Swifter WetJet Refill Recipe - Antibacterial Formula

Yes, I'm frugal. I also believe children should have chores. My children do the sweeping an mopping of the main rooms, but I'm not an ogre. About a year ago, I bought a Swifter WetJet battery operated mop to make mopping a little easier for the kids.

The first time they mopped, they used an entire bottle of the WetJet solution. At $7 a pop, with mopping 2 to 3 times a week, my easy solution quickly turned into a $50 to $90 a month problem.  So I put on my frugal mom hat (cheapskate hat is too vulgar), and I figured out how to refill the bottles and what to refill it with.


First step: remove cap.

The easiest way to do this without destroying the bottle is to use pliers, squeeze the cap like you would a childproof medicine bottle, and twist. I've used the same 2 bottles for the last year now, and I've had no problems with leakage.

Some people say that the rubber center of the cap pops in and out, but when I tried it with my first bottle, it leaked everywhere and I never could get it to work well again.

Cleaning Solution Recipe

• 2 tsp Murphy Oil Soap (found with other cleaning solutions at the store). Has a mild scent and adds that extra soap factor to it.
• 1/2 cup plain vinegar
• 1 tsp Tea Tree Essential Oil (for its antibacterial properties)
• warm water

Pour the ingredients into the open Swifter bottle. Add warm water to about 2" from the top.  Replace the cap by HAND-tightening it. Use a towel if it's slick. Don't use the pliers to tighten it (I broke the top to the bottle right after the picture was taken. The plastic is not sturdy enough to tighten that way.)

Where do I get my Tea Tree Essential Oil? Where I get most of my essential oils: online at Camden Grey. Their shipping time can be a bit slow, but they don't overcharge for either their products of shipping. If you don't like tea tree, you can also use Lavender 40/42 essential oil, Eucalyptus essential oil, Peppermint essential oil, or try a different one. Be careful that some are a little caustic and can eat through things like vinyl floor. Test it first, but remember that it is really diluted.

And DO NOT use fragrance oils. They are not natural and don't have the antibacterial properties that EO's have.

My Laundry Soap Recipe

It all started with the N.O. Saints going to the Super Bowl. I had never watched a Super Bowl. Never, and I'm almost 40.  It's just not my thing. But growing up a stone's throw from New Orleans, I had to see this one.

So it's the morning of the Super Bowl. We're heading to a friend's house, and we hadn't bought any snacks. I envisioned the grocery stores out of guacamole, beer and frozen wings, so I thought we'd try one on the edge of town that looked little used.

There I am, standing at the end of an aisle waiting for my husband to hunt down some snack or another, and there was a display of soap next to me.

I picked up a bar to read the ingredients (I get fidgety when I'm bored).  To my surprise, it was real soap, as opposed to detergent (petro chemicals disguised as something that should clean, but really isn't all that good). Zote soap: made in Mexico, and I remember the scent from something my Hispanic mother used when I was a child.

"What's "real soap"?" you ask. Fats and oils saponified by adding sodium hydroxide to it and then left to cure. It's how soap has been made for eons.  This soap, other than a light fragrance, pink color, and a whitener (which I suspect is borax), is as natural as the soap I make, and only 79 cents a bar. I bought 2 bars, not much of an investment, and thought I'd make laundry soap with it.

I've made my own laundry soap for a few years now. Something I started post-Katrina when money was tight, but now I do it because I prefer my soap to anything store bought. I normally use batches of my homemade soap that have gone awry - like the green tea & hibiscus fiasco. But when I run out, I don't like using my good soap. Maybe this would make a good back up.

It worked wonderfully! I've tried making laundry soap in many different ways over the years - adding things like borax, baking soda, and washing soda (also known as sodium carbonate or soda ash), but it doesn't make any difference from using solely soap. Okay, it does make a difference, but not in a good way. It's really difficult getting the powder additions to dissolve, and they often leave a residue on the clothes. Maybe it's my water or maybe not.

Anyway on to the recipe and instructions . . .

Simple Homemade Laundry Soap Recipe
Yields 1 gallon
Ingredients:
Bar soap:

• I use any real soap. If it's my own homemade soap, I use 4 to 8 ounces, depending on how strong I want it. OR:
• 1 bar Zote soap: sold anywhere where there's a large Hispanic community - it's found at Albertsons or Calandros locally. Often on the bottom of the shelf and hard to find. Look for the pink and white label.

Water - sink water is fine.
Directions:
Grate the soap using a cheese grater (don't worry, it washes well - it is soap, after all). Any type of grating is fine, from slices to fine. The finer you grate, the less time it takes to dissolve. The larger you grate, the less time it takes to grate.

Place the soap in a large pot, and fill with water to about 2 inches from the top. Fill slowly, otherwise a-lot of lather and foam will be produced.

Put the pot on high heat, and bring to a simmer. Then turn the heat down to medium. Stir until all the soap is dissolved.  It will go from being lumpy, like the picture above, to clear, like the picture below.

Pour the whole thing into a gallon bucket. Add cold water to finish filling the bucket up. It will take one or more hours to gel. Every 30 minutes or so, give it a couple of stirs to make sure the mixture stays homogeneous.

As it starts to cool and gel, it gets thicker and "slimier," but that's normal. When it gels, it will look like the picture at the top. Once it gels, it's ready to use. I place between 1/4 and 1/2 cup (depending upon the load) of the gel in a coffee cup, add water to the cup and microwave it on the beverage setting. This will liquefy the gel. Add it to the running water in your washing machine and wash like normal.

For 79 cents, I now get a gallon of real laundry soap!

Homemade Tile Cleaner Recipe

So maybe I'm a little more crunchy than I thought I would be. Before you judge, let me explain how I came upon the path of making my own tile cleaner.

I was about to hop in the shower a few nights ago, when I thought about utilizing the time it takes for the hot water to make it from the other side of the house to my shower for something other than sticking my hand in the water every 10 seconds to see if it's hot. Cleaning the bathroom sounded good - well, as good as cleaning the bathroom ever sounds.

I couldn't leave the room for obvious reasons, so I had a nearly empty bottle of Comet Liquid Bathroom Cleaner and a full bottle of some other stuff that had bleach in it. I used the bleach stuff in, what I thought was, a small quantity, yet sufficient to clean. After my shower, my husband refused to shower until the bleach smell left the room. Not a big fan of bleach smell.

Fast forward a few days. Between being sick for weeks on end and busy in the few moments I felt well, my house has become a wreck. A pretty filthy wreck at that. And our bathroom (not the master bedroom one, but the other) was filthy. The kind of filthy that makes you consider the bushes outside as a good place to go. It needed serious cleaning, scrubbing and sanitizing. I didn't want to use the bleach stuff again, because in the quantity I needed, my nostril hairs would singe.

I didn't have near enough Comet to clean it, but looking at the bottle I noticed the active ingredient was citric acid. "I have citric acid!" I thought. A 1 pound baggie of it was stuck in my freezer looking like something more nefarious, but was actually left from my "Fizzing Bath Bomb" experiment, that obviously didn't go well.  I tried looking up cleaner recipes that had citric acid. I found a couple, but they weren't what I needed, so I improvised.

The result worked better than bleach has in the past, plus no bleach smell. My tiles are cleaner than I thought they would be. So before I totally forget what I threw together, let me share it.

Natural and Effective Tile Cleaner Recipe
1/4 cup Citric Acid Powder
1 cup Hot Water
1 cup Vinegar
1 tsp Tea Tree Essential Oil

Dissolve the Citric Acid in the Hot Water. Pour into a spray bottle. Add the Vinegar and Tea Tree Oil. Shake (after putting the top on the bottle). Squirt on dirty tile, toilet or whatever and let sit a couple of minutes, then scrub and rinse. Repeat squirting, scrubbing and rinsing until clean.

I used Tea Tree Oil because I had an excess of it lying around (don't ask). But many other essential oils would work in it's place. I wanted one that didn't have a strong lingering scent and killed germs. Lavender, eucalyptus, peppermint, or spearmint are a few I can think of off the top of my head.  Whatever your preference is.

Who am I kidding? I am becoming as crunchy as Muslex.

UCBR Auction Soaps Recipes

Usually I experiment with every batch, creating a unique recipe for each batch of soap. But with so many to do at once, I made it simpler and stuck to one base recipe, just changing the additives.


Base Recipe yields ~1 lb soap

Almond Oil 0.5 oz
Castor Oil 0.5 oz
Cocoa Butter 0.5 oz
Coconut Oil 4 oz
Olive Oil 4 oz
Palm Oil 4 oz
Shea Butter 0.5 oz

NaOH 1.96 oz (makes soap 7% super fatted)
Water 6 fluid oz (everything else is weighed, not measured)

Oils heated to 120 degrees. NaOH poured into water, then cooled to 120 degrees. Then heated oils and cooled NaOH/water mix are mixed together, and stirred. Once soap is brought to trace, all other additives, such as essential oils, herbs, coloring, juice, etc., are added. Any extra instructions listed by individual soap.

1. Lavender: 2 tsp lavender essential oil
2. Lavender Patchouli: 1 tsp lavender and 1 tsp patchouli essential oils
3. Lavender Mint: 1tsp lavender and 1 tsp spearmint essential oils.
4. Patchouli Mint: 1 tsp patchouli and 1 tsp peppermint essential oils.
5. Sweet Orange: 0.5 tsp litsea cubea and 1 tsp tangerine essential oils. 
6. Spearmint w/ French green clay: 1.5 tsp spearmint essential oil and 2 tsp French green clay
7. Lavender Rosemary: 1 tsp lavender and 1 tsp rosemary essential oils.
8. Double Mint: 1 tsp peppermint and 1 tsp spearmint essential oils. 2 T ground mint.
9. Balsam Chocolate: 2 tsp balsam essential oil. 1 T cocoa powder.
10. Garden Rose: 1 tsp palmarosa and 1 tsp geranium essential oils. 1 T Moroccan red clay. 
11. Eucalyptus: 2 tsp eucalyptus essential oil.
12. Rosemary & Lemongrass with poppy seeds: 1 ½ tsp lemongrass and 1 tsp rosemary essential oils. ½ T poppy seeds.
13. Rosemary & Peppermint: 1 ½ tsp peppermint and 1 tsp rosemary essential oils. 
14. Eucalyptus Mint: 1 tsp eucalyptus and 1 tsp peppermint essential oils.
15. Chocolate Mint: 2 tsp peppermint essential oil. 1 T cocoa powder.
16. Cedar: 1 ½ tsp cedarwood essential oil.
17. Patchouli Orange: 1 tsp patchouli, ½ tsp sweet orange, ½ tsp tangerine, ½ tsp mandarine and ½ t litsea cubea essential oils.  
18. Black Licorice: 2 tsp anise essential oil. 3 tsp instant coffee diluted in 2 T hot water.
19. Peppermint, Rosemary and Orange: ¼ tsp mandarine, ¼ tsp sweet orange, ½ tsp tangerine, ½ tsp rosemary, ½ tsp peppermint, and ¼ tsp litsea cubea essential oils.
20. Geranium, Patchouli and Orange: ½ tsp mandarine,  ½ tsp tangerine, ½ tsp geranium, ½ tsp patchouli, and ¼ tsp litsea cubea essential oils.
21. Rosemary, Lime and Orange: ½ tsp lime, ½ tsp rosemary, ½ tsp mandarine, ½ tsp tangerine, and ¼ litsea cubea essential oils. ¼ cup calendula petals. Sprinkled with rosemary.
22. Balsam and Lavender: 1 tsp lavender and 1 tsp balsam essential oils.
23. Lemongrass:  2 ½ tsp lemongrass essential oil.
24. Oatmeal Buttermilk & Honey: 1 oz ground oatmeal, 2 T powdered buttermilk and 2 T honey. Stir by hand only. Do not insulate. Cover with wax paper.
25. Pumpkin Soap: ¼ cup pumpkin puree. ½ tsp nutmeg and ½ tsp ginger essential oils.
26. Flowering Herbs & Chamomile: Olive oil infused with 1 T each (after ground) rose petals, jasmine , lavender, calendula and chamomile. Several drops of German chamomile essential oil.
27. Aloe Soap: 2 oz aloe vera (weighed) 
28. Carrot Juice Soap: 4 fluid oz carrot juice.

The Last 2 Auction Soaps: #27 & 28

There they are! The last 2 batches of soap I made for the 2010 UCBR Auction (for details see the link).

#27 (top) - Aloe Soap: I don't know why it looks purple, but it is really green!!! Maybe a blue-green - I'll give it that, but certainly not purple. I added a good bit of raw, uncolored aloe to the soap at trace, and it I have high hopes for this one. It put it in a flower and leaf mold. Totally unscented.

#28 (bottom) - Carrot Juice Soap:  I never thought my juicer would be used in making soap, but the carrot juice colored the soap beautifully.  I added it at trace (instead of simply subbing the juice for the water at the beginning of the soap process) so that the properties in the juice would be less harmed.  Like the Aloe Soap, this one is unscented.
The mold is the Celtic Triquetra w/in a Triquetra, which is an ancient Celtic design found in art like the Book of Kells, chiseled into stone, in metalwork, and even used later in Viking artwork. What it means, we really don't know. It may symbolize any of the Celtic three-fold Goddesses, like Brigid. Although it dates before Christian times, it was used to symbolize the Trinity as well.   Though if you know me, you know I picked the mold for my love of Celtic knotwork rather than anything it symbolized.

This weekend while at an SCA event, I was asked if my soap would be available to those not attending the auction.  I do take custom soap order starting at $1 an ounce and with a 2 pound minimum of the same type (it's difficult to make cold process soap 1 bar at a time!).  I still encourage everyone, even if you're not a church member, to make it to the auction.  I probably won't have this much variety of scent, color and shape in one place until next year's auction!

Of course the alternative is to make it yourself.  As soon as I get my chicken scratched notes in order (tonight or tomorrow), I'll post my recipes for all 28 of the soaps.  I do warn you, soap-making is addictive.

I'm already planning my next scheme, I mean project, for this year's auction: 12 Weird Jellies.  But first I have to figure out a way to make a poll on Blogspot. I can't decide from my list of 24 which 12 to make, so I need help deciding.

New UCBR Auction Soaps #24-26

It's been a few days, and these have been sitting in my laundry room curing a bit before I cut into them. I have 2 more batches in the freezer - otherwise they won't come out of their fancy molds - making my total 28 soaps!!

Okay, so it's not my high goal of 30, but it's certainly more than my low goal of 24. As long as the total soap in the basket weighs 100 ounces, it'll all be good. A year of soap has been made!

• #24 (top left) - Oatmeal Buttermilk & Honey: after one failed attempt, it came out beautiful and smells great too. I made a 2 lb batch, since a friend wanted a pound, but I'll still have a couple of bars left to sample.
• #25 (top right) - Pumpkin Soap: Since my carrot juice soap (one of the fancy mold soaps in the freezer) looked so lovely, I wanted to try a batch of pumpkin. Lightly scented w/ ginger and nutmeg, like pumpkin pie, the beta carotene will be great for the skin.
• #26 (bottom) - Flowering Herbs & Chamomile: I started by infusing the olive oil w flowering herbs, such as lavender, chamomile, jasmine, rose petals, and caldendula. For 2 days, the herbs steeped in the oil with heat being occasionally applied. I scented the soap w/ German chamomile oil to make it smell like apple blossoms, and then swirled it blue. Very pretty and smells like spring! But the great thing about it will be it's healing properties.

Hopefully by Sunday, I'll have pics of the last 2. But the UCBR Auction Gala is April 17. If you want these soaps, be prepared to bid. One basket will be for the silent auction, and the other for the live auction.

Soap Drama

Last night I had options. I could have gone to Mother's Night Out with my home-school group and seen a movie. I was really looking forward to my first Wednesday Night Craft night. And I really want to start going to Wednesday's of Wonder at my local church and do cool things with the kiddos. I had planned on doing all three, although the plan on how I can do 3 things in one night hadn't been hammered out yet.

But no, I was home making soap because 2 of the 4 batches I made Tuesday night flopped.

Botched Soap #1: Oatmeal Milk & Honey Soap

The reason I take copious notes when I do anything is because I never remember what I do. I'm well known for my bad memory. So why I didn't read my notes from the last time I made Oatmeal Milk & Honey soap, I don't know. Note #1: combine the oils and lye water when both are between 90 and 100 degrees. I combined them at 120. Note #2: hand stir the additives. I used the stick blender. #3: cover the soap with waxed paper, not plastic wrap - the intense heat melts the plastic wrap. Guess what I covered it with. And #4: do not insulate. Oh, I covered it with a nice warm blanket.

So when I woke up yesterday morning, there was a 1/4 inch layer of oil on top of the soap and it did not look good. Plus the plastic wrap had shriveled from the heat, which was intensified by the insulation.

Honey does something to the chemical reaction the soap goes through during the first 48 hours. It intensifies that reaction, which is why I can't treat it like just another batch of soap. My guess, due to the magnified heat, the lye more quickly broke down and rebonded with the different components of the fats. But the heat was high enough that all unclaimed fat floated to the top instead of suspending in the soap. So what is left on the bottom is soap that's 100% saponified. It's probably still soap, just strong soap. That's my educated guess.

I did remake it, and this time I followed my notes. It still went through different stages than normal soap, and it was fun to show the kids "chemistry in action." After adding the honey, the soap turned a golden brown. About 10 minutes later, it was a pumpkin orange and much hotter to the touch. 30 minutes later, it was brown and the center, where the heat was most intense, was dark brown, and even hotter to the touch. This morning, it's now back to a beautiful golden brown - all one solid color and cool to the touch. No oil on the top. No melted plastic wrap. Looks perfect!

I don't make this type of soap often enough not to follow my notes. It's been about 5 years since I made it. That was about the time I started my quest for the perfect bar and stopped playing with additives.

Side note: My Quest for the Perfect Bar of Soap

About 5 years ago, I started trying to discover the formula for the perfect soap. I do realize that the definition of a perfect soap is purely subjective, but I have my own ideals.

The Perfect Bar of Soap (for me) has 6 Different Qualities:
1. A good quantity of Lather
2. A good stability of Lather
3. A variety of bubble size
4. Moisturizing & conditioning to the skin
5. A sufficient hardness so that it lasts longer than commercial soaps
6. Cleans well

I’m still on the quest, and I’m pretty close. Ever since I started this quest, I stopped playing with adding things like oatmeal, honey, and carrot juice and concentrated solely on base oils. I have gotten to know my base oils and each one's attributes very well.

Back to the botch job . . .

Botched Soap #2: Green tea and Hibiscus

I wanted to start experimenting with infusions - steeping herbs in either oil or water. Oil infusions I've done many times, but I wanted to try infusing green tea and hibiscus in the water used for the lye. Green tea has a great scent, and hibiscus makes a lovely deep red when steeped.

I made a strong tea from hibiscus and green tea and let the tea come back to room temp. When I poured the lye into the tea water, it went from a deep burgundy to bright green - think Christmas green. In the back of mind, I instantly heard a lecture snippet from a chemistry class I took years ago informing me many natural plants can be used as homemade litmus tests, such as cabbage and HIBISCUS!

My idea of a lovely deep red soap was dashed when my water turned from red to green to brown within seconds. The jury is still out on this soap, but it may very well become my future laundry soap. My homemade laundry soap is where botched soaps go to die in my house.

As of this morning, I have 28 of the 30 batches I need for my auction donation, and I have until Friday night to finish. Now to decide on the last 2 batches.

And Some More UCBR Auction Soap: #18 - 23

I'm like a new mother constantly taking pics of her baby until people say, "Enough already! We've seen enough of that kid! Only you are interested in a million pictures of the child." But instead of a child, it's my soap!

Well, for those not utterly bored already, here's some more of my UCBR 2010 Auction Soaps - until I get to 30, you'll have to bear with me. I made these on Sunday, so I'm a few days behind in posting them.
Top Row from left to right:

#18 - Black Licorice: scented w/ anise essential oil and colored with coffee. For those of you who don't cook, black licorice is flavored with anise. This one made my whole pantry smell like black licorice. I was hoping to color it black with white swirls, so I used coffee to color the base and ground mica (it's a mineral) to color the swirl. The swirl came out a beautiful pearlescent color, which you can't really see in the pic. But the coffee part turned light brown. You never know what the final color will be when you use more natural things to color soap, but I prefer more natural than certainty in color.

#19 - Peppermint, Rosemary and Orange: scented w/ essential oils of peppermint, rosemary, mandarin, tangerine and sweet orange. I was going for a light blue base with a yellow swirl, but the colors intensified a bit. I actually like it. Still very pretty.

#20 - Geranium, Patchouli and Orange: scented w/ essential oils of geranium (smells like roses), patchouli (to give it an earthy smell). mandarin and tangerine. Believe it or not, I tried coloring this one with pink rose petals, but, yes, it turned dark brown. I'm not sure if I'm going to scrap this one and make another #20. Let's give it another day or two to see if it looks any better. Smells great though!

Bottom Row from left to right:
#21 Rosemary, Lime and Orange: scented w/ essential oils of rosemary, lime, madarin and tangerine. I'm proud of this one. I colored it a beautiful orange using calendula blossoms, and then topped it with rosemary. Calendula is very good for the skin and makes a very mild soap. The color is gorgeous.

#22 Balsam and Lavender: scented w/ essential oils, this light purple soap is in the shape of an Irish Claddagh. The Claddagh symbolizes love, friendship and loyalty. I chose these scents to go with it since both balsam and lavender are soothing.

#23 Lemongrass - scented w/ lemongrass essential oil. Although only one of these goes into each soap basket, I had to take a picture of all 4 versions. They came out of the molds perfectly. Of course the 3 day stay in the freezer didn't hurt. This mold is my most difficult for removal, and more often than not the Chinese symbols are destroyed, but I still love the molds. I used lemongrass to scent it because lemongrass is such an Asian scent.

Auction Soaps 14, 15, 16 & 17

More UCBR auction soaps! I've been a busy beaver, and I'm getting closer to my goal of 30, and I still have 6 days before my deadline in order to give the soaps 8 weeks to cure.

Top Row from left to right:

#14 Eucalyptus Mint - a blend of peppermint and eucalyptus essential oils scented soap made into a layer of light green and a layer of dark green using oxides to color.

#15 Chocolate Mint - one of my all time favorites! I scent the entire soap with peppermint essential oil and then add cocoa powder to half of it. It smells edible (but don't eat it!).

Bottom row from left to right:

#16 Cedar - I needed some man-ly scents, and I love the smell of cedar (who else goes through the lumber section of Home Depot smelling the wood?). A semi circle bar with a dark wood green color.

#17 Patchouli Orange - In a beautiful Celtic knotwork square - I scented this bar with patchouli essential oil and an essential oil mix of mandarin, tangerine, and sweet orange essential oils. I tried to color it orange, but it came out a light orange-brown, which is still very pretty.

They are all still a little sticky. Making the small one pound batches is a bit trickier than one would think, so I have to add a little more water than I normally would, which leaves the soap a bit stickier for longer. A good air curing will take care of that, and in about 4 weeks they should be nice and hard.

But the molded ones, like the Celtic knot, are difficult to get out of the molds without messing up the pretty bits. Which is why I have a batch of lemongrass in the freezer - 'cause I still can't get it out of the Chinese character molds.

Auction Soaps 11, 12 & 13

Continuing with my marathon of soap I'm making for the auction at my local Unitarian church, we have . . .
(from left to right, starting with the back)

#11 Eucalyptus - solid light green

#12 Rosemary & Lemongrass with poppy seeds - yellow with black specs. I've always wanted to make a rosemary and lemongrass soap and put poppy seeds in it - it reminds me of a lemon muffin with poppy seed, but smells much better!

#13 Rosemary & Peppermint! It smells as lovely as it looks. Light green with dark green swirls.

#'s 14 - 16 are in the freezer until they can pop out of their molds. I'll have pics of them up later today, but I couldn't wait to post on these three - they're too pretty.

New Soaps 8, 9 & 10

Continuing on my soap marathon for one of my donations to the UCBR auction, from left to right:

8. Double Mint - scented w/ both peppermint and spearmint, w/ flecks of ground mint from my garden.
9. Balsam Chocolate - colored w/ cocoa powder and scented w/ Balsam essential oil
10. Garden Rose - scented w/ essential oils of Palamrosa and Rose Geranium, and colored w/ Moroccan red clay powder - beautiful color and scent!!

Since measuring the oils takes up a large part of my prep time, I'm pre-measuring them so that when I go to make it I'm good to go for 3 batches. I have enough containers to pre-measure tonight for 5 batches.

26 New Soaps - New Project

For the last year, I've been part of our local Unitarian Universalist congregation. I love the church; I love the people. It is a welcoming congregation full of diversity.

Sometimes I feel a little guilty for not helping out as much as I want to. One of the side effects of the kids integrating into the community is that we are more busy than I'd like to be. Running to this activity and that activity, time gets nibbled away until there's not much left.

But I would like to help in as many ways as I can, so I'm creating things to donate to the yearly auction, which raises a good amount of the income needed to run the church. So that leads me to my current project and one of my 4 ideas for donations: creating a year's worth of soap, twice.

The final product will be 2 gift baskets, each filled with enough soap to last one person a year. This soap will be vegan soap, scented with 100% essential oils (that's plant oils). I figure that Frank and I go through about a bar week. So 26 to 30 bars should last one person a year.

But I can't just fill a basket with 30 bars of soap. That would be way too easy. Each bar has to be different from the others and unique in at least one way. But I'm not so particular that I won't use soap that I already have made.So far I have (pictured from left to right):

1. Lavender (colored light purple w/ dark purple swirls)
2. Lavender Patchouli (white w/ pink swirls)
3. Lavender Mint (Celtic knot heart w/ green and purple swirls)
4. Patchouli Mint (green w/ dark brown swirls)
5. Sweet Orange
6. Spearmint w/ French green clay
7. Lavender Rosemary (all white)

In order for the soap to have optimum curing time, I need to finish the other 19 to 23 batches in the next 12 days! So now begins the soap marathon. Let's see if I can do it.

Soap from the Court of Burgundy - Take 2

I threw out the soap I made this weekend. I did not saponify because the percentage beeswax was way too high. In ten years of soap making (and I make a-lot of soap) I've never seen soap seize before. The oils instantly curdled when I added them to the lye water. It did not thick like soap looks at trace, but almost like (I hate to say it) lumpy vomit.

Of course fresh soap normally smells a little vile to me. It takes a day or two for the oils to settle out before that nasty burnt bile smell goes away. Then all that's left is the scent of the essential oils and/or the scent of the strongest base oil - like cocoa butter or shea butter. And that's a nice smell.

So I experimented a little yesterday with my Soap (now Soaps) From the Court of Burgandy. Both are one pound batches. If I'm going to experiment and possibly throw my results into the mulch pile, then I should waste as little as possible.

Batch #2
Almond SF .5 4%
Olive Oil 6 48%
Beeswax .25 2%
Lard 5.5 44%
Honey .5
Lye 6% = 1.56 oz
Water = 6 oz
1/2 tsp litseacubea and 1 tsp tangerine

What that liquidy stuff is on the top edge, I haven't a clue, but I do know what caused it - not enough lye. I think it may be excess water. Okay, maybe I have a little clue.

My scale doesn't like measuring small amounts. Things have to weigh at least a few ounces before it registers correctly. I knew I should have triple or quadruple checked my lye weight, but I was in a hurry - Fina and Megan could only keep Ed outside so long.

I knew something was off when I was stirring it - nothing specific, but something felt wrong. It will most likely still turn out alright, and certainly safe to use. It will just be a super-super fatted batch and very moisturizing.

My solution to weighing small amounts:
An old peanut butter jar filled with glass gemstones. Total weight: one pound. Place it on the scale, zero out the weight, and then I can accurately weigh small amounts of oils and lye. I made this yesterday afternoon.

Which is why the 2nd batch I made yesterday . . .

Looks Great!!


Test Batch #3
Almond Oil, SF 1.5 oz 12%
Olive Oil 5.5 oz 44%
Lard 5.5 44%
Honey .5
Lye 6% = 1.61
Water 5 oz
Added 2 tsp French Green clay to the superfat oils, essential oils & honey mix.
1.5 tsp of Spearmint EO

I should have taken a pic of it yesterday - it looked just like split pea soup. But as soap has a tendency to do (thank goodness), the color mellowed out over night leaving it a nice sage green. I took out the beeswax (I hate working with beeswax), but left in the honey. I also threw in some French green clay powder just to see what it would do. I actually can't wait to use it.

I may try to make another batch tonight. I may, just may, infuse some olive oil with some of the herbs from the Medieval French kitchen.

Botched Batch of Soap

I think I made my first truly botched batch of soap last night. No, I don't include the time I was talking to someone while making soap and only put half the lye amount - at least that soap made suds. Or the time I made soap in 30 degree Massachusetts weather (did I say outside?), and the lye crystals never dissolved. Who knew?

I'm talking about totally botching a batch of soap when everything was done correctly. Was it the 8% beeswax that made the soap solidify before it saponified? Was it the honey that was measured when my scale decided to fritz out, so I don't know quite how much I added? Was it the citrus essential oil that can make soap seize up? I don't know. I lean towards the former reason rather than the lather, I mean latter reasons.

This batch of soap is supposed to be an entry for an SCA (that's Society of Creative Anachronism) Arts & Sciences competition for an event in December with the theme the Court of Burgundy.

So my soap is Soap Made from Oils from the Kitchen of the Court of Burgundy (I may have to shorten it to fit it on the label). I took the ingredients from "Early French Cookery" by Terence Scully, who uses period sources for the recipes.

My failed recipe:
2 lbs
10 oz Olive oil
11 oz Lard
2 oz Beeswax
2 oz Almond Oil (half added as a Superfatting agent)
1.5 oz honey ( I think)
3.47 oz lye (that's 6% superfatting)

I added saffron to the lye water, and before I'm bitched at for this being an incredible waste of saffron, this was such a decadent time period. The Court of Burgundy had more wealth than most countries, and it was just a duchy. Saffron was wasted then as a coloring agent for food. Plus I have 3 containers of and haven't used any in 3 years.

I scented it with lavender and sweet orange - 1 1/2 tsp each.

The color is gorgeous - a deep honey brown. The scent is a bit off.

Considering the time it takes to cure, I need to get it redone this week in order to have it ready in time for the A&S competition.

My next test batch:
2 lb recipe (although I may make it as a 1 lb batch)
12 oz Olive Oil
11 oz Lard
1 oz Beeswax (cut in half from before)
1 oz Almond oil (half from before)
1 oz honey (also less than before)
3.16 oz lye

I may not use the saffron again. The beeswax is very dark, so I don't think it did much to color it. And I may change the scent to sweet orange and lemon.