Last weekend I made a batch of soap. I haven’t made soap in a while, and I decided
that there is a bunch of things I want to try, so it was time to start. I think I haven’t been making as much as in
the past because I get nervous making soap with other people in the house.
I’m always afraid that while I’m waiting for
the lye to cool down, they will accidentally throw a glass in the sink or run
the water into the lye, and then we will be in a world of trouble. I think part of it is because I make soap in
the kitchen, a place where people go without thinking there is Danger. Now Tim and I have a system, he asks if it’s
OK if he enters the kitchen, I say as long as you don’t stick your finger in
the glass bowl in the sink. Then he
says, “Oh? I’m not supposed to drink
this mixture?” No, no you are not. I think the other thing that makes me nervous
about the lye, is that it looks like an innocent bowl of water, but it is a
bowl full of DANGER!
I have been collecting rain water to use in soapmaking. I decide to do this on the driest summer we
have had in forever, but what can you do.
I don’t have access to the rain gutter downspout, so I have just been
putting containers on the balcony and hoping for the best. When it rained, I would get so excited to see
what my water yield was, it doesn’t take much to keep me entertained sometimes. Now, it’s raining much more often, making
this a lot easier. Whenever you follow a
soap recipe, they usually call for distilled water. I toyed with making my own, then I read that
rain water is naturally distilled! It is
evaporated water! One just has to let it
sit so all the debris sinks to the bottom and it is good to go. I am sending it through a coffee filter, then
sticking it in the fridge for a bit, then mixing in the lye.
I was expecting the rose
scent to dissipate after the lye was added, because it gets so hot, but it didn’t
at all! It was very exciting. The oils were coconut, and olive, the old
standards, but this recipe called for Jojoba and Castor oils. I knew that castor oil was good for hair conditioning,
so it seemed perfect. I love using
Jojoba in products, it has such great moisturizing properties and a nice clear
colour.
Since the rose water was keeping it’s scent, I decided to
add a pink colour, but I didn’t add enough, the soap stayed white. I was OK with that, it might be weird to have
pink lather on your hair. I started saving small glass jars to mix colour in. I can add the olive oil and the oxide, then screw the lid on and shake. I also added some
rosewood essential oil, I didn’t add very much, maybe half a teaspoon because
the rose water was giving off so much scent.
As I mixed the lye into the oils, I usually have time to
wash the bowl, collect the molds, and maybe a few other things as I’m waiting
for it to come to trace, this batch went so fast! I added the lye to the oils, mixed with the
hand blender, went to get the molds, looked in the pot, and it almost seized in
the pot! I have never had that happen to
be before, and I’m hoping it never does.
It would be awful to have a whole batch of soap ruined and stuck in the
pot. So I hurriedly poured the soap,
which at this point was like think pudding into the orange juice containers I
was using as molds.
The next day, I peeled off the orange juice cans and cut
them into bars.
I used a crinkle cutter,
hoping that this would help me differentiate that this batch was shampoo. The soap was a nice white colour, we will see
if that changes when the soap cures.
It is really hard already! I’m really
interested to see how it works as shampoo.
This soap is supposed to remove build up that other shampoos leave
behind. I will give this soap my usual 4
weeks of curing time then tell you how it works. Tim is excited to try it too.
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