Soapmaking: Cold Process
I have learned three main things in soapmaking today.
Lye is really scary
Okay, lye isn’t TOO scary
I want to make more soap
I made my first soap! It's a cold-process ylang ylang scented soap with flowers sprinkled on top. All the flowers and herbs in the sprinkle mix are organic, most grown by my mother herself.
Curious kitties were locked away, gloves and glasses donned, and I put on a Bon Iver hoodie I was willing to sacrifice to the gods of soapmaking if need be.
This all needs to be done in a very well ventilated area, so the back screened in porch was the perfect spot.
Lye is pretty scary. If you’re feeling brave, look up what happens when someone puts it on a chicken leg with skin. It fixes the fact it has skin real quick. You do not want that touching you. Theres a REASON every back country murder on TV shows has a couple of plucky, newly murderous, girls wondering if old man Jensen still has that bag of Lye in his barn.
You need to use glass, stainless steel, or heat resistant plastic bowls. It can react with or even eat through anything else. It gets HOT, our temp reading magical ray laser had it at 170 degrees at the start.
Enough about the lye, onto the pretty things. The soap mixture of oils when blended becomes forbidden vanilla cake batter. You know its ready for the mold when it’s “tracing.” Tracing is when you stir and drizzle a bit on the top and it takes a couple moments to sink back in the mixture.
Once it’s at that point, you mix in the pretty smell of your choice. You can use fragrance oils or essential oils, I chose ylang ylang because it’s one of my favorites. The flower “sprinkles” I put on top of my forbidden cake mix were several things, but primarily rose and jasmine.
Now it’s all wrapped up in cling wrap and a towel tucked in the closet, away from curious noses and paws.
I want more. I need more. I’m already looking up new recipes.
