One of the things on my list to do for a long time is soap making. I want our family to bathe in good quality, natural soap. Free from artificial chemicals, poor materials and artificial scents. Its certainly possible to buy beautiful soap but its quite expensive. I love the idea of making our own soaps - say lavender and oatmeal for sore skin and to help relax using good quality essential oils. Perhaps using essential oils to create invigorating soaps in summer. Our skin is our biggest organ and it's important too look after it. Grant also has psoriasis so I'm interested to see if completely scentless, simple, nourishing soaps help.
On Saturday Grant and the big boys went to a local footy game. They were so excited! Will wants to go to an AFL game but we think he needs to get used to local games a bit first. Sitting still for long periods is not his biggest strength! I think they need to find out when the local A-graders play. Henry went down for a nap and I had an hour or so to myself and all the ingredients I needed so I finally got soap making!
The recipe I used is from a blog called Down to Earth, by a blogger by the name of Rhonda Hetzel. Its an fantastic resource of great information. The link is HERE.
The soap recipe is from her blog.
I was careful to organize all I needed, lay newspaper to keep my surfaces, and myself safe from the potent caustic soda. (lye) It all went hiccup free.
Weighing the oils precisly and ensuring the temperatures of the lye and the oils are the same is essential in this simple process.
Here is the soap poured into a lined baking tin. I might grab some silicon molds in the future but for now I just wanted to use what I had on hand to see if I wanted to set myself up for it properly. Space is at a premium in our house. I don't want things we don't love or use all the time cluttering it up. Now I have done it, I know it is certainly something I would like to do again and implement it as a regular part of my "simple living" jobs.
Here are my "rustic" hand cut soaps. They may not be the most beautiful looking soaps but I have never been so excited to try a soap in my life! and the beauty is in the inside so they say. ;)
After my soap making session I was on a roll! So I whipped up a quick peg bag as my old one was about to drop its contents on the ground at any stage - and you can garuntee it would have been on the ground, in the mud, at night if I had of put if off any longer. I had some scrap fabric and an old machine lace doily I had in my draws from goodness knows where. A peg bag may be boring but everything can be beautiful, yes?
After my soap making session I was on a roll! So I whipped up a quick peg bag as my old one was about to drop its contents on the ground at any stage - and you can garuntee it would have been on the ground, in the mud, at night if I had of put if off any longer. I had some scrap fabric and an old machine lace doily I had in my draws from goodness knows where. A peg bag may be boring but everything can be beautiful, yes?
And here is the finished bag and a basket of fresh rags I sewed up for cleaning. I read something online about the synthetic fibre rags shedding and causing our tiny marine life huge problems and it highlighted the importance of aiming to use cotton cleaning cloths. I'm not certain how much truth there is in it, I have not researched it any deeper but it makes sense and I do prefer natural fibers. Its been rattling around my head since. So 15 mins of boring sewing of some old towels I cleared out of my linen cupboard the other day and my conscience is clearer now Im moving to fixing this problem in our household.
Hope you have a wonderful day!
xx
