Daily Archives: June 12, 2016

I promised myself after last Sunday’s strawberry episode, that today was going to be a fun day.   Our youngest daughter and her DH came over and while he went out and harvested our berries, we played.

We assembled the lye, fragrances, colors, and other items needed (we didn’t use the borax as we didn’t make laundry soap)

Then we mixed the water and lye – using old peanut butter jars – outside and let it cool until it reached 110 degrees.

For one batch of soap, we mixed lemon juice instead of water with the lye and it produced this color.

While the lye mix was cooling we mixed our oils, – predominantly coconut oil, with some avocado and olive –  and warmed them to 110 degrees.

Then we slowly poured the lye/water into the oil, while stirring with the hand blender.  We blended until it looked like thin pudding, maybe 5 minutes.   At that point we added fragrance and could add the colors.

We beg for Pringles cans to put our loofahs in and then pour soap over and through that.  The batches were small, so one batch filled two cans.   When cooled, we slice them.

Another batch filled the casserole dish you see in the back and the third batch filled a loaf pan the two small containers in front.    The loaf pan and two small containers have poppy seed in them.  We will wait until tomorrow afternoon to pop them out of the containers and slice the soap.   Then it needs to set for  two months to cure.   After that we will enjoy it.    Meanwhile, we will probably be making more soap.