Soap making

“As the realization slowly dawned on me that I had measured all the oils and other ingredients incorrectly, I also had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realized that I needed to get all that lye back into the child-proof container that it came in. The one with the very small opening. {And I also had the added complication of my goggles fogging up! I couldn’t even see because they were getting so foggy. I realized [too late] that there were little plastic things that were supposed to be removed to provide ventilation. I’ll know next time, but it was rather hilarious and scary to be fearfully measuring lye and not really being able to see! I was creating more of a hazard for myself by having the fogged-up goggles on in the first place!}”

“Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was in my kitchen one day having decided to seize the day and create my very first batch of natural soap. After a mild panic about getting my temperatures right, I carefully combined my oils and lye. I was trying to get my mixture to the stage called trace, which is where the soap starts to thicken. For some crazy reason I had planned to hand stir it, which would have taken some considerable time. Perhaps a couple of hours. What was I thinking? I decided that I didn’t have the time or the patience for the hand stirring method, so I made a mad dash to the supermarket and invested in a stick blender.”

“I couldn’t wait to use my soap and it was a really nice experience to work up a lather with my very own handmade soap. It was very gentle, soothing and my hands had never felt so soft. Who would have thought hand washing was such a treat?”