Sunday, May 19, 2013

Homemade soap

I like homemade soaps and I usually purchase it at craft shows in scents that I like. I have even ordered it online a couple of time.  However, I really want to try to make my own homemade soap.  I have been hoping to try it for a while.  Rhonda has several good tutorials and it seems simple and straight forward enough.  I finally have gathered all the supplies - goggles, a kitchen scale, lye, and some good fats.

So next time that I have an evening to myself, I will try it.  My plan is to try to make a couple of different types of soaps.  1) I would like a nice creamy soap - maybe with some coconut oil and a bit of superfatting (where you have a slightly higher ratio of fats to lye for the extra creaminess).  2) I would also like to try to make a practical kitchen sink type of soap - I have been saving bacon grease for this purpose.  And if that works out well, I would like to try using my kitchen sink soap in homemade laundry soap. 

The scale and the lye were the only real new expenses.  The scale is a one time ever sort of purchase and it was $15. The lye was $8 for a good sized container that should last me through years of soap making.  All in all not too expensive for a fun and productive project.  I will be back with an update on how it goes - hopefully in the near future. :)

1 comment:

Sylvan said...

Your great-grandma Annie Rebecca used to tell stories about making soap with lye. Apparently she burned her hands pretty badly once with lye and after that she suffered and bore problems to her hands for the rest of her life. Just take precautions with lye - it's caustic stuff! That said I look forward to some home-made soap;)