Homemade Soaps

Possibly one of the neatest hobbies I've picked up, it allows you to use up by-products and kind of create something from nothing.  Traditionally soap was made from lye made from wood ash, water and fat.  Many pioneers or settlers would make their own, in fact one of our neighbours, when over here for a visit and some tea, told me about how his parents would make soap after an animal was butchered.  They would use the soap for laundry. Now, if you don't have that much fat laying around, don't worry, you can buy it from a butcher or you can use other oils and fats that are in the grocery store already eg. Olive oil, coconut oil, lard, palm oil, etc. If using fat, you have to cook it to clean it up and create tallow.  Tallow is made from beef suet, which I think is around the liver, and is firmer than other fat.  But you can use any beef fat if you can't get suet.  I have started accumulating tallow, which you can freeze until you need it.  I have read that other animal fats work as well, but produce a softer bar of soap, but I have never tried it. Ok, so the soap making process is pretty simple, as long as your measurements from the recipe are correct, the temperatures are close, and you don't mind stirring a lot. Find a recipe that sounds interesting to you, I recommend trying a basic soap before you get to crazy into additives, scents and dyes.  There are a lot of great recipes and how to's online, but I used a couple of awesome books from the library that have everything.  But anyways, make sure you get the process down first before you try anything too crazy. In a nut shell,  Measure out all your ingredients Mix the lye into the water VERY CAREFULLY and  not the other way around Melt your fats or bring your oil up to around 100*F (temp depends on recipe) Cool the lye-water to around 100*F Slowly add the lye to the soap and stir and stir and stir until it thickens enough to leave marks on the top of the soap when you take out the stirrer  Pour into mould and cover in a towel to keep it warm while it does it's magic That's it, I have made a bunch at the farm, once I started it got kind of addicting, and, knock on wood, every batch has turned out.  I haven't mastered milled soap yet, so that is my next project. But if you are at the farm and want to see some of my soaps or experiments, I'd be happy to show you the hits as well as some of the misses. But in my bathroom right now, all I have is hand made soap, my lavender eucalyptus body bar that I made, as well as home made shampoo and conditioner from my friend Pam at pamssoaps.com of the same scent.  It's a good thing the farmers markets will be starting soon, I'm almost out!