Friday, 14 January 2011

Soap making

Well I just made my first soap batch in a few years.  As it has been quite a while since I last made soap, I made a very simple batch with full water etc etc, no shortcuts or fancy footwork :)

So the recipe I made up was:

250gm olive oil
250gm lard
250gm coconut oil (Copha)
250 gm rice bran oil
138gm caustic soda (lye)
365ml water
25ml Brambleberry Ginger Orange

This traced quicker than I expected so it was a thick pour, in fact the last few moulds were glopped in rather than poured. Made 14 full bars.  Will add photo when the soaps are unmoulded.

Edited to include a link to the fragrance description.

15 comments:

Kimberly Fawn said...

I bet that Brambleberry Ginger Orange smells heavenly :)

Melissa Hicks said...

Oh it does - mum selected this one scent ....

Pity we can't do smellovision :)

Mariann Mäder said...

It's a good sign for your overall condition if you're back into soap making, Mel!

Sounds like fun.

Hilary Syddall said...

This sounds great, OH wants to get into soap making (starting with making his own lye!!), well done you, it is fantastic to see the old Mel back and DOING!

Trish Froggatt said...

Sounds great - anxious to see the pictures!

Melissa Hicks said...

Mark might find it easier to make soap using commercial lye first so he can get an understanding of the process before he adds the added layer of complexity of creating his own lye.

Karen R said...

That sounds wonderful!

Paula Hubert said...

That sounds like a great fragrance.. glad you're feeling up to doing this again!

Hilary Syddall said...

That's what I thought - but you try telling a Dr of Chemical Engineering that! I think the whole reason he wants to make soap is so that he can make lye first *sigh*

kay jones said...

That sounds great. Wish I could smell from here. Welcome bck to the land of the living. Its great to see you on form

Julie Dollery said...

So soap made from tallow is a no-no? What am I going to do with all these corpses I've been saving for it :-)

Melissa Hicks said...

Oh tallow makes great candles and can be used in soap - however lard was all I had on hand at the time :) :) :)

When I move home, we'll open a soap and candle making business for your corpses .... {whistling the tune to Sweeney Todd}

Karen R said...

Candles & soaps - much better than meat pies :)

Julie Dollery said...

And less suspicious. I'll visit pack-n-send tomorrow & get quote to ship the bodies over to you Mel. :) ...Lordy, I'm soooo broken.

Sisu Lull said...

Sounds like a wonderful fragrance! I love warm, spicy smells, mmmmm. Yeah, I agree. We need Smell-o-Vision. :)

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