Time to make soap.

Yesterday was soap making day. I made a double batch of cold-process soap, and separated it out into three batches: lilac, peppermint, and a men’s soap called Sandalwood Bay.

My house smelled interesting. I’m not sure I’d recommend all three scents together.

Lye water. Fun stuff.

Blaine’s idea. When my stick blender had to go back to the company for repairs, he suggested I use this. I thought he might be onto something. After not reaching trace (a thick pudding-like consistency) for an hour and a half, (something that usually takes less than 15 minutes) I gave up, poured into molds, and thought I’d botched my first batch - and it had to be the one I’d documented with the camera. I’m not sure if it was using the stirrer or personal error, but I’m not so sure this was the best method.

Soap making seems like such a feminine, pioneer, industrious business. You know, this:

Photo Credit

But when you use your husband’s drill with a paint stirrer instead, it feels more like this:

Photo Credit

Instead of feminine and lovely, I felt like I was ought to conquer the soap. But the soap won, at least momentarily.

I was afraid to look this morning, fearful it hadn’t set up since it hadn’t reached trace.

But it did. Whew.

Cut it into bars, set it aside to dry for a month, and we’re in business.

It’s soap.

Soap, childhood dreams, and living pretty sheltered.

Last Friday, I made my first batch of bar soap. After talking about it and wanting to try to make it for over a year, I finally got all the things together and jumped in. Before I started, I watched a video on the process. Ruby watched it with me. As they were stirring the soap on the screen, Ruby kept standing up, getting closer and closer to the screen, up on her tip toes, trying to see into their pot. Every time she’d sit down disappointed. She just couldn’t see into that pot.

My kids don’t watch very much TV. A good thing, I’m certain, but every once in a while – when a soap making video has them captive, and they try to see what’s in the pot by getting closer – I wonder how much this whole lack of popular media is hurting them. Then I think of their lack of knowledge and many things worldly and decide they will be just fine.

Anyway, the soap. I made lavender/lime scented soap, my whole house smells lovely still, and I’m anxiously waiting for 30 days to pass so that it will have cured and I can try it out. Already I’ve purchased more ingredients to make a few more batches. A coffee soap (supposed to be fabulous for getting those onion/garlic smells out of your skin in the kitchen), a bar to grate for my laundry soap, and a batch of cherry almond are next. Fun stuff. Lye rather scared me, but it really wasn’t so bad.

Sterling tells me he’s only going to use the homemade soap once it’s ready. He’s found sniffing that box of soap multiple times a day. He’s also going to build me a giant brick house once he’s an architectural engineer and he’s going to build his house right next to mine when he’s a grown up. Since I planned to live in the house 1 mile from my parents when I grew up, and now I’m another 599 miles past that… I’m not holding my breath. But one can hope.