For a long time I did NOT want to know How To Make Homemade Soap From Scratch! From Scratch, seemed WAY too intimidating...I was ok, hacking away at different deodorant recipes, kitchen cultures
like Kombucha and yogurt. But safety goggles, things blowing up, gloves,
poisonous fumes...I'm no scientist.
Learning how to make homemade soap from scratch, is not simply melting and pouring...no that there is anything wrong with that...it's not truly from scratch...but let's get to it. I have never MADE lye, so I guess I too have not TRULY made homemade soap from scratch.
.JPG)
Let's just get the misnomer out of the way...You Can't Make Soap Without Lye! It's not a lie! If you've found a recipe without lye, then one of the ingredients is some kind of lye soap. But here's what I always wonder...who discovered lye? Water mixed with wood ash makes lye - Crazy! My kids are always stirring up some mudcake milkshakes topped with dandelions and grass decor...I can just see it now..."No Children, don't use the ashes from the fire-pit in your mud kitchen, mixing it with water will make it corrosive!!!"
I don't know, maybe I've got it wrong...perhaps I should look up how to make lye. But truth be told, lye is not very expensive. You can buy it from most hardware stores. If you truly want to learn how to make homemade soap from scratch, YouTube has an abundance of tutorials...Cold Process, Hot Process, Slow Cooker Process {CP, HP etc}. CP was my favorite, but I finally retired my Slow Cooker from food and it is now for homemade soap only...The delicious thing about Crockpot soap, is that the lye is cooked right out. No more curing for days or weeks on end, or burning fingers...NICE for this last minute Mama!
.JPG)
Molds...I've made some pretty ugly soaps...however, is homemade soap from scratch ever really ugly? I don't think so. All that LOVE that's put into homemade lovelies, makes them lovely. Back to molds. You can pick up some fantastic mold-shaped cardboard boxes that hold the tomatoes and produce in many grocery store's product section, for Free. My dilemma with these is that I'm a horrible cutter...I'm too hasty, and so my lines are...eh...bleh. I've tried silicone loaf pans, but the sides tend to sag under the weight of the soap mush...
.JPG)
I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a mold and cutter - YAY! This will be lined with parchment paper, like I have done in the past, with cardboard boxes. My new mold will be better than my make shift molds of the past (No Harm in doing that). Thanks to the Canadian Etsy store WoodSoapMolds, for this new homestead toy!!!
Learning how to make homemade soap from scratch, is not simply melting and pouring...no that there is anything wrong with that...it's not truly from scratch...but let's get to it. I have never MADE lye, so I guess I too have not TRULY made homemade soap from scratch.
Let's just get the misnomer out of the way...You Can't Make Soap Without Lye! It's not a lie! If you've found a recipe without lye, then one of the ingredients is some kind of lye soap. But here's what I always wonder...who discovered lye? Water mixed with wood ash makes lye - Crazy! My kids are always stirring up some mudcake milkshakes topped with dandelions and grass decor...I can just see it now..."No Children, don't use the ashes from the fire-pit in your mud kitchen, mixing it with water will make it corrosive!!!"
I don't know, maybe I've got it wrong...perhaps I should look up how to make lye. But truth be told, lye is not very expensive. You can buy it from most hardware stores. If you truly want to learn how to make homemade soap from scratch, YouTube has an abundance of tutorials...Cold Process, Hot Process, Slow Cooker Process {CP, HP etc}. CP was my favorite, but I finally retired my Slow Cooker from food and it is now for homemade soap only...The delicious thing about Crockpot soap, is that the lye is cooked right out. No more curing for days or weeks on end, or burning fingers...NICE for this last minute Mama!
Molds...I've made some pretty ugly soaps...however, is homemade soap from scratch ever really ugly? I don't think so. All that LOVE that's put into homemade lovelies, makes them lovely. Back to molds. You can pick up some fantastic mold-shaped cardboard boxes that hold the tomatoes and produce in many grocery store's product section, for Free. My dilemma with these is that I'm a horrible cutter...I'm too hasty, and so my lines are...eh...bleh. I've tried silicone loaf pans, but the sides tend to sag under the weight of the soap mush...
I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a mold and cutter - YAY! This will be lined with parchment paper, like I have done in the past, with cardboard boxes. My new mold will be better than my make shift molds of the past (No Harm in doing that). Thanks to the Canadian Etsy store WoodSoapMolds, for this new homestead toy!!!
Warmly,
Patty-Jean
Hi PJ - Nice to see you back in action on the blogging front. And good inspiration to try soap-making! Two of my neighbours are experts, so I definitely want to give it a go sometime. In college days, we used lye for shrinking cotton. You'd block the area you didn't want shrunk with some kind of resist and then put the whole piece of fabric in the lye solution - the resisted bits wouldn't shrink but the rest would... gave an interesting texture, called cloque, I think. Anyways, sounds like you're well and I'm happy to hear it. We are too.
ReplyDeleteBye for now.
So Good to hear from you Tammy! I often wonder about my fiber-artist-knitter-extrodinaire friend! You littles must be not so little anymore. If you are still blogging privately, please add me to your reader list!!!
DeleteHope to catch up with you!