and a recipe for my first batch. It was easy to find the ingredients I needed. I purchased the 100% lye from Ace Hardware. I also learned that it is drain cleaner; don't know why I didn't know that. Seems like one of those tidbits everyone should know. The fats and oils were purchased from good ole' Walmart. I did have some trouble locating some essential oil and had to go to my local health food store. It was pretty expensive for a 5 oz bottle. I also bought a bucket to mix it in and a stick mixer and stirring utensils. I also bought a dish pan to pour the final product, but then used a plain rectangle box lined with a white kitchen trash bag. Then fear set in. Lye is caustic! It burns! I finally decided to go ahead and with Talitha's help mixed it up on the back porch where there is plenty of ventilation.
I checked it after the first half hour and it looked good! Then at the second half hour it did not look right! I ran to the computor and goggled soap making and what could go wrong. I found out that the citris essential oil we chose would cause it to take longer to set up and make it a little oily on the top. Also, we could have had a false trace before we poured it. I did determine that it wasn't caustic so we decided to wait. By 9pm it was still in a jelled state so we waited until morning.
In the morning, I took off the towel and opened the box and lo and behold we had what looked like soap! It just took longer. Since is was still lightly soft I was able to cut it and take it out of the box to dry. It now needs to dry for a minimum of 2 weeks so it is really hard and will last. I did use some shavings that fell off and it did lather.
All in all it really was pretty simple. It is a soap with several types of oils (including Crisco! There is a use for it!) which are beneficial to the skin. My next try will be to use some of it for a remilled or French soap.
