Saponification Sunday

Making soap, its a good thing, a relaxing thing, a goofy thing...at least for me. I might be able to quit and move on to something more meaningful like planting myself on Wall Street and protesting everything but you people keep buying the soap so I keep making it. Photographing it is another thing. These pics are so blurry I' be better off if I'd sketched the soap for you. Might be time for a new camera.

I decided a few months ago I would not be opening an ETSY store or even adding soap to our list of products on our farm's web site, and I am real happy about that decision. No pressure to produce large amounts, instead I can just soap as my supply in our tiny farm store ebbs and flows and as I get a few orders here and there from this blog. The whole process remains for me...a blissful hobby that pays for itself, most of the time.

This last week I continued to play with all natural additives, going back to a combination of Spirolina and Wheat Grass Powder  powder and a little bit of Orange Peel Powder. I really love doing geometric inbeds or is it embeds? Indents? Inbreeds? Anyway I like taking old pieces of  soap and sticking them in new soap. In fact, this bar involved hot process soap balls added to cold process soap and then cut again into squares and rectangles and placed in another batch of cold process soap.

"Frustrated sculptor", a blog follower once called me, really its more  manic-depressive farm wife with a stick wand.

I also have finally settled on one recipe for most of my bars. Here it is for your newbies who want to copy it. (For you experienced, elderly, ancient  and nearly desiccated soapers:if you see a way I could improve this recipe: hit me baby, I love input when it comes to soap)

Babasuu Oil             25%
Palm Oil or Lard     25%
Rice Bran Oil          25%
Castor Oil                  5%      
Sunflower Oil          10%
Canola Oil                25%

And regarding the lard, I Use the lard from our critically endangered Red Wattle Hogs. (Only 2000 in the world) We respect these animals and want their numbers to grow so we like to use as much of their gifts as possible to promote the breed.  Yes, it may seem odd, but to save them we do believe you must eat them. My lard soaps are super hard and last forever. I love them.

But some of our customers do not eat meat and buy only our milk and would never touch a bar of soap made with lard. Others buy both milk and meat and either kind of soap, and then there is the really fun group who are totally appalled by the soap with lard in it but have no problems buying tons of our bacon.

Oh how I love people.

Soap; exfoliator or death machine ?

Soap from another day. Another much better day.

So I admit it. My multitasking skills are slipping. How do I know ? This is how I know. I wanted to write. I also wanted to make soap. I did not have time to do both.  But then...I had an idea. I put a bunch of bars into the crock pot on low (or so I thought) with enough water (or so I thought) to rebatch. I then went upstairs to write while the muse beckoned. Soon, the muse left as phones rang, and doors slammed and voices chattered from the nether floors below. Dogs barked, donkeys brayed and nursing piglets slurpped.  I tried to concentrate but failed, so I threw in some laundry and the Muse returned. Smell of Tide I guess.

I wrote. Then it came time to get other work done downstairs. Husband sitting at the kitchen table. Says nothing about the soap. I then notice the crock pot is unplugged. Hmmmmm, and the sides of the crock pot are covered with soap yet the counter is clean. I begin the interrogation.

-Did it bubble over ?
-What?
-The Soap, I specify.
-Oh yeah, but just about a cups worth.

I wonder why he didn't just tell me when it happened so I could stir it down and save some of the soap. Then I remembered the last time he interrupted me when I was writing. I almost "rebatched" him. No wonder he didn't brave the staircase to (hardly) heaven. I picked up the glass lid of the CP and the stoopid thing slipped out of my grasp and broke on the counter. Now I am ticked.

But I say nothing. I'm not sure but I don't think he had anything to do with the crock pot lid breaking. Then do you know what he says ? He says,

-Are you hurt ? 

Can you believe that ?! He doesn't even ask about the soap. I mutter that I am indeed OK and I clean up the glass. Then I grab a spoon and start stirring the soap. Hey, this stuff looks good. And it smells fantastic but there are still a couple hard chunks so I try to break them up. Dang things are rock hard. I mean ROCK hard. Waaaait a minute. That's not hard soap that's big chunks of glass. In my going to be beautiful rebatched soap.

To insult my soaps injury Keith informs me.

"You can't use that soap Hon. Just throw it out"
Why ? I ponder to myself. WHY CAN'T I ? ITS MY SOAP ISN'T IT ?!

Then I fast forward to the future. A man walks up to me at my first soap show. His arms are hemorrhaging.

-Ma'am ?
-Yes Sir. Did you come back to buy more soap sir ? Me grinning goofy like.
-Why no ma'am. I think theres' glass or something in here. It hurt awful bad when I was washing up.
- Glass ? In my soap? Not possible. You must be overdosing on your coumadin and you scrubbed too hard
-No ma'am. I don't take any medications. It was your soap. I wasn't bleeding before I started to use it and now I am.
-(Slightly irritated now cause I KNOW it was good soap) Sir ? Did you read the ingredient list on my soap ? Does it say "glass" anywhere ? You know, like "essential glass"?
-Well, no ma'am it didn't. (shuffles feet) I must be wrong. He walks away. Dripping blood on my nice table cloth.

I call an ambulance anyway.

YES. I threw away all the soap.
YES. I peaked at it in the garbage 3 hours later. It set up real purty. I knew it would.

Scruba scruba scrub

Grandson Wesley has been well taught by his mommy to wash his hands after using the loo. He hops off the toilet, literally he HOPS off it like he's vaulting off the horse in an Olympic Competition, and then says to himself "scruba-scruba" as he goes to wash his hands. Or maybe its "washa-washa", well something like that. Since January when I started on this new venture of soap making, he and sisters have enjoyed being my official soap testers. They tell me they like all the soaps which is why I make them my official testers.

Two batches this week done once again very late at night when my good friend Insomniasia visits me. The first is not so much my style, being all very foophy-girly-pinky-smelly-magnolia-like.

But I had great fun creating the wavy tops and designing the packaging which is nothing more that a $5 set of scrapbook papers of numerous designs. These papers are the perfect weight for soap packaging and my computer printer handles it well. My next batch was pure genius...someone else's genius. I found a hot process soap recipe for oatmeal soap. So I whipped it up but then decided to add a little bit more. You're surprised ? Aren't you the very same commoner who told me just last week I have a problem with things being "good enough"?

Therefore I added a little somethin', somethin' to the oatmeal recipe. I added vanilla, and some honey and...some brown sugar. Yeah, I did. I had read somewhere that adding sugar to soap recipes can increase lather or was it moisture ? Either way I added and mixed but not too much mixing because I love texture and inconsistency. The final product was this:

Is it a cake  ? Badly decomposed Irish Peat ? Or soap good
 enough to make you want to have your mouth washed out with it ?

As the soap was setting up in its mold, a very high tech mold I made from an empty diaper wipe container, I sprinkled some oatmeal on top. After it hardened overnight I cut it into these yummy bars:

Why yes I did for a brief, unkind but hilarious (to herself) moment, think about serving one of them to Keith for breakfast with a nice hot cup of tea but I stopped  said self. If anyone needs to clean up their act, it's me, not him.

Bone Marrow Soap

This soap making thing...my learning curve has tuned into more of a Tilt-O-Whirl ride with one of the really scary carnies at the control. You know the one I mean. Tattoos on each finger that spell out "wicked boy", Elvis hair from the Valium- crushed into- his- peanut- butter- sandwich days and of course the carnie would be wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt but Floyd would be spelled "Floid" because the T-shirt was made by a friend of his. Yeah that is what my newest batch of soap looks like.

I tried the PVC pipe trick to make round bars. That part went OK.

Why thank you. I love the table too. Son Jason made it for me
for Christmas last year
 It seats about 30 as long as folks don't mind lap sitters.

 It was the coloring past that went AWOL. My intent was swirls. Instead I got this,

Can anyone tell me the number for 911 ?

Charming huh ? Like The bruised leg of a gangster that has been at the bottom of Lake Michigan for 3 months. It was suppossed to look beautiful and elegant like this

http://shop.beekman1802.com/images/1230395722606-2104052638.gif  (Oh I love those Beekman boys)

So the hardest part of this deal is...how to price it ? Or better yet what shall I name this batch of soap. "Ecchymotic Essence ?" or "Purple Repugnance ?" And shall I cut it across the grain or with the vein ? I've said it before and I'll say it again...(in a deep crop sharers voice) "No-body knows the trouble I've seen, nobody knows the sorrrrrowwww. " Yeah, I hear ya, maybe I shouldn't have left that great paying night job.