Wednesday, February 5, 2025

I Am Making Two Batches of Soap and Sending Them Off To Their Eventual Home

I have an audience.  For Soap.

Actually I got started making the stuff about 5 years ago because I got tired of my skin being dried out.

In South Florida.

I have always been careful at what I use to wash up with.  Someone suggested Dr Bronner's and I tried it.  It's Ok but pricey.

Then I noticed a random youtube video on how to make soap.  It used things I had at the house.  A couple different oils and some lye along with water.  It made soap alright, and a pretty darn good one.

After researching it further, I found many websites with recipes.  There are quite a few soap making sites.  As well as one where you point and click to select your own oils and scents and it would calculate out the recipe for you.  

I kept playing around and settled on a specific recipe
.  65% olive oil, 30% coconut oil, 5% shea butter or cocoa.  Either is great, they both work as well.

The soap I made I dropped samples in boxes to be sent off.  Some enjoyed them, some were disturbed by my sending them soaps.

Their loss.  It works great with my skin. 

Mind you, I am making custom soap for a small audience.  I have a recipe that works, and for those who want customization I have been adding in various levels of essential oils and add ins such as Cinnamon or Coffee Grounds for a scrub.

It is kind of fun.  I was that weird kid in High School who "did Chemistry labs at 99.5% accuracy or better".  Hey, the teacher was a stoner and came into class high as a kite and smelling like Pot.  Someone had to take charge, and this was in a Catholic High School!

February is the end of the road for this particular soap making session.  I am waiting on some Cedar Oil for myself and that promises to be a strong scent for the soap.  I want it to smell like a Cedar box from the Jersey shore.  I'm feeling nostalgic and I will have enough to make quite a few batches out of the 8 ounces of oil I find.  Usually it is an ounce of essential oil per batch of 50 ounces of soap but this will probably be a stronger oil than an E-Oil.

That picture is two batches of soap.  About 100 Ounces or 284 Grams by the recipe.  As it cures, it loses weight.

Just make sure it is done in the following order.  Mix oils.  Separately, add lye to water and ice (50/50 mix) in a well ventilated area.  When the Lye is mixed in completely, slowly add it to the oils then stir with a stick blender.  The process is done quickly and cures overnight.  

Two weeks later or more, you have soap.  Hopefully it smells like cedar.

Unlike the essential oil I got from Temu that smelled of flowers.  It "Said" it was cedar... it wasn't.  It smelled like roses and something else undefinable.

Oh well, just make sure your ingredients are pure if you are going down this road.  I do, and the results speak for themselves.

And that liquid soap craze?  You are paying for a LOT of water and a LOT of waste.

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