5 weeks break - Making soap

Teaching soap for Wild Rumpus

Today I ran my soap making class with 12 enthusiastic students at Anchors Aweigh Art Studio near Wollongong. The organisers at Wild Rumpus were great to deal with.  I loved teaching the class.  I used to teach quite a bit and it was great to get back into it share a homespun skill.

Soap making seems a complete mystery but its actually very easy, the equipment will be found in every kitchen and the ingredients from any supermarket. Sure you can buy exotic ingredients like Almond Oil and Shea butter but you don't have to.

We talked about soap before getting in and making a batch of goats milk and olive oil soap together. Everyone took home a cake or two of there own along with instructions on how to make it themselves. I hope everyone does give it go, that they feel they know what they need to.  

Howard was a great help assisting me all through the class, washing up and being WHS officer.  A lot of students were interested in milling soap so perhaps we'll offer to teach that too.

It was a nice way to spend a Saturday morning!

Great news I'm running soap making classes this November

Using silicone cupcake molds for soap making

 Commercial soap molds are often made of silicone and cupcake molds can be used as excellent substitutes. As with plastic molds there are a number of considerations to be taken when choosing.

  Firstly size - I've rejected many molds as they would make a cake of soap that is simply too large to hold comfortably in your hand. Secondly narrow protruding shapes would simply snap off as you handled the soap so I suggest you avoid those too.  I found these rose and insect molds which make a lovely piece of soap. These will make lovely gifts.


Today I made a double batch of my favourite olive oil goats milk soap. The goats milk and caustic soda go a strong orange for a while but the soap turns out a creamy colour in the end.  It feels creamy when you use it too.

The only challenge with these silicone soap molds is moving them before the soap hardens. They are so flexible the soap can slosh around so place them on a hard tray to shift them. In a few days time when the soap is hard they will come out of the molds very easily.

Soap safely stored to cure for 6 weeks

This morning I quickly popped my soap out of its molds and into the meat safe Howard prepared for me. Its safely locked away but with plenty of air circulating around it. Ready to use in late June.

Trials and tribulations of a soap maker

I make soap. I like making soap. I can control what ingredients go in and its a lovely old, fashioned, home spun skill.

But I hit a snag with my last batch. You see soap is dangerous stuff until it fully cures: 4-6 weeks after you make it. I need to keep the soap where no animal (equally dangerous for children, but there aren't any in my house) will eat it, or even take a lick.  Soap is made from animal fat and caustic soda and it remains caustic until the saponification process finishes. When I make my soap I put it on an outside table and cover it will some old food covers. Today I went to check on the soap I made over Easter - 5 weeks ago. Every piece was covered in tiny claw marks. One piece had a massive hole in the centre and I yelled RAT.

Yuck! I have chosen to save you the horror of photos. I couldn't bear to throw it all out. What to do? I considered just washing it. Hmm, not sure that would be enough. Rodents aren't usually associated with health and hygiene after all. Some pieces simply went in the bin.  For the ones I could salvage I sliced off the contaminated parts. I used a fishing line wire like you do with pottery to slice through under the parts the rodent had been in contact with. I estimate I lost half the soap, or should I say saved half :)

Whether the rodent was mouse, rat or antechinus (marsupial Australian mouse = cute) I'll never know. We wonder if it is alive or not too.  Caustic soda in the belly can't be good.

I made another batch of soap today - goat's milk and olive oil. I don't use colour because I want my soap to be pure and I don't use essential oils because they evaporate during the curing weeks. The solution to that is re-milling - grating, melting and re-molding  - but you can't do that with goats milk, it separates.  Howard has turned my old meat safe into a soap safe.  The other rule with curing soap is that it can't touch metal so Howard has put a mesh covered timber frame into the shelves of my little meat safe. In a day or two when the soap can come out of its molds I will place the soap into the safe and leave it until late June.

Meanwhile we have a plentiful supply of homemade soap to keep us clean.  I will make the next batch when I have space to store it.  

I'd like to teach soap making - I have taught friends and family - but am thinking about classes. Let me know if you are interested!

Enter my blog giveaway as I celebrate 100 posts on homespunblissblog

I kind of knew that 100 posts was coming up but then it snuck up in the end.
Yay, 100 Homespunblissblog posts!

As I said in the beginning, if I don't have anything to post about then I'm not living the life of my dreams. 100 posts down I'm certainly getting closer.
Recently I have added chickens to my menagerie, I am sewing, mosaicing, holding stalls at markets and working actively on my business, DarlingBridget. I make soap, preserve fruit, cook and garden. All of these activities equal homespunbliss for me.

Yes its an eclectic mix but diversity keeps me interested.
So what is my plan for 2012? Scary that its March already and I'm just getting going, but still.

• Attend at least 6 markets this year with DarlingBridget.
• Re-launch my DB art to wear label with brooches, earrings, pendants and bib necklaces.
• Keep blogging about everything I love and my journey to achieving homespunbliss.
• Connect with other bloggers and increase my followers to 50 this year!
• Be authentic to me and my dream.
• Hope to strike a cord with others and create a community of people who dream of homespunbliss!

To find out how to win this pretty lingerie wrap keep reading below.  This wrap is made from a white vintage tray cloth with lace trim, lined with white satin and finished with a ribbon tie.

To enter do one or more of the following. Leave me a comment for each one.

1. Sign up as a follower to this blog.

2. Share my blog with your friends.

3. Follow my DarlingBridget page on Facebook

4. Share my DarlingBridget Facebook page with your friends.

5. Go to my DarlingBridget store on etsy.com and come back and tell me which product you like best and why.

You get one entry for each of the above tasks. Just remember to leave me a message to tell me about them.

I'm sure you're wondering why you'd get your friends to join in, the more

entries the less chances you have to win right? So if you share my blog with your friends and they become followers, you'll gain a bonus point. The same goes for my DarlingBridget Facebook page, just tell me about it or I won't know who to give the points to. What do you think, does that entice?

So how do you leave a comment?

At the end of each blogpost or article, you will find # comments.

1. Click on the word comments.

2. You will find a comments box (you might have to scroll up a little to see it). Type your comment in the box. Choose from the drop down list labelled Comment as. If you have an online profile such as Google (or gmail account), choose from the list and log in. Otherwise choose Anonymous.

3. If you choose Anonymous please leave me your name in the comment box.

4. Click publish.

Its that easy.

What else is new for homespunblissblog in 2012?

Monday nights I share a post on Make, Grow, Thrift on the habygoddess.blogspot.com

Wednesday nights I am reinstating a list post - I stopped doing my 10 things Mondays because I wanted to get involved in Make, Grow, Thrift. So Wednesday nights will now feature 5 homespun things.

Other nights - always plenty of stories and photos about my chickens, cooking, growing food, making soap, sewing for DarlingBridget, going to markets and in all other ways striving for a homespun life!

Good luck with the give away and thanks for sharing my journey. You keep me on my path.

Goats milk soap

I have made two batches of goats mik and olive oil soap this week.  I have made this for my Mum. She, and I, have dry sensitive skin and this soap is gentle and moisturising. I hope it works for her skin.

One of the greatest advantages of making your own soap, like cooking, is knowing exactly what is in it. I read the ingredients on soap and wonder what on earth most of them are. To make soap you need two ingredients only: fat (animal or vegetable) and lye, other wise known as caustic soda (or draino).  People are often shocked to hear lye is in soap but its a fundamental ingredient. The fat and lye react and make soap. After being mixed and let cure for 4-6 weeks the combination is no longer toxic but pure soap.

 This recipe uses vegetable shortening, olive oil, sunflower oil, goats milk and lye. So simple, so pure. Ok I would never use pure olive oil for cooking, only ever extra virgin olive oil in this house but according to the recipe book some of the stuff in the poorer quality oils actually aids the soap making.

 The goats milk and lye reacts to a shocking orange colour. This mix is highly caustic so be careful!

 Add the lye solution to the melted vegetable oils (I only make vegetarian soaps) and mix to trace which is when it starts to solidify and look like custard. Sadly not good eating!

Poor into molds quickly. It can get hard to work with more quickly than you would believe. This recipe goes to trace faster than any other basic recipe I've tried. Sometimes you can stir for hours but not with this one.

I always leave my soap to cure for 6 weeks, with sensitive skin I don't take a risk on 4 weeks being enough. I can wait a little longer. Soap hardens within a day or two so really the way you know it isn't ready is that it tingles and burns when you use it. Better to wait I say and enjoy your lovely soap at its best.  I record the date I make it. I always think I'll remember, but I never do!

My favourite soap book is listed under my Books I'm reading page. I have taught soap making and its great fun.

Homespun day

Today I have enjoyed a quiet, homespun sort of a day so I thought I'd share a few vignettes about how I spent my time.  I had a balanced day with time for art, cooking, gardening and me.

Art
I started the day by finishing two mosaic coffee tables.  I tiled them a couple of weekends ago so only needed to grout today. This is the best grouting job I have done, I am improving. I like playing around with different colour schemes and patterns trying to fit the table rather than a preconceived plan. How did I do?

They are both recycled tables from my local tip, cleaned up painted and with a mosaic of my own design. They are both destined to be sold at a market as part of my DarlingBridget label.

I also spent a little bit of time working on some embroidery. These petals will become my first flower brooche in my art to wear range. 

Gardening

I got outside and got dirty planting some more flowers in my front garden.

My ranunculas are opening out. These are a new and delightful addition to my garden. I bought a mixed pack of bulbs so there will be many surprises as they open.

 
I have one last lone daffodil. I have never had this type before and was struck by its delicacy. It reminds me of a frangipani, my favourite flower which unfortunately does not grow here.

 

Cooking

Then lunch for one. 

The view from my kitchen while my lunch cooked.  My tree fern and giant waratahs.

I enjoyed organic penne with mushrooms, zucchini, sun dried tomotoes, walnuts and shaved romano.  A glass of prosecco rounded off the Italian theme.

I ate my lunch on my back verandah. Its overcast and cold but I spend too much time inside so ventured out to enjoy my lunch. My meals are usually rushed during the week so to make it special I chose a sweet little serviette and used my silver plate, hollow handled fish cutlery set.  I just have some this one set and am very fond of it. It belongs to a growing collection of mis-matched cutlery chosen for its decorative details or uniqueness.
All eaten. Yum

Homespun
I made  batch of soap which I haven't done for a few months.

Soap is easy and fun to make. I enjoy knowing exactly what's in my soap.  A lot of the "handmade soap" sold at markets is actually pre-made granulated soap that is melted down and molded. Mine is made from scratch from simple vegetable oil and lye.

I have coloured this batch with food colouring, in this case blue. It doesn't look it now but the colour will fade dramatically as the soap sets. For more information about my soap making click here for an earlier post.

I got all the washing done


but had to scramble to bring it in again when it started to rain.

Tapas and Doctor Who
Saturday night is Doctor Who night. I have been a huge fan since I was a child and Doctor Who was on for half an hour each week night. We don't watch TV otherwise, preferring DVDs to all those ads. So when we do sit down in front of the box an easy dinner is called on.

Tonight we are having tapas. Chunky potato, zucchini and cauliflower fitters and mushroom arancini (risotto) balls with boccocini. Yummo!

Me
And I squeezed in time for a steamy bath.

All in all a productive but relaxing day with a little bit of everything that makes for home spun bliss.
Night!

Soap making is easy

I have been making soap for years now. I prefer to make a basic soap, nothing fancy.  It is lovely to use your own handmade soap and know that there is nothing harmful in it.

Soap is a mix of fat: animal or vegetable oil,  and lye otherwise known as caustic soda.  If mixed in the right proportions they will thicken and then harden over a few days. You must wait 4-6 weeks however for the full chemical reaction or saponification to take place and turn into soap which is no longer caustic. 

Many excellent recipes can be found in books and on the internet. I recommend The Handmade Soap Book by Melinda Coss the sunflower and calendula recipe being my favourite with the dream castile (olive oil and goats milk) coming in second.  I make strictly vegetarian soap using various types of vegetable oils. 

Soap can be made with ingredients and equipment to be found in any kitchen.

When the lye and fat are mixed together they begin to react immediately. Once trace is reached, where the soap mix thickens and looks like custard it is ready to mould.

Metal containers cannot be used as moulds as the soap is still caustic at this stage and will react. Whilst commercial moulds are available plastic containers, chocolate moulds and even milk cartons can be used.

My niece pouring soap into moulds.

Soap curing on racks. I always wait 6 weeks before using the soap to ensure it is completely cured.

Soap can be made in many shapes and colours although I keep it as natural as possible.  Here I have used fresh lavender and simple food colurings.