Saponification Sunday/Monday...Which Witch? Bark or Leaf?

I like experimentation. In the old days several decades ago, that meant hoping into a semi with an unknown driver and traveling to unknown worlds. Dangerous yes, and fun, but really kids it was as I said, DANGEROUS. Now, my wild experimentation is limited to...

Soap.

For example, when it was dark at night and my husband was fast asleep I dug deep into my bag of tricks ( a basket filled with bags of suspicious looking powders and clays) and pulled out a heaping zip lock filled with with hazel powder.

Witch Hazel BARK Powder On a very cool piece of Granite given to me by
a friend (Thanks CK!)

Can't even remember buying it, let alone what I was going to use it for but details like that are meaningless when one is an artist and the  creative bell is slamming around in a dazed and confused cerebellum .

Headaches? What headaches?

An interesting powder, even though rather bland in appearance, it's earthiness was appealing to me. I'm not a blue glitter kind of gal so this bag of silty fine debris did beckon to me. I did some research

Seems  the Witch Hazel Powder can come from the bark or the leaves of the plant. I had the bark variety. It is known to possess  stringent, antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antibacterial, antifungal, and anesthetic properties.

 Over time it has been used to treat everything, including: backache, hemorrhoids, (by injecting the powder mixed with water into the rectum) wounds, tumors, insect bites, eye inflammation, nosebleed, vaginitis, venereal disease, and skin ulcers externally; and internally (as a tea) for colds, heavy menstruation, diarrhea, and anxiety.

Today, the bark powder is most often used externally to treat bruises, cuts, bedsores, sunburn, poison ivy, other skin ailments, sore muscles, and minor swelling. As a nurse, I cannot imagine treating any decubiti (bedsore) with something this scratchy or worse yet putting it in an inflamed eye (Ouch!!) but would be cool if it works.

Would tick off the pharmacy companies though, since a 4 oz bag  of this powder is less than $5 . But due to strict FDA laws I can make no such claim on my soap labels, in regards to any of the above.

 Nor would I want to. Imagine my grief knowing that my soap failed to fix your hemorrhoids. I would hate even more, the visual that would give me.

Too late.

  And, for those of you who enjoy a nice fairytale, some people believe Witch hazel is a strong protective charm which is powerful in spells to end love and mend a broken heart

Now, as a soap, I can tell you this. The addition of just 1 tsp to 2 pounds of oil colored it only slightly as you can see. It made the soap a bit  scratchy but did not interfere with bubbles at all. I did add Tussah silk to my lye water which might have helped the bar feel less rough.

10 minutes after rinsing my skin felt very good and so although it did not make the prettiest soap, even with a few small pieces of leftover white soap added, it did make a good, usable  soap. I scented it with Pink Grapefruit, Eucalyptus and Lavender Essential oils which was quite pleasant. And the powder did cause the soap to thicken well and made it easy to create waves on top.

Would I use it again? Not sure. Will give it a few weeks to see how my skin likes it. In the meantime I think I'll stick to my regular orange pekoe tea and I certainly won't be injecting it anywhere the sun don't shine.